Jeffrey William "Jeff" Colyer (born June 3, 1960) is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a member of the Kansas Senate (2009-2011) and of the Kansas House of Representatives (2007-2009). Dr. Colyer specializes in plastic surgery. Governor Sam Brownback is expected to be appointed by Donald Trump as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for Food and Agriculture, and his departure would elevate Colyer to become Governor.
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Early life and education
A fifth-generation Kansan, Jeff Colyer was raised in Hays, where his father worked as a dentist. He graduated from Thomas More Prep High School before enrolling at Georgetown University, where he earned undergraduate degrees in economics and pre-med in 1981. After receiving a Master's degree in International Relations from Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1982, he obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Kansas in 1986.
Colyer had residency training in general surgery at the Washington Hospital Center (1986-1988, 1989-1991); in plastic surgery at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (1991-1993); and in craniofacial/pediatric plastic surgery at the International Craniofacial Institute in Dallas, Texas (1993-1994). In 1988, during his residency at the Washington Hospital Center, he was named a White House Fellow and served in the Executive Office of the President and Agency for International Development under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He is one of only three Kansans to be named a White House Fellow since the program was started by President Lyndon Johnson; another was Sam Brownback, under whom Colyer currently serves as lieutenant governor.
Medical career
In 1994, Colyer opened his own plastic/craniofacial surgery practice in Overland Park, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri. He also volunteers with the International Medical Corps, providing medical care in such areas as Iraq, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan. He performed both trauma and reconstructive surgery and trained local doctors in those countries. He has been praised by former coworkers for his calm demeanor and pragmatism in difficult circumstances.
His work with IMC earned him recognition on 60 Minutes, PBS, and People magazine.
Political career
In the 2002 U.S. House of Representatives elections, Colyer was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination in Kansas's 3rd congressional district; he was defeated by Adam Taff, who lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Dennis Moore.
In 2006, Colyer was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives from the 48th district, receiving 62% in a three-way race. As a freshman legislator, he was selected to serve as chairman of the 2007 Legislative Health Reform Task Force. In 2008, he was elected to the Kansas Senate to represent the 37th district, receiving 63% in another three-way race.
Committee assignments
Colyer served on these legislative committees:
- Assessment and Taxation
- Financial Institutions and Insurance
- Joint Committee on Health Policy Oversight
- Public Health and Welfare
Source of funds
According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics:, Colyer financed $25,000 of his own campaign.
Gubernatorial campaigns
On June 1, 2010, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback announced that Jeff Colyer would be his running mate. Brownback and Colyer were elected on November 2, 2010, and assumed office in January 2011. Colyer resigned his state Senate seat on January 10, 2011, prior to taking the oath of office as lieutenant governor.
2014 gubernatorial election
In October 2013, Kansas state representative Paul Davis, the Democratic minority leader of the Kansas House of Representatives, announced he would challenge Brownback in the 2014 Kansas gubernatorial election.
In July 2014, more than 100 Kansas Republican officials endorsed his Democratic opponent Davis. These Kansas Republicans said their concern was related to deep cuts in education and other government services as well as the tax cuts that have left the state with a major deficit.
In late September 2014, Tim Keck, chief of staff for Brownback's running mate, Colyer, unearthed and publicized a 1998 police report that noted that Davis, 26 and unmarried at the time, had been briefly detained during the raid of a strip club. Davis he had been taken by his new boss at a law firm that represented the club. Davis was found to have no involvement in the cause for the raid and quickly allowed to leave. The incident and its publication were seen as particularly advantageous for Brownback, who until then had trailed badly in polling, as it could be expected to become the focus of a typical 30-second campaign ad used to characterize his opponent. Responding to criticism of Keck's involvement in the campaign, Brownback spokesman Paul Milburn commented that it was legal to use taxpayer-paid staff to campaign, responding directly to the controversy, saying, "Paul Davis must have spent too much time in VIP rooms at strip clubs back in law school...," because he, "... should know full well that the law allows personal staff of the governor's office to work on campaign issues." In Kansas, however, getting records about crimes that law enforcement has investigated is typically difficult. The Legislature closed those records to the public over three decades earlier: If members of the public desire incident reports and investigative files, they normally have to sue to obtain them, cases sometimes costing $25,000 or more. Media law experts were amazed after learning Montgomery County's sheriff released non-public investigative files from 1998 with just a records request. "That is unusual," said Mike Merriam, media lawyer for the Kansas Press Association. "They have denied releasing records routinely over and over and over again." Brownback's campaign capitalized on the 16-year-old incident - getting the public to ignore that he had torpedoed the state's economy through aggressive, unchecked right-wing policy experimentation, because David got a long-ago lap dance.
Brownback and Colyer were reelected with a plurality, defeating the Davis ticket by a 3.69 percent margin. His appointment of Keck as Secretary of the Department of Aging and Disability was confirmed on January 18, 2017.
Electoral history
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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