Area politics heating up Otto considering race for house

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October 24, 2013 - 12:00 AM

Bill Otto may take another shot at being elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, now that Jeff Freeman, 53, Le Roy, is out of the race for the 76th District seat.
He had intended to support Freeman.
Otto, 65, Le Roy, told the Register he was taking a hard look at the race to represent Coffey and parts of Lyon and Osage counties. He was Allen County’s go-to Ninth District voice in the Legislature until redistricting shoved him into Peggy Mast’s neighborhood.
Mast won a three-person 2012 Republican primary with 46.9 percent of the vote. Otto got 33.1 percent, Willie Prescott 19.8 percent. Mast went on to win election over Democrat Janet Lewis in November 2012 in landslide fashion, with 63.8 percent of the vote.
Early this month Freeman, a former legislator and more recently a federal lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, said he would seek the Republican nomination for the 76th District seat, thinking that Mast had decided not to run.
When he learned Mast would be a candidate, Freeman pulled out of the race and said he would support her, that his candidacy resulted from miscommunication.
“She’s done a good job and is the better person” for the legislative position, Freeman told the Register.
Mast, 65, Emporia, first was elected to the House in 1996, and has been re-elected in every biennial election since.
Otto said he “considered running before” Freeman’s short-lived entrance to the race and “I’m considering it again,” with Freeman on the sidelines.
The filing deadline is June 2.
A former teacher and public school administrator, Otto said he favored “more money for education,” which has been plagued by cuts in state aid in recent years, first because of the recession and more recently in deference to Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature’s insistence on cutting income taxes.
He pointed out that the income tax reductions weren’t cuts at all, rather a shift of tax burden to cities, counties and school districts.
Otto spent eight years in the House, starting with his election in 2004.

AS FOR ALLEN County, Kent Thompson, 49, rural LaHarpe, appointed last week to the 9th District seat after the death of Chanute’s Ed Bideau, is the only person who has indicated interest in the 2014 race.
While no candidates other than Thompson have surfaced for the Ninth District seat, legislative races seldom occur without opposition.
In the Senate, Caryn Tyson, 50, Parker, is in the second year of her first four-year term representing the 12th District, which includes Allen County.

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