Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sebelius Running for Governor

Kathleen Sebelius, who currently heads the Kansas Insurance Department, as well as serving as NAIC Chairman, will face Republican Tim Shallenburger in the state’s gubernatorial election on November 5.

The 54 year old Sebelius is an experienced politician. She served 8 years in the Kansas legislature before running and winning the race for insurance commissioner in 1994, a statewide office, that according to a report in the Kansas City Star, had “not been held by a Democrat since the 1880s.” She was reelected in 1998 with a 59 percent margin.

Sebelius, a native Ohian from Cincinnati, comes from a political family. Her father, John Gilligan was governor of Ohio in the 1970′s. She first came to Kansas after her marriage to Gary Sebelius when they moved to Topeka,his home town, from Washington D.C.

She has served as the head of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association and as an aide to the head of the state Corrections Department. The Star noted that during her term in the legislature and as Insurance Commissioner she was praised for her bipartisan approach and her willingness and ability to listen and learn both sides of an issue.”Her hustling style earned respect,” said the article.

It also quoted GOP Rep. Bob Tomlinson of Roeland Park, who worked with her, as indicating that both “Republicans and Democrats alike applauded her for modernizing the [Insurance Commissioner's] office and refocusing the office on consumers.”

Shallenburger will be a tough opponent. A Kansas native from Baxter Springs, and like Sebelius a former legislator, he also served as State Treasurer. Shallenburger describes himself as “the conservative;” however, he’s also an environmentalist, having first gained prominence for his efforts to clean up toxic wastes from abandoned mines near his home town.