Third-term Sen Pat Roberts, potentially the next chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, attended only one-third of the committee’s meetings since 2000, says the Topeka Capital-Journal. It says Government Printing Office documents related to committee attendance “showed Roberts was present for 35.5 percent, or 71 of 201, of the agriculture committee’s sessions from 2000 to 2014.” Roberts has been endorsed for re-election over independent Greg Orman by farm groups and a Roberts spokesman told the newspaper, “Pat Roberts is a tireless warrior for Kansas agriculture.”
During the part of the period covered by the newspaper’s review, Roberts chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee as the United States engaged in war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a profile story about Roberts, the McClatchey newspapers say, “After decades in Congress, the veteran lawmaker has a dilemma: His longevity on Capitol Hill has become a liability with Kansas voters, nearly half of whom think Roberts is more focused on being a Washington insider than on representing Kansans, according to a survey earlier this year by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning pollster.” Roberts was House sponsor of the landmark 1996 Freedom to Farm law that deregulated farming but voted against the 2014 farm law and against a funding bill that included money for the National Bio and Agro-Defense lab at Kansas State University.
Roberts and Orman differed on abortion during a televised debate on Wednesday. A Washington Post blog described what happened when they were asked to say something complimentary about each other.