By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
“I think Kansas can be better. I think our country can be better.”
That’s the reason Great Bend OB-GYN Dr. Roger Marshall told a Hays audience Wednesday evening he is running for Congress.
Marshall, who said he and his wife Laina, have been thinking about his candidacy the past two years, is taking on incumbent Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, for the Big First District.
Marshall, 54, is in the midst of a 17-community tour over four days to make his announcement bid.
He is also a board member of Farmer’s Bank and Trust community bank, and a former Governor of Rotary International’s western Kansas district.
Marshall said he is a “pro-life, conservative Republican” concerned first about the national debt as well as “disappearing economic freedoms.”
“You and I can’t be the entrepreneurs that we want to be.
“Whether it’s in banking and the Dodd-Frank Act, or the ‘Not So Affordable Care Act’ known as Obamacare, my life has drastically changed the past four to six years. I’ve seen my hospital and the bank have parallel paths of increasing governmental intrusion upon our lives, but what I don’t see is how it makes any better health care or how it makes us a better bank oftentimes,” Marshall said.
Marshall, who served seven years in the Army Reserve, is also a Commissioner of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. He was raised on a farm and is involved in a cattle-feeder operation.
“I think it goes without saying we need a voice on the (U.S. House) Ag Committee,” Marshall said in answer to a question from the audience.
“As I’ve traveled the state, I’ve set down with the feedlot people, the dairy people, the packing plant people, and the constant theme is the overreach of government.”
Rep. Huelskamp, a third-term Congressman, has become an outspoken Tea Party Republican and an opponent of House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner removed Huelskamp from the House Agriculture Committee in 2013, the first time a representative from western Kansas has not served on the panel in a century.
More information about Marshall and his candidacy for the the 2016 election is available on his webpage.