Kathleen Sebelius (born May 15, 1948) is currently serving as the 44th Governor of Kansas. She is the second female governor of Kansas, the 2008 respondent to the State of the Union address, and chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association.
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Sebelius was born and raised in a Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Sebelius is the daughter of former Ohio governor John J. Gilligan, and thus they became the first father/daughter governor pair in the United States after her election. Her husband K. Gary Sebelius is a federal magistrate judge and the son of former U.S. Representative Keith Sebelius, a Republican. They have two sons. She also visits her childhood and current vacation home, located in Leland, Michigan, north of Traverse City, Michigan.
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She was first elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1986. In 1994 she left the House to run for state insurance commissioner and stunned political forecasters by winning — the first time a Democrat had won in more than 100 years. She is credited with bringing the agency out from under the influence of the insurance industry. She refused to take campaign contributions from insurers and blocked the proposed merger of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, the state's largest health insurer, with an Indiana-based company. The decision by Sebelius marked the first time the corporation had been rebuffed in its acquisition attempts.
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On March 21, 2006 she vetoed Senate Bill 418, a similar concealed-carry bill. On March 25, Sebelius's veto was overturned after the Kansas House of Representatives voted 91-33 to override it. This followed the Kansas Senate's 30-10 override vote, which occurred the day after her veto.
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Sebelius did not support an April 2005 amendment to the Kansas Constitution that made same-sex marriage in the state unconstitutional. Sebelius said she supported the existing state law outlawing same-sex marriage, viewed it as sufficient,[14] and therefore opposed the constitutional amendment. The amendment passed with 70 percent voter approval.
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On May 26, 2006 Sebelius formally announced her candidacy for re-election. Four days later, Mark Parkinson, former Kansas state GOP Party Chair, switched his party affiliation to Democratic; the following day Sebelius announced that Parkinson would be her running mate for Lieutenant Governor. Parkinson had previously served in the state House during 1991–1992 and the Senate during 1993–1997. Parkinson was a popular and successful GOP Party Chair. He was viewed as a pro-business moderate who strongly supported public education. This was somewhat reminiscent of the fact that John Moore had also been a Republican, before switching just days prior to joining Sebelius as her running mate.
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As of 2004 50 percent of Kansas voters were registered Republicans, compared to 27 percent as registered Democrats.[17] Sebelius, nevertheless, won a landslide re-election with 57.8 percent of the vote to Barnett's 40.5 percent.
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In 2001 Sebelius was named as one of Governing Magazine's Public Officials of the Year while she was serving as Kansas Insurance Commissioner.[28]
In November 2005 Time named Sebelius as one of the five best governors in America, praising her for eliminating a $1.1 billion debt she inherited, ferreting out waste in state government, and strongly supporting public education — all without raising taxes. Also praised was her bipartisan approach to governing, a useful trait in a state where Republicans have usually controlled the Legislature.
