Jeff Colyer

Jeffrey William Colyer (born June 3, 1960) is an American surgeon and politician who served as the 47th governor of Kansas from January 31, 2018, to January 14, 2019.

He graduated from Thomas More Prep High School in 1978 before enrolling at Georgetown University, where he took pre-med courses and earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1981.

After receiving a master's degree in international relations from Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1982, he obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Kansas in 1986.

Colyer had residency training in general surgery at the Washington Hospital Center (1986–1988, 1989–1991), in plastic surgery at the University of Missouri–Kansas City (1991–1993), and in craniofacial/pediatric plastic surgery at the International Craniofacial Institute in Dallas, Texas (1993–1994).

Colyer was a White House fellow under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, working in international affairs.

In 1994 Colyer opened his own plastic/craniofacial surgery practice in Overland Park, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.

He volunteers with the International Medical Corps, providing care in such areas as Kosovo and Sierra Leone; in this capacity, he has performed both trauma and reconstructive surgery as well as training local doctors.

Colyer's work as a volunteer surgeon in combat zones has taken him to Afghanistan and Iraq, and to Rwanda during that country's genocide.

Media law experts were amazed after learning that Montgomery County's sheriff had released non-public investigative files from 1998 with just a records request.

Brownback and Colyer were reelected, defeating Davis by a 3.69% margin.

In the 2002 U.S. House of Representatives elections, Colyer ran for the Republican nomination in Kansas's 3rd congressional district; he was defeated by Adam Taff, who narrowly lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Dennis Moore.

In 2006, Colyer was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives from the 48th district, receiving 62% in a three-way race.

Colyer served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009 and the Kansas Senate from 2009 to 2011.

He assumed the governorship when Sam Brownback resigned to become United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

As a freshman legislator, he was selected to serve as chairman of the 2007 Legislative Health Reform Task Force.

In 2008 he was elected to the Kansas Senate to represent the 37th district, receiving 63% in another three-way race.

According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Colyer financed $25,000 of his own campaign.

While in the state Senate, Colyer co-sponsored an amendment to require Senate consent for Supreme Court appointments and an amendment to create a budget stabilization fund.

Colyer received a rating of 75 on conservative issues from the Kansas Chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

Numerous judges had rejected challenges to the natural-born citizenship of Barack Obama since before he was elected president in 2008, but Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach persistently demanded proof of citizenship before allowing Obama's name to appear on the 2012 Kansas presidential ballot.

On June 1, 2010, U.S. senator Sam Brownback announced that Colyer would be his running mate in his bid to become governor of Kansas.

Brownback and Colyer were elected on November 2, 2010, and assumed office in January 2011.

A member of the Republican Party, he was the 49th lieutenant governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018.

Colyer resigned his state senate seat on January 10, 2011, prior to taking the oath of office as lieutenant governor.

In September 2012, Kobach, with the support of both other State Objections Board members, Colyer and Kansas attorney general Derek Schmidt, requested additional evidence that Obama was born in the United States.

CNN reported that "the Kansas ballot measure is one of several examples of the birther movement's still-persistent presence."

The New York Times noted that the Kansas authorities' actions "reignited long-running conspiracy theories that the president was not born in the United States".

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, the three said they did not have sufficient evidence as to whether Obama was eligible to appear on the Kansas ballot as a candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

They stated a need to review his birth certificate and other documents from Hawaii, Arizona, and Mississippi before they could respond to a complaint alleging that the president was not a "natural born citizen".

"Given the cursory response from President Obama, the Board is merely attempting to obtain additional information before making a decision," said Kobach's spokesperson.

In October 2013 Kansas state representative Paul Davis, the Democratic minority leader of the Kansas House of Representatives, announced he would challenge Brownback in the 2014 Kansas gubernatorial election.

As lieutenant governor, Colyer led the Kansas Medicaid transformation, which has saved Kansans $2 billion since 2013 while increasing services.

KanCare has led to a 23% reduction in in-patient hospital stays, a 24% increase in members using a primary care physician and a 10% increase in outpatient, non-emergency treatment.

In July 2014 more than 100 Kansas Republican officials endorsed Davis.

These Kansas Republicans said their concern was related to deep cuts in education and other government services as well as tax cuts that had left the state with a large deficit.

In late September 2014 Colyer's chief of staff, Tim Keck, unearthed and publicized a 1998 police report that noted that Davis, 26 and unmarried at the time, had been briefly detained during a raid on a strip club.

Davis was found to have no involvement in the cause for the raid and quickly allowed to leave.

Responding to criticism of Keck's involvement in the campaign, Brownback spokesman Paul Milburn said that it was legal to use taxpayer-paid staff to campaign.

Colyer was raised in Hays, where his father, James Daniel Colyer (d. 2015), worked as a dentist from 1955 to 1985.

Colyer ran for a full term as governor in 2018, but narrowly lost the Republican primary to Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, who in turn lost the general election to Democratic nominee Laura Kelly.