Dude Where's the Party

Bond has lived in Kansas City several times, and his wife, Linda Pell, a political consultant for the GOP, is a native Kansas Citian.

"He gets it," says Dan Barnett, spokesman for Swope Health Services, a Bond beneficiary. "He understands it. He's a supporter of the urban core."

In the mid-'90s, Bond found $4 million in federal funds to help Swope Health Services build an impressive new Blue Parkway facility a block east of its old one. The health center provides services to low-income Kansas Citians, half of whom are on Medicaid. Most of its other patients have no health insurance. Prior to the new building's construction, Barnett says, the center was "at a standstill," unable to keep up with demand for its services.

"We're grateful," Barnett says. "And we've come through for him.... We like to think we provide him with success stories so he can turn to his fellow congressmen and say, 'This is money well spent.'"

Last year, Bond helped lead Congress to act on the Bush administration's goal of doubling the capacity of the nation's community health centers by 2005. In April, he and Sen. Ernest Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, wrote their Senate colleagues a letter urging them to support a $225 million increase to the federal budget for community health centers. The full Congress ultimately agreed on an increase of $113 million. But the money was folded into a massive appropriations bill that Congress, distracted by the energy bill, Medicare reform and the continuing war in Iraq, was unable to pass before adjourning last month.

"Kit Bond has been our hero," says Dan Hawkins, vice president for policy at the National Association of Community Health Centers.

And Bond has done more for Swope Health Services than fund its sprawling building and keep its shelves stocked with supplies. He has helped the nonprofit expand what officials there call a "holistic approach" to community health. This strategy includes rebuilding the communities where Swope's patients live.

In the early 1990s, Swope Health Services launched a redevelopment subsidiary called Community Builders of Kansas City. Today, one can see this organization's crowning achievement from the front steps of Swope Health Center: The H&R Block Service Center located a block east on Blue Parkway. This facility brought 300 full-time jobs to the southeast part of Kansas City. H&R Block is the first Fortune 500 company to locate a major facility in this predominantly black part of the city. Community Builders is now working to complement the center with 150,000 square feet of retail space.

Just to the south of Swope Health Services stands a row of attractive new town houses that sell for more than $100,000 -- an impressive development for an economically depressed area where homes typically go for less than $50,000.

Community Builders of Kansas City relies heavily on federal funds that are appropriated through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And Bond is well-positioned to help Community Builders and similar organizations get their share of this dough; he chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that shapes HUD's budget.

For the immaculate town houses south of Swope Health Services, Bond found $1.5 million.

"If there's a pot of $50 million for housing [in Washington], he's going to try to get as much of it as he can for Missouri," Van Eaton says.

That's why local Democrats are so crazy about him.

Bond has a particularly strong relationship with Cleaver, who once served on the National Democratic Committee. "The two of them are very close," says Warren Erdman, vice president of corporate affairs at Kansas City Southern and Bond's former chief of staff. "Kit puts very, very heavy weight on Emanuel Cleaver's recommendations."

During Bond's last run to reclaim his Senate seat in 1998, Cleaver, while still serving on the national committee, talked up the senator from the pulpit of the St. James United Methodist Church at 55th Street and Paseo, where he is pastor. His sermons were broadcast on the radio across the metro area.

Erdman recalls, "Mayor Cleaver said, 'I don't care if he's a Democrat or a Republican. I'm going to reach out to him.'"

"When I was working for Cleaver, they formed a strong bipartisan, nonpartisan partnership," Smith says.

The two would talk often by phone. Whenever Cleaver traveled to Washington, D.C., as mayor, he would first visit Bond.

Mayor Kay Barnes has fostered a similar relationship. "I just can't say enough good things about him," says Greg Williams, the mayor's assistant. "He and his staff do an excellent job. I talk with his local people once every couple of weeks. [During] the appropriations process, it's about once a week."

Bond's biggest score for the Barnes administration came last March, when he announced that he had secured White House support to locate a $300 million IRS facility in the old Main Post Office building south of Union Station. This will mean 6,000 new jobs in the urban core. "That kind of progress is measured in the billions," Van Eaton boasts. Cash layouts in Kansas City and St. Louis aren't enough to make some Democrats take their eyes off the big picture. "I do find it peculiar," Clay says of Kansas City Democrats' appearances at Bond's fund-raisers. "He's a key player in the Bush agenda as well as a key player in pushing more conservative positions. I'm totally opposed to the position he took on the tax cuts. They favor the rich, and they're paid for by future generations, by cutting programs our community needs."