Wiesner grew up in on a farm in Trego County and earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Fort Hays State University. He moved to Lawrence in 1989 to attend KU Law School and has stayed there ever since, although his law firm Wiesner & Frackowiak, LC, is in Overland Park.
Before going into private practice, he was a military attorney in the U.S. Army Reserves where he dealt with federal contracts and purchasing. Today he focuses on federal tax law.
He also describes himself as a fiscal conservative. “I'm to the left on social issues, like having a safety net for poor people,” he said. “On fiscal issues, I'm to the right of Roberts.”
Wiesner said if he's elected, reforming the federal tax code will be his top priority, and that's the biggest issue separating him from Taylor.
He said he wants to simplify the tax code so it's easier to understand. He also said the United States should commit to spending 3 percent of gross domestic product each year toward paying down the national debt.
“If the economy grows at two and a half percent, in just under 25 years, the debt will be paid,” he states on his .
Taylor calls that “dangerous.”
Taylor favors returning to a budgeting rule used during the Clinton administration known as PAYGO – or “pay as you go,” which required all new spending to be paid for, either with increased revenue or reductions in other areas of the budget.
“Bringing accountability and transparency back to the process is the only way we will put our financial house in order,” Taylor states on his website.
Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. In the past five Senate races, the biggest share of the vote any Democrat has gotten was 36.4 percent, when former Congressman Jim Slattery challenged Roberts in 2008.
But recent indicated that 2014 could be a volatile year. In various head-to-head match-ups between either Democrat against either Republican, it showed the race could be close because a large number of voters remain undecided.
“If there was ever a year when partisan labels don't matter, it's this year,” Taylor said.