A source has a source that Dr. Sharol Lit­tle has accept­ed a job offer in Col­orado and bought a house there. This would pre­clude her from being the Com­mis­sion­er of Edu­ca­tion, if true. I don’t know that it is true, or that I find it alto­geth­er cred­i­ble. I will try to short­en the chain of evi­dence before I vouch for this.

I repeat, this is a rumor.

On a more sound note, I have had some very pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tions with sev­er­al sources close to the process of replac­ing Andy Tomp­kins, and have learned some inter­est­ing facts.

One source sug­gest­ed that 6 votes exist­ed for Dr. Lit­tle, but that one or more of them dis­ap­peared, pos­si­bly fear­ing retal­i­a­tion at the bal­lot box. Anoth­er source pre­ferred not to dis­cuss the dis­po­si­tion of votes, but did not deny that. No vot­ing could take place in a closed ses­sion, so all we can be cer­tain of is that there was no strong con­sen­sus behind any can­di­date in yes­ter­day’s meet­ing. As of now, the process is stalled.

A source also tells me that the Kansas Repub­li­can Assem­bly (pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed in RSR’s inves­ti­ga­tion of Board mem­ber cam­paign finances) very much wants to put their brand of reli­gious author­i­tar­i­an in as the next Com­mis­sion­er of Edu­ca­tion. The source could not say whether Dr. Lit­tle was cho­sen by the KRA, but did feel that she would fit the KRA’s needs nicely.

I apol­o­gize for rely­ing on anony­mous sources for this report. I have great con­fi­dence in my sources, but the sit­u­a­tion around this process is fraught with fault-lines. These sources can­not reveal their iden­ti­ties because doing so would com­pro­mise their abil­i­ty to work with var­i­ous play­ers in this situation.

I hope to have some state­ments on the record from oth­er peo­ple in days to come.