Early politics

Following the end of World War II, Sebelius served as a councilor on the Almena city council, and became mayor of the city.^[4]

In 1947, Sebelius was elected secretary of the Kansas Young Republicans Club and ran for president of the organization, but was defeated by Paul Lackie.^[5][6] On April 26, 1953, he was selected as the Junior American Legion Commander for the 6th district in Kansas and later became the senior commander in 1954.^[7][8] On September 5, 1955, Sebelius was elected Commander of the Kansas legion by a vote of 494 to 422, with his opponent being John K. Wells.^[9] In 1957, he was elected as president of Norton's Chamber of Commerce.^[10]

Kansas State Senate

On December 10, 1962, Sebelius was selected to replace state Senator William B. Ryan, who stepped down to become a district judge, and was appointed by Governor John Anderson Jr.^[11][12] In 1963, he introduced a bill that would put the entirety of Kansas in the Central Time Zone, but it failed.^[13]

During the 1964 elections he served as a delegate to the Republican district convention and he announced that he would seek reelection on April 1, 1964.^[14][15] After facing no opposition in the Republican primary Sebelius defeated Democratic nominee Vance Templeton in the general election.^[16]

House of Representatives

Domestic

Sebelius introduced a constitutional amendment to legalize voluntary prayer in public buildings in 1971, but no action was taken on it.^[38] In April 1971, Kansas held a voter referendum to lower the voting age, which he supported; he later voted in favor of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[39][40] He criticized Nixon's decision to sell 10 million tons of United States grain to the Soviet Union at subsidized prices and later called for the resignation of Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz.^[41]

When the House of Representatives voted on recognizing a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., Sebelius was one of the forty-eight representatives who abstained from the vote.^[42]

Foreign

In October 1969, he asked for his name to be removed from a letter created by Representative Sam Steiger to President Richard Nixon asking Nixon to point out to the North Vietnamese that the United States would not rule out any military option in gaining peace with honor, as the wording of the letter promoted an escalation of the war.^[43][44][45]

On July 18, 1973, he voted against the War Powers Resolution; after Nixon vetoed the bill Sebelius voted against the overriding of it on November 7, but the House and Senate voted to override Nixon's veto.^[46][47] On July 31, 1973, Sebelius voted in favor of a bill that would decrease the United States' military presence overseas by 100,000 and create a cap of 400,000 troops, but it was defeated by a vote of 243 to 163.^[48][49]