Amid all the ominous signs for the unraveling of our constitutional republic — and the 50 state governments contained therein — one last month struck me as particularly bleak.

The Atlantic first reported that Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz would be leaving the National Governors Association. The bipartisan group claims that it serves as “the voice of the nation’s Governors and a leading forum for bipartisan policy solutions.” Democrats Kelly and Walz apparently didn’t see it that way.

Meanwhile, Kelly has raised her national profile as chairwoman of the Democratic Governors Association and has called for a robust response to potential gerrymandering in Texas.

The cliche response to this storm of news would be: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” But we are in Kansas, and in every other state besides. The notion that officials might benefit from listening to one another and working together has been thrown on the partisan bonfire. As Republicans attempt to extract maximum advantage from government, Democrats find themselves forced to react in kind.

None of this reflects reality. According to Pew, the United States splits right down the middle between Republican and Democrat party registration. There’s a similar division between governors, with 27 Republicans and 23 Democrats. But what does the real word have to do with politics?

Apparently Democratic governors have grouched about the national group for some time.

Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker of the Atlantic wrote July 24 that “some Democratic members of the group have privately been fuming in recent months over the organization’s tepid reaction to President Donald Trump’s federal incursions into state matters. They complain that the group did not respond forcefully enough when Trump’s Office of Management and Budget briefly ordered a disruptive pause on the disbursement of all federal funds in January; when Maine Governor Janet Mills and her staff clashed with the White House the following month, over transgender sports; and in June, when Trump deployed the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles over the objections of local authorities.”

That makes sense. But what an unfortunate situation for governance in this country. What an unfortunate lack of spine as the federal government spirals.

Kelly decided not to privately fume any longer, making her unhappiness public. Remember, we’re not talking about a stereotypical wild-eyed leftist here. We’re talking about Laura Kelly, a politician whose primary skill has always been demonstrating her sanity in an otherwise insane world of political maneuvering.

“I just felt like Kansas was not getting a return on investment, and we will keep our eyes on it,” Kelly said, according to KSNT. Dues for the organization run about $100,000 a year. “The NGA does some very good things particularly in the area of training for governor’s staff, but there also needs to be a state rights advocate, and I think they’ve sort of fallen down on that role.”

In the meantime, political tensions have flared over mid-decade redistricting for congressional seats. Lawmakers usually draw maps every decade, following U.S. Census results. However, Texas legislators have been pressed by Trump to create new maps earlier, making it more difficult for Democrats to win U.S. House seats. Given that the governing party usually loses seats in midterm elections, this redistricting could cushion the expected blow for Republicans.

This has enraged Democrats, and leaders of blue states like California have threatened their own gerrymanders in retaliation. Guess who’s OK with that? Laura Kelly.

“I have never believed in unilateral disarmament, and so while I may not want to participate in certain activities, if I have to, in order to level the playing field, I would support my Democratic colleagues who decide to answer in kind,” she told ABC News at a policy retreat last week.

She added: “If the other side is going to pursue this, regardless of the obvious unconstitutionality of it, then I don’t think we have any other choice but to go there. You just don’t go to the front lines without your bullets.”

By running and governing as authoritarian wanna-bes, Republicans have pushed moderate Democrats like Kelly toward bare-knuckle political combat. They have alienated would-be allies, all in the service of the dime-store strongman living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We live in a narrowly divided country, but the GOP has chosen to eschew rules, norms or the barest sense of shame.

Kelly will do fine. I wish I could say the same for our state and nation.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Here is what we know: The gargantuan budget reconciliation package making its way through Congress will kick thousands of Kansans off Medicaid and cost the state’s hospitals billions of dollars.

Here’s something else we know: U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, doesn’t deny those facts.

But he still voted for the bill.

Moran issued a statement after the Senate voted for President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” early Tuesday. What’s remarkable about the senator’s words are not what they say, but what they don’t say.

I encourage everyone to take a look at the text. Here’s an enlightening paragraph.

“As this legislation was being drafted, I worked to make certain hospitals in Kansas were at the forefront of these discussions. After numerous discussions with Kansas hospital leaders, my colleagues and Administrator Oz, I was able to make changes to the legislation to make certain Kansas hospitals will not face any immediate cuts upon enactment of this legislation.”

Notice, again, what Moran omits. He doesn’t deny that Kansas hospitals will face cuts. He can’t, because he knows they will. Instead, he says they won’t face any immediate cuts.

That’s like saying I don’t face an immediate risk of death from the train hurtling toward my stalled car on the tracks. I might feel fine in the moment, but I’ll be squashed in no time.

Moran goes on:

“These provisions will protect Kansas’ ability to continue pursuing its application for increased Medicaid payments for certain providers. This change ensures that as state directed payments wind down, Kansas providers will be starting at a higher percentage of enhanced payments buying them much-needed time to utilize federal dollars as payments are reduced.”

Notice how many conditionals have been piled into this paragraph. Kansas can “continue pursuing” an application for increased payments. That doesn’t mean the state is going to actually receive such payments. And who will those increased payments go to? Well, certain providers. That doesn’t mean everyone.

And what’s with the “much-needed time”? It’s much needed because, as Moran says later in the sentence, payments will be reduced. All of this should raise the eyebrows of critical readers. Why shouldn’t Moran support the enhanced payments and oppose the other cuts? I think that “R” after his name might provide a clue.

“I also secured a one-year delay in the implementation of reductions to state directed payments to give Kansas providers more time to access these resources. Finally, I pushed for the establishment of a rural provider fund to aid rural hospitals facing significant financial challenges. These changes and investments, along with tax cuts for Kansas families, will bolster our economy and strengthen the safety of our nation.”

Yes, the legislation passed by the U.S. Senate includes a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals. However, it’s worth digging into the details. That money will be paid out over five years and available to all 50 states. Given that Kansas hospitals will experience a $2.65 billion drop over 10 years, basic math suggests that that federal money won’t go far enough.

Finally, it’s important to note two items that Moran’s statement leaves out entirely.

He does not call the piece of legislation the “one big, beautiful bill.” He instead refers to it as “Senate budget reconciliation legislation.” The senator apparently wants to distance himself from Trump and any bombast surrounding this package. However, he still voted for it.

Most disappointingly, Moran makes no mention whatsoever of the 13,000 Kansans who will lose insurance coverage through this package. Indeed, he does not mention Medicaid recipients a single time in his statement.

Farmers, yes. The border, yes. Air traffic controllers, sure.

But poor people who need health insurance? Nah.

Moran has built a lot of goodwill across Kansas. His prairie pragmatism still contrasts positively to the MAGA theatrics of U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall. But that post-passage statement relies on narrow, legalistic arguments to pitch a package that will harm the state he purports to represent.

Real people’s lives and communities are on the line here. Trump’s administration has asked lawmakers to play reverse Robin Hood, snatching benefits from the poor to benefit the rich.

All the carefully tailored language in the world won’t change that.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

In their apparent eagerness to save money and do right by taxpayers, perhaps Kansas Republican leaders could try passing laws that don’t trample on the rights of their constituents.

That’s my only response to lawsuits filed throughout May that highlight the downright sloppy lawmaking that has become a hallmark of our state’s rushed, secretive legislative session. Bills are introduced and rubber-stamped in committee, testimony from experts is ignored, and the House and Senate send them through with nary a speed bump.

Afterward, the taxpayers of Kansas have to foot the bill for any carelessness.

Let’s take a quick look at the lawsuits and their subjects. Up first, Kansas Reflector editor in chief Sherman Smith, who reported the following May 28.

You can read the law here. You can read the lawsuit here.

Next, Reflector reporter Anna Kaminski wrote about another lawsuit on May 19.

You can read the law here. You can read the lawsuit here.

But wait, there’s still more! Here’s senior reporter Morgan Chilson on May 6.

You can read the law here. You can read the lawsuit here.

We covered all of these proposals at various stages, from twinkles in legislators’ eyes to enshrinement in the statute books. Leaders sent the anti-trans bill to Gov. Laura Kelly as their first act of business in the 2025 session. She allowed the foreign nationals ban to become law without her signature and a warning that it “went too far.” The advance-voting bill was called “pure partisan politics” by former Rep. Ann Mah.

Sure, the deluge of wastewater emanating from the Statehouse in 2025 may have overwhelmed at times. But none of this should have come as a surprise.

If people or groups believe the government has infringed on their rights — to medical care, to advocacy, to voting — no one can be surprised if they bring legal action. When senators and representatives cast votes on such issues, they decide whether the state should place a barrier in front of the people they represent. No amount of victim blaming or sanctimonious claptrap obscures the truth.

Defending the laws falls to Attorney General Kris Kobach and his office. Who pays their salaries? You and me and all the people of Kansas. We’re all on the hook for legislative foolishness.

The state may win some or all of these suits. So may those who filed them. Regardless, their mere presence suggests that our elected officials tread far too easily into the swamps of ideological overreaction. Rather than representing all, they have bowed and scraped in service to a hateful few.

We will see the consequences play out before judges in the months ahead.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Being a Republican in Kansas means never having to say you’re sorry.

Not really. Sure, you might have to mumble a half-hearted apology or lose an election here or there. But don’t worry! You won’t face any sanctions with teeth or be out of office for long. Kansas Republicans embrace affirmative action for middle-aged, mediocre white men who believe the right things.

Take Rep. Nick Nick Hoheisel, R-Wichita. Back in February, he found himself in a bit of a jam after confronting with Rep. Ford Carr, D-Wichita, on the House floor. Hoheisel, who is white, confronted Carr, who is Black, over Carr’s rhetoric. According to witnesses, the Republican used profanity. Carr later filed a formal complaint.

In our original coverage of events, Hoheisel appeared to deny that anything untoward had occurred.

“I’m not going to dignify any of those false and outlandish allegations with a response,” Hoheisel wrote editor Sherman Smith in a text message.

Yet Hoheisel eventually apologized to the House, while still claiming the allegation were “significantly overstated.”

A special committee made up of three Republicans and three Democrats looked into the complaint and deadlocked. Republican leaders lowered the boom on Carr, however, and subjected him to a multi-day ordeal before that same committee. His main sin appears to have been calling the GOP racist. The panel will potentially send a letter to the full House admonishing Carr.

Hoheisel escaped any discipline whatsoever.

That’s just for Democrats or saps.

Conservatives don’t pay a price for cursing at their opponents, losing high-profile races or an array of other bad behavior. Not in Kansas, they don’t.

State Sen. Virgil Peck once joked about shooting immigrants from helicopters. Then a representative, he issued a brief apology and kept serving. Eventually, he lost a primary for state Senate. But he worked his way into the chamber eventually, spreading nonsense about chivalrous manhood along the way.

Just this session, he criticized journalists’ “inaccurate” stories to justify raising the rent of press offices at the Statehouse.

Rep. Pat Proctor has left a trail of bellicosity and startling rhetoric about Kansas elections. Yet he’s now running to administer those same elections as secretary of state. A previous contender for that office, Mike Brown, failed in his 2022 bid to unseat elections chief Scott Schwab. Yet Brown simply pivoted to run for state GOP chairman the very next year — and won.

Senate President Ty Masterson went through bankruptcy and somehow found a six-figure job at Wichita State University to complement his legislative work. Nice work if you can get it, right? He’s likely to launch a gubernatorial bid soon.

The one and only Kris Kobach lost consecutive statewide elections to Gov. Laura Kelly in 2018 and Sen. Roger Marshall in 2020. He finally managed to claw his way back to relevancy through a successful bid for attorney general. Who knows where he might land next, but he clearly wasn’t daunted by Kansas voters’ repeated rejections. They don’t know what a good deal they have in voting for another subpar white man.

As I said, white male Republicans of a conservative bent can rest assured in their continued relevance, no matter controversies or losses.

The one person who appears to have paid a price for his shortcomings is House Majority Leader Gene Suellentrop, who was jailed on a drunk driving charge and ousted from his post in 2021. He stayed around the Statehouse through early 2023, though. Statehouse leaders didn’t want to look like they were too tough on the poor fellow, I suppose.

This year, we’ve heard repeatedly from those in Washington, D.C., that efforts to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion have gone too far.

We’ve heard repeated suggestions that prominent and accomplished Black people, women and LGBTQ+ community members don’t have what it takes. Marshall even suggested that DEI policies contributed to the crash of a passenger plane from Wichita.

Yet those in Topeka have shown us throughout recent years that the real threat doesn’t come from Black people, women or LGBTQ+ folks.

It comes from doughy white men who won’t take a hint to leave the rest of us alone.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

No one asked for hippos to overrun Colombian rivers.

But hippos frolic in the South American country anyway, thanks to the extravagant ego of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. He imported four of the beasts for a private menagerie. After his death, they escaped and multiplied, turning into an invasive species bedeviling officials. The government has sought to sterilize and deport the beasts, but cocaine hippos keep on thriving.

And so it is with bad ideas in the Kansas Legislature. Each year lawmakers wade through scads of proposals introduced by out-of-state think tanks or touted by conservative influencers, none of them with the slightest connection to actual Kansans’ problems or concerns.

Such ideas are the cocaine hippos of Kansas politics, taking up residence in the credulous heads of GOP lawmakers and driving out all hope of sensible policymaking.

Once you spot these cocaine hippos (I must give credit to classical music critic David Hurwitz for introducing me to the term), you can’t ignore them. Their bulky yet slippery bodies have twisted and distorted the state’s political landscape. Eradicating the creatures, in whatever ways possible, will only strengthen government.

Here are five hippos spotted in the past few months.

“The Legislature adopted a spending plan Thursday that fully funds public schools, provides pay raises for state employees, eliminates DEI initiatives, polices pronouns in emails, and puts the state on a course to blow through billions in reserves and face a budget shortfall within three years.” (March 27)

You might support or oppose diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or people sharing their pronouns in email messages. But what do they have to do with any problems in Kansas? Who has been actually, provably harmed by any of this? Kansans have been swept along by a nationwide panic over innocuous attempts to create a more caring and accepting society.

House Republicans refused to consider a plea from Democratic Rep. Valdenia Winn to send a message that there is no place for racism in the state of Kansas.

Winn, a Kansas City Democrat, proposed an amendment to House Bill 2299, which declares that antisemitism is against the public policy of the state. She wanted to expand the language to condemn all forms of racism and discrimination. (March 26)

Racism and antisemitism are both bad. Very bad. Yet why were legislators taking up or debating this bill in the first place? Discrimination on the basis of both is already illegal. Hate crimes are illegal, too. Have we seen any recent examples of such or related public unrest in Kansas? (And no, muted protests against Israel in its war against Hamas don’t count.)

The House and Senate on Tuesday overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of legislation that could result in thousands of advance ballots being disqualified. (March 25)

You know who has administered elections in Kansas for years? Republicans. You know who has repeatedly reassured Kansans that our elections are safe and secure? Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab. There is no evidence that allowing three days for mail-in ballots to arrive will cause any problems. But Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, has swallowed the propaganda of President Donald Trump hook, line and sinker. U.S. elections are free and fair, and there have been no issues in Kansas.

Still, the cocaine hippos overturn boats.

Kansas House Republicans have repeatedly met in closed caucus meetings this legislative session, doing state business in secret and upending longstanding tradition. (March 24)

Republicans enjoy preposterous supermajorities in the House and Senate. They have no reason to fear sunlight or transparency. Their leaders have more options and flexibility than they have enjoyed in years. And yet, they hide. They have somehow come to believe that letting people see what they do — even if it’s as simple as persuading members to vote one way or another — simply can’t be shared. But why? What harm have they suffered?

The House still approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 1602, a nonbinding statement that urges the governor to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico and work with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws. (March 20)

As has been pointed out repeatedly, and as can be seen by merely glancing at a map, Kansas doesn’t share a border with Mexico. We have to deal with Oklahoma and Missouri, which are bad enough. Immigration fearmongering has no connection with anything actually witnessed in Kansas. As a matter of fact, whole sectors of our economy would shut down without migrant labor.

And I could go on, but cocaine hippos have a way of crowding out all rational thought.

While those of us watching from afar can see the way in which these malignant ideas have infiltrated our government, they have found surprisingly receptive hosts in lawmakers. Indeed, the mental landscape of many in Topeka would appear entirely unrecognizable to many of us. They have welcomed the hippos, praised them as saintly creatures and called on them to reproduce even more freely.

As far back as 2012, literary critic Harold Bloom raised alarms about this tendency.

In a lecture about poet Walt Whitman, he told a crowd: “We are far along on a route away from democracy into the morass of plutocracy, … oligarchy and theocracy, because many millions among us live a reality completely separate from that of those in this room, for instance. The function of literary criticism at the present time cannot be the struggle with this Moby Dick of the American spirit, yet awareness of it should be part of our common ordeal of consciousness.”

Kansas and its residents confront real obstacles. We experience real needs. Schools and special education require investment. The tax system demands rebalancing, making sure those who profit the most help everyone else. Petty hatreds and discrimination deserve to rot in the ash heap of history.

Instead, we fight nonexistent problems with phantom weapons.

And those cocaine hippos keep breeding.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Kansas Republicans sent an unmistakable message to Democratic Rep. Ford Carr this week: Mess with us, and we’ll destroy you.

The Wichita-based representative, who is Black, filed a complaint in February against Republican Rep. Nick Hoheisel, who is white. This week a disciplinary panel deadlocked along party lines when considering Carr’s complaint. But members had a new issue to consider: Republican Rep. Leah Howell of Derby lodged allegations against Carr.

Howell claimed that the Democrat showed “patterns of violent rhetoric, physical violence, intimidating behavior and derogatory language which is unbecoming of any Kansan, much less a member of the Kansas House.” House Majority Leader Chris Croft endorsed the complaint.

I’ll tell you what this looks like to me. It looks as though Kansas Republicans have decided to teach Carr a lesson. After not being able to shut him up on the floor, they are now determined to go after his reputation. I’m not saying the Carr is a perfect person. I don’t know him and can’t say. But I also know that in any workplace with 165 people, you’re going to see a variety of personalities and approaches.

You could put together quite interesting files on any number of Republican politicians when it comes to their behavior on the floor, in committees and with constituents. The fact that GOP members are doing this against Carr suggests they want vengeance, not justice.

You don’t have to listen to me about this. You can consider these word from former Hutchinson Democratic Rep. Jason Probst at his Substack blog:

“A few years ago, I was speaking on a bill in front of the entire House of Representatives, when I noticed a group of people from the Republican side of the aisle laughing vigorously.

“It’s not unusual for there to be chatter and conversation during floor debate, but this was more than usual. Enough to catch my attention and bother me.

“After the day’s session ended, I walked up to the House member at the center of the laughter. I told him I noticed it, and wondered if I had said something so funny that they couldn’t help themselves from cackling during a serious legislative debate.”

According to Probst, the members were laughing at the following racist joke: “What’s the most confusing holiday in Ferguson, Missouri?”

Answer: “Father’s Day.”

That’s the environment in which Carr works daily in Topeka. That’s the environment in which he has refused to tolerate the condescending admonitions of Republican leadership. He won’t play along. And now he faces the consequences of standing up for himself and his constituents. I don’t think highly of Kansas legislative leadership in the best of times. But this is far from the best of times, and they’re making a mockery of the House.

Or as Probst puts it: “It is amazing to consider how weak the powerful really are. They bristle at criticism. They actively legislate to silence any dissenting voice. They use the levers of the system they control to enforce compliance. They punish those who refuse to be controlled by the rules they’ve written or who chooses to disengage from the systems they’ve created.”

Progressive scuffle

At least House Republicans’ tussle with Carr follows familiar Republican vs. Democrat lines. More surprising was an uprising of progressive outrage against Sen. Patrick Schmidt, D-Topeka. Schmidt proposed an amendment to House Bill 2062, which provides “for child support orders for unborn children from the date of conception.” He asked senators to expand the child tax credit for all of the state’s pregnant parents.

Republicans ultimately backed his proposal. But Schmidt’s move didn’t sit well with other Democrats and progressive advocates.

“It is pretty disappointing to hear Senator Schmidt declare himself the most ‘pro-choice lawmaker’ while simultaneously adding the most anti-abortion language I’ve ever seen a democratic lawmaker intentionally amend into a bill,” said Melissa Stiehler, of Loud Light Civic Action.

Schmidt still voted against the legislation, calling it a “bad bill, with or without an amendment.”

I understand that the politics around reproductive freedoms arouse fierce responses. I understand that this bill can be seen as a “fetal personhood” law, laying the groundwork for future anti-abortion measures. But Democrats have only nine members in the 40-person Senate. Does attacking one of those nine make long-term political sense?

Emporia State hot air

Emporia State University president Ken Hush spoke to the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency on Wednesday, and his remarks were something to behold.

He said change at the ESU was needed because community surveys included descriptions of the university as a “mediocrity,” “no financial acumen,” “slow,” “no accountability,” arrogant,” “inaction,” “dictators versus team,” “low expectations” and “not data driven.”

Well, thank goodness he axed more than 30 staff members, then!

I’ll tell you who found the whole situation ridiculous and shameful: Emporia residents. Kansas Reflector staff traveled to the hometown of William Allen White on Tuesday for a town hall. Let me tell you, sympathy for Hush and his approach toward revamping the university looked pretty damn scanty.

But that’s the whole playbook for fiscal vandals like Hush and Elon Musk, isn’t it? Cut staff and programs so drastically that they barely function. Then whine that they’re being treated unfairly by those who don’t realize their visionary genius.

In the meantime, Hush enjoys a $9 million earmark from the Legislature to keep cutting. Wouldn’t a successful turnaround pay for itself?

Marshall on the spot

Associated Press reporter John Hanna, dean of the Kansas Statehouse press corps, posted this important update on Thursday.

Because of congestion at Reagan National, the airliner was diverted from a runway further away from where helicopters were flying to another one much closer, and the airliner’s approach was on the helicopter’s path, though it was supposed to be flying 200 feet below.#ksleg
— John Hanna (@APjdhanna) March 14, 2025

Looks like U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall was wrong about the crash occurring because of DEI then, huh?

This week’s questions

I wish I could quit asking all these questions about Statehouse goings-on and Kansas political happenings. But they still swarm around my mind like so many cicadas.

What do Republicans have up their sleeves with their proposal for a commission to look at higher education in Kansas?

How proud should we be that Kansas has joined the Make America Healthy Again crusade with our very own case of measles?Once again, wouldn’t it be great to see Kansas state legislators speak out about the deranged crusade to fire federal employees, now that a judge has ordered many back on the job?Who’s afraid of a little satanism at the Statehouse? Freedom of religion means freedom of religion, right?

Dan Hawkins defends free speech

Nah, I’m just kidding there, folks. House Speaker Dan Hawkins has still barred journalists from their traditional spot on the House floor.

We’ve also noticed that his office has stopped sending press releases and notices of news conferences to Kansas Reflector staff. They may want to understand that targeting a particular news outlet for its coverage is unconstitutional. I’m sure it’s all an oversight and that email will resume soon.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

I’m not saying that GOP lawmakers have an elaborate plan to ban all abortions in Kansas.

But if they did, they’d be doing exactly what they’re doing now.

Women enjoy reproductive freedom here thanks to the Hodes and Nauser ruling from the state Supreme Court in 2019. The justices found that abortion access was a fundamental right under the Kansas Constitution. Legislative Republicans tried to change that with a constitutional amendment, which voters overwhelmingly rejected on Aug. 2, 2022. Importantly, that vote merely preserved the status quo. It did not protect the right in perpetuity.

So now Republicans want to change the court itself.

Senators have proposed a plan that would call for justices to be publicly elected. Alternate ideas have included adding a confirmation process. (Currently, the public weighs in via regular retention votes for justices.) Either change would likely result in a significantly more conservative court that would allow bans on abortion and significant reductions in education spending.

Reaching such outcomes requires passing a constitutional amendment, which would have to first be approved by both chambers in the Statehouse and then clear a public vote. I would expect advocates to spend big and attempt to mislead Kansans.

Again, I’m not saying that Topeka Republicans desperately want to ban abortion and harm Kansas women. I’m not saying they want to do an end run around the clear will of Kansans in 2022.

But they’re sure acting like it.

Carr v. Hoheisel

The drama between feuding Wichita Reps. Nick Hoheisel and Ford Carr leveled up Friday morning, with a committee assembling to hear a complaint filed by the latter against the former.

Carr, a Black Democrat, and Hoheisel, a white Republican, clashed on the floor last week. According to the complaint, Hoheisel took offense to comments Carr made about racism and launching a profanity-laced diatribe against the Democrat. (Hoheisel has thus far refused to comment beyond calling the allegations “false and outlandish.”)

“I rarely think a man of color gets a fair shake anyway,” Carr told Kansas Reflector senior reporter Tim Carpenter. “However, I’m not necessarily concerned with the shake being fair. There comes a time where you need to stand on principles. You have to teach people how to treat you. You have to show people that not everyone is going to cower and stay silent.”

Here’s what confuses me. Over my nearly four years in this job, I’ve been called a sexual predator, a liar, fat and an assortment of homophobic slurs and vile epithets. I have also been called racist. Yet, I have thus far refrained from getting in a fight about any of them. That’s because my mother and father taught me about regulating emotions.

If Carr’s complaint describes actual events, why on Earth does Hoheisel have such thin skin?

Proctor on mute

Take a look at this video posted by youth advocacy and voting rights group Loud Light:

Why did you refuse to answer questions from fellow legislators about your plan to “chip away” at early voting by ending the three day mail in ballot processing period, which would protect over 2000 postmarked Kansas ballots @RealPatProctor ? #kansas #ksleg #kslegislature #ks pic.twitter.com/OKstnsY8xJ
— Loud Light (@loud_light) February 27, 2025

That’s right. You’ll see Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, refusing to answer questions about his bill ending a three-day grace period for the arrival of mail-in ballots.

This would be the same Proctor who loudly accused me online of being a “liar” for sharing the fact that he didn’t reply to email requests for comment from Reflector editor in chief Sherman Smith.

It looks as though not responding to questions might just be his new thing.

Bezos opinions

You might have seen news that Washington Post owner and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos plans to reorient the storied newspaper’s editorial page toward “free markets and personal liberties.”

This is of course Bezos’ prerogative; opinion sections traditionally answer to owners and publishers rather than news editors.

You can rest assured that Kansas Reflector remains committed to our longtime opinion coverage goal:

That’s what we’ve done, that’s what we’re doing, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing. Regardless of what Bezos claims, “the internet” does not replace a smartly edited and curated selection of opinion pieces from a range of voices.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to submit columns, feel free to email me here!

Still pondering

These pointed questions from the week ran through my head like a band of excited joggers.

Just what is Rep. Stephanie Sawyer-Clayton writing about in this tweet? Sounds like the House floor could used even more policing.

Also, after Floor Debate on this bill yesterday, I will never again respond “just peachy” when asked how I am doing. The response from the bill carrier in the well during our official proceedings was creepy and gross. This is a workplace. #ksleg
— Stephanie Clayton (@SSCJoCoKs) February 27, 2025

With federal government staff cuts hitting the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, will Kansas Republicans in D.C. finally speak up against Elon Musk’s reign of terror? Hah! I can guess the answer.Given the compressed legislative schedule I wrote about last week, does anyone else feel like there’s a big shoe about to drop in the legislative session?Hey, does anyone know if there’s a town hall featuring U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall planned anywhere soon? I’m sure someone can figure that out.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Well, that was alarming.

A representative-on-representative confrontation in the Kansas House led to suspension of business, a private caucus among Democrats and precious little clarity about what happened. In short, Republican Nick Hoheisel apparently had words with Democrat Ford Carr. Both men are from Wichita.

During the caucus, Carr suggested that Hoheisel might have been carrying a firearm: “He got up, he came over to me, and he made attacks. I can’t honestly see how someone of his stature would feel comfortable making those kind of attacks at me unless, of course, he feels like he has some sort of an equalizer.”

Hoheisel snapped back via text to Kansas Reflector editor Sherman Smith: “I’m not going to dignify any of those false and outlandish allegations with a response.”

The House stopped debate on a bill and both sides licked their wounds for a couple of hours. House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Minority Leader Brandon Woodard issued a rare joint statement meant to deescalate tensions.

Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat, sounded an ominous note after the entire affair.

“In the longer term,” he said, “leadership is going to have to have long conversations with some of their members.”

Carmichael added: “I do not feel safe on the floor under these circumstances. This situation with immature hotheads with guns on the floor needs to end.”

Recall where we were just last week. Republican Reps. Patrick Penn and Kyler Sweely were joking on the House floor about shooting former Democratic Rep. Jason Probst. Not a single Republican objected.

Can leadership really be so surprised to see tensions ratcheted up from bad to worse? They have given this fire of tensions more and more oxygen, targeted members of the news media with repeated lies and barriers to doing their work. A small band of GOP lawmakers have treated anyone even asking questions as dangerous threats. Read Probst on the subject, if you have a moment.

This could all lead to a dark place, and soon.

Compressed schedule

In late January, Rep. Suzanne Wikle noted the Legislature’s short schedule during an interview. At the time, I wondered if this had anything to do with leaving Gov. Laura Kelly holding the bag if final revenue estimates came in below expectations.

I still don’t know if that’s the case. But we do have more clarity about the shortened schedule: It’s real and pressing. The turnaround deadline was Thursday. That means each chamber finished work on its own bills before sending them to the other chamber.

I’ve written before that turnaround is an illusion; leaders deploy it as a tool to kill bills they don’t like while blessing their favored legislation whenever they choose. Regardless, it came two days earlier this year than last.

First adjournment is set for March 28, with a veto session penciled in for April 10. Last year, first adjournment was April 5 and the veto session began April 29.

This adds to the stress and unhappiness suffusing Statehouse halls. Lawmakers are being asked to plunge through legislation to meet earlier deadlines — and for what?

We still don’t know.

A protest sign rests next to chair at a labor rally on Jan. 14, 2025, at the Statehouse. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Whimsy and wonder

Look, I try to keep these roundups as light as possible. They hit Kansas Reflector’s website and email inboxes Saturday mornings. I want to start your weekend off with a chuckle or two, or at least an amused eye roll.

This week, though? I don’t know about this week. The whole affair felt progressively grim and grimmer, as temperatures stayed below zero and lawmakers ground through votes on dozens of bills. Medicaid expansion proposals fell flat. So did an attempt to crack open the door on medical marijuana legalization. We know Kansans support these proposals; they’ve told pollsters so for years.

But leadership doesn’t care. Their members don’t care. They pass bills that bully and harass children and people who are different from themselves, then pat themselves on the back.

It’s not funny. It’s gut-wrenching.

Dispatch from Hutch

You know who else has watched this session with amazement and despair? The good folk of Hutchison, approximately 60 of whom braved the incoming storm on Monday evening to see Reflector reporter Anna Kaminski, editor Sherman Smith and yours truly at the community college. (Thanks to the Hutchinson Area Chapter of Women for Kansas for sponsoring our appearance.)

They had a bunch of questions about legislative deadlines, Hawkins’ restrictions on journalists, Sweely and our current political climate.

Smith and I visited Hutchinson two years ago for a similar town hall. What I noticed this time around was a decidedly different tone from those in attendance. In 2023, they sounded curious and a bit plaintive. This time around, they sounded angry. They wanted answers from their elected representatives. They wanted action in Topeka. And they wanted those of us at the Reflector to do do our work even more aggressively.

You can count on that.

I’m just asking

More questions that came to mind after this week.

GOP Rep. Pat Proctor branded me a “liar” on Twitter over the weekend (don’t worry, I’ll survive). But what does that make Proctor?What’s up with the delay in introducing some sort of legalized cannabis in this state? How many members of the Legislature imbibe regularly yet still oppose bills that would bring in a bunch of money?Rep. Steven Howe made stirring points Thursday about special education funding. Does his refusal to offer an amendment adding that funding remind you of his decision to endorse Donald Trump for president last year — after begging Republicans to consider alternatives? If Washington, D.C., lawmakers end up slashing Medicaid funding, will Kansas Republicans look wise for forgoing expansion all these years? House Speaker Dan Hawkins confers in House chambers on Jan. 23, 2025.

Ban in place

It wouldn’t be a weekly installment of this column in 2025 without mentioning that House Speaker Dan Hawkins continues to bar journalists from their traditional space on the House floor. They have been banished from the press box and sent to report from the balcony, all the better to keep them away from altercations like the one we saw Thursday afternoon.

With the news out of Mississippi, where a newspaper was ordered in flagrant violation of the First Amendment to take down an editorial, Hawkins still has an opportunity to stand up for free speech. He could do it any time, any day.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

The words speak for many, not just in the cities and towns and rural communities of Kansas, but across the nation.

“What is wrong with the Democratic party of which I am a member? Where do I begin. I’ve said since my arrival in Topeka that the party doesn’t know how to fight.”

These words come from an extraordinary open letter by Wichita Rep. Ford Carr, a forceful presence in Topeka. Carr was in the headlines last month after his heated dispute with Wichita City Councilman Brandon Johnson at a Topeka pub. Carr subsequently left his role as ranking Democrat on two committees. The letter offers his version of recent events and challenges the party to take a more aggressive stance.

To hear Carr tell it, he didn’t want to be on those committees anyway.

“I sought this separation weeks ago for myriad reasons including my party’s brand of vapid party leadership that I could no longer stomach.”

I’m not interested in litigating Democrat-on-Democrat disputes. I’ve been around enough politics in my life to know that tempers and emotions run high in the halls of power, and each person with a set of eyes and ears experiences the same events differently. I enjoyed my pre-session interview with House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard and cannot begin to imagine his challenges.

Yet the core of Carr’s message has little to do with such conflicts.

It’s about what Democratic politicians — and anyone with progressive or centrist or mildly conservative values — need to do in a moment of governmental crisis. It’s about how to react to a government that has become so untethered from the wishes of the people that it actively serves to harm the health, wealth and institutions of citizens.

“It is apparent that the presidential election did not work out as we Democrats had planned, but what of our local and state elections? Our party not only failed to eliminate the super majority but in fact watched Republicans pad that majority. I believe that when you get hit, you should hit back twice as hard. At this point, my philosophy should be clear on more than one level. The optics of hitting back may not be the most pleasant, but someone, somewhere in this party must summon the courage to do more, risk more, and fight harder than we have. We must stand our ground rather than weakly wagging our fingers and declaring, ‘shame on you.’ ”

Those opposed to extremism desperately want a voice. They want someone to step up and embody their outrage. At the state level, they want someone to shout about school vouchers and civil rights and tax cuts for the rich. At the federal level, they want someone to bellow from atop a car that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are strip mining the federal government and dynamiting civil service.

And yes, they know that Democrats don’t have their hands on the levers of power. But that’s the point. If you don’t have formal political power, you have to turn to rhetoric and persuasion. You have to speak up, speak loudly and speak often.

Vermont Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders gets it. I was skeptical of Sanders a decade ago. I lived and worked in New Hampshire and sat through an editorial board meeting with the man. Sanders made a fervent case but hadn’t quite crafted a compelling national message.

He has now. Regardless of ideology, he shows exactly the spirit that Carr writes about.

Lawmakers can be blunt and outspoken without crossing the line into regrettable rhetoric. They can fight with words, not fists.

This pugnacious approach serves two main purposes. First, it gives an outlet to discontented voters. Much as the Tea Party movement mobilized discouraged Republicans in the wake of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, robust messaging would allow progressives a way to rediscover their bonds and nascent political power.

Second, such speech attracts new voters. Any political coalition must look to grow and expand. If Democrats and progressives were guilty of one main sin over the past two decades, it would be instituting a series of purity tests — pushing folks to use certain vocabulary and adopt certain positions with little explanation. An inclusive new approach would allow the party to chart a new course with new supporters. Especially those who voted for Trump to lower the cost of living, not enact a purge against Black people.

No, aggression doesn’t play well with everyone. Given the relative popularity of some of Trump’s recent moves, I can understand that Democratic leaders in Topeka and D.C. might want to keep their power dry. We have years to go.

But let others with different approaches try them out. What do Democrats, progressives, centrists or sane Republicans have to lose? At this point, all those opposed to Trump and MAGA-fied state government should welcome a bevy of approaches.

“This is the disconnect my party has in this state and nationwide. Our constituents want us to fight harder.

“My passion for my constituents and my love for the communities that I represent won’t allow me to cower. The time to ‘go high when they go low,’ has passed.

“When they go low, introduce their a$ to the basement. Our constituents deserve nothing less.”

Carr wants to fight.

Maybe, right here and right now, that’s not a bad idea.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

So, wait a minute. Is threatening political violence acceptable now?

You see, I recall the ancient days of October 2024, when Kansas Republicans frothed in rage at the story of a University of Kansas lecturer who made an unfortunate comment to his students about shooting people who wouldn’t vote for a female president. But just this week, Republican Rep. Patrick Penn of Wichita joked with Hutchinson Rep. Kyler Sweeley about shooting former Rep. Jason Probst.

As far as I can tell, no Republican said a word.

One would imagine — and I’m just a simple country opinion editor here — that the ever-moral and upstanding Kansas GOP would rush to condemn such an offensive statement. After all, four months ago they were flooding my inbox with messages about how much they abhorred any suggestion of violence.

Perhaps that only counted when it came from Democrats. After all, GOP President Donald Trump gave political thuggery a warm bear hug last month, pardoning the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists. It’s difficult to take a principled stand when you’re an enthusiastic member of a violence-worshipping cult of personality.

As always, Kansas Republicans, I’d love to be proved wrong. You can step up any time.

I should note that Probst wrote about the situation here and here on his Substack blog, “That Guy in Hutch.” He has thoughts, as you might imagine.

Not Docking, Dole

The much fought-over Docking State Office Building — named for Kansas Democratic Gov. Robert Docking — could face one more detour in its route to restoration. That would be the proposal by House Appropriations chairman Troy Waymaster to rename it after longtime Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Dole.

As reported by State Affairs Kansas, the matter came up during budget discussions (work on the office complex requires $19.3 million to cross the finish line). The Republican representative said he planned to introduce a bill on the subject.

Rep. Bill Sutton, R-Gardner, then jokingly asked if Waymaster would consider naming the building after former Gov. Sam Brownback. He was ruled out of order. Later in the discussion, Lawrence Democratic Rep. Barbara Ballard proposed a hyphenated alternative: Docking-Dole. Further discussions were promised, and lawmakers kept crunching numbers.

Here’s the problem, as I see it. Dole was a Washington, D.C., man. He served two years in Topeka, as opposed to more than 35 years in D.C.

On the other hand, Docking served four (count ’em, four) terms as Kansas governor. They were two-year terms, but still. He was also the first Democrat to unseat an incumbent Republican for the job. I would hate to imagine that partisanship played any role in all this.

Friday work

Kansas legislators gave themselves a whopping pay increase this session. In my first Statehouse scraps roundup of 2025, I voiced my support for the move, while also hoping that bigger paychecks would “cultivate a more professional attitude toward doing the people’s work.”

Evidence of such an approach looked scant in January and early February. Yet, wonder of wonders, the House actually met on Friday this week.

As I’ve written, legislators should receive a real salary. But I don’t think it’s crazy for people to expect they put in the same week’s work as the rest of us.

Brown plots departure

Farewell in advance to Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Brown. He announced on Tuesday he would not be running for reelection to the post.

The pugilistic Brown was known for blistering conservative screeds in the party’s weekly Friday File newsletter. He also clashed with old guard party leaders, both before his election to the post and after an effigy of President Joe Biden was beaten by guests at a Johnson County event.

From Brown’s perspective, though, his two years in the top job have been a rip-roaring success.

“I am deeply grateful for this journey and for the unwavering support of so many incredible patriots,” he wrote. “Together, we have made the KSGOP a strong and more influential operation, and we now well-positioned for the battles ahead. The future is bright if the current course is continued, and I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in the good fights to come.”

Random questions

These random queries coursed through my mind this week.

• If Loud Light and Kansas Appleseed are “bomb throwers,” in the words of Leavenworth Republican Rep. Pat Proctor, then what on Earth does that make the walking Newsmax channel that is Proctor?
• With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking the reins as Health and Human Services secretary in Washington, D.C., how sad is former Hutchinson Sen. Mark Steffen not to be in thick of anti-vaccine conspiracies in Topeka?
• When will Republican leadership in the House and Senate try to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of their gender affirming-care ban? It was their first bill passed of the session and saw a speedy response from the governor.
• If the U.S. House moves ahead with giant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, as advocates predict, will our GOP congressional delegation go along with it?
• Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach ran for office on a platform of battling government overreach. Have I missed something, or is he simply not seeing the enormous opportunity to sue the Trump administration for its myriad unconstitutional schemes?

House press restrictions

Hey, it’s just my weekly reminder that House Speaker Dan Hawkins has still barred Kansas news media from his chamber’s press box, banishing journalists to an upper balcony to cover proceedings in his chamber.

Of course, given what Penn and Sweely were joking about this week, perhaps it’s safer to put some distance between lawmakers and journalists.

Ha, ha! Just joking. All in good fun, right? Right?

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Hey, Kansans! Are you excited and delighted by the work of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency workers in rooting through government records in search of waste?

Do we have a deal for you!

The Kansas Legislature has formed its very own Senate Committee on Government Efficiency (COGE instead of DOGE) and has asked residents to submit their ideas on making government leaner, meaner and more attuned to the needs of South African-born billionaires! Ha, ha. Just joking a bit there, folks. I’m sure that the bigwigs behind the Kansas committee have your best interests at heart, just like those teens and twentysomethings poking around in D.C. buildings.

You can see more about the committee at its official legislative website here. Wichita Republican Sen. Renee Erickson has stepped up to serve as chair. Overland Park Democratic Sen. Cindy Holscher has taken the ranking minority member spot. We await their findings with bated breath.

Kelly speaks out

You had to read deep into the articles for her name, but Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly popped up in national news coverage last week.

She serves as chairwoman of the Democratic Governors Association and joined a call with other state chief executives from her party with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. During the call, Kelly pressed Schumer on the party’s online strategy, saying it needed to be “down and dirty,” according to New York Times reporting.

That might be one of the few times I’ve ever considered Kelly in connection to that phrase. On the other hand, given her party’s mostly ineffectual response to the early days of Donald Trump’s second term, who can argue?

Speak that truth to power, governor.

Those pesky staffers

You know how I hate to be a pest about news media access in the Kansas House.

But after House Speaker Dan Hawkins barred reporters from their longtime press box on the floor, relegating them to reporting from the balcony, I’ve been documenting his shifting justifications and overall animosity toward the Fourth Estate. What can I say? It’s my job.

Hawkins finally claimed that he banished news media because House staffers needed the space for their work. The day he said that, a handful of staff members sat behind the desk to prove his point. But according to accounts from Kansas Reflector reporters, the onetime press box has remained mostly empty since then. Surely Hawkins wouldn’t have been misleading his members and the public to justify animus toward reporters?

Surely not, right?

Voices of opposition

On Monday, I wrote about the Legislature’s shameful bullying of transgender children. I want to share a couple of additional perspectives on the legislation (Senate Bill 63).

First, the Kansas ACLU issued a release urging Kelly to reject the bill when it comes to her desk: “ACLU condemns Kansas lawmakers’ repeat attack on Kansans’ personal healthcare decisions; urges governor veto.”

“We remain unconvinced that this legislature understands the real concerns and constitutional protections afforded to everyday Kansans, and their rush to push this government intrusion through demonstrates it all the more,” said executive director Micah Kubic.

Second, Loud Light director of advocacy Melissa Stiehler sent along testimony her group submitted opposing the bill. It hasn’t been posted online as part of the public record.

“It’s deeply troubling to me that both the House and Senate moved forward with debating and voting on this bill before the written testimony submitted by Kansas voters — your constituents — was made available to legislators, and that even after the vote, the record of testimony is inaccessible,” she wrote.

You can take a look here, if you’d like.

In these times

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve received numerous email messages from folks expressing distress about the political situation in Washington, D.C. Many ask what can be done to spread the word about the latest Trump- or Musk-related outrage or how they can make their perspectives heard.

Yes, the news alarms. Yes, we’ve seen norms tossed aside and checks and balances ignored. Yes the administration has taken Steve Bannon’s advice to flood the zone with waste to heart. I will not deny or diminish these truths or the challenges they pose.

Yet I plan to stay the course with what we do here in the opinion section.

We will continue to focus on state government and politics, and the way in which those intersect with everyday Kansans’ lives. Numerous reporters and opinion writers can and will tackle the national situation. They have the access and the knowledge about those issues. We have the access and the knowledge about Kansas. That’s where our work can inform the most people.

We will also restrain ourselves from overheated speculation or hyperbole. You could write countless pieces about bad things that might happen. I don’t think those serve readers especially well. Again, such content can be found elsewhere.

Demagogues in Washington, D.C., want nothing more than to panic and overwhelm those who disagree with them politically. I believe they want to either provoke extreme reactions — which they can then exploit — or shut down opponents altogether. The only way to deal with such an approach is to not accept its premises. I don’t, and you shouldn’t either.

Remain vigilant. Stay calm. Never silence yourself.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Snow was piling up across Kansas on Sunday, but the fiery spirit of Lindsborg painter Mike Hartung burned through my phone as he described his latest exhibit.

Titled “Really? Do you really want to do this again?” the show includes seven paintings the industrious artist completed since the election (an eighth was in progress as we spoke). It also includes four previously unshown works featuring Hartung’s anti-muse: President-elect Donald Trump. As usual for Hartung, each canvas vibrates with bright colors, twisted figures and provocative political commentary.

“I realize only the winners get to write the books,” he told me, “but I just can’t believe this country is going to sit here and merrily walk down oligarch lane.”

My father and I had checked in with Hartung before the presidential election. He was brimming with nervous energy and presenting a show that featured Kansas political figures. After Trump’s victory on Nov. 5, the artist headed straight back into his workroom with an eye toward Inauguration Day.

He may not have liked the election outcome, but he had a job to do.

As painted by Hartung, Trump’s fleshy form focuses the eye. The past and future president shows off his dance moves atop a column, dresses like a schoolboy with disgraced Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and floats above a barren landscape on “Elon’s sand hovercraft.”

President Joe Biden hasn’t escaped his gimlet gaze. The departing leader uses a wheelchair in Hartung’s latest painting, which he hopes to complete soon.

“People were saying they thought he could have beat Trump,” he said. “And I thought those dumb son of a b****es, are you completely stupid? He should have gotten out at least a year ago, and Kamala would have had a chance.”

It hasn’t escaped the artist’s notice — or mine — that the wealthy and privileged have offered servile tribute to the incoming president. Technology and media tycoons have donated money, cut deals or otherwise shown their willingness to obey in advance.

“Everybody thinks, ‘Boy, if I just had a million dollars, I wouldn’t take s*** off anybody,” Hartung said. “These are the richest people in the world, and they’re on their knees to this clown. All that wealth, it’s very precarious, because the new God King could come along and take it all away.”

The latest victim appears to be Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes.

Her image, of wealthy men (and Mickey Mouse) paying obsequious tribute to a looming Trump, wouldn’t be out of place in a Hartung show. Telnaes’ editor rejected the cartoon after seeing a rough sketch, claiming it was redundant with other commentary. She believed it was because of the image’s content and resigned Friday night.

Editorial cartoonists, painters and all those who work in the visual realm wield tremendous power. Images seize viewers by the collar. Words scramble to keep pace. I’ve written about Trump’s authoritarian threat, Kansas politicians bending a knee and Derek Schmidt playing footsie with fascism. Each one of those columns would have shaken up more readers as a grotesque illustration.

“I don’t give a straw for your newspaper articles,” said 1870s political boss William Tweed about cartoonist Thomas Nast. “Most of my voters can’t read. But they can’t help seeing them damned pictures.”

I asked if Hartung feared retaliation or prosecution for his own indelible images. He guffawed in response.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked. “I’m 80. I shouldn’t even be here. I should have died when I was young and pretty.”

The current show runs through Jan. 26 — six days after Trump assumes office — at the Smoky Valley Arts & Folklife Center, 114 1/2 S. Main St. in Lindsborg. The gallery is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday to Sunday. Hartung will give a talk at 2 p.m. Jan. 12, and an artist’s talk and reception will be held at 2 p.m. Jan. 26.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Give the people what they want.

That’s the grumbling I’ve heard from more than one progressive in Kansas after voters strengthened GOP supermajorities in the Statehouse. New political math mean legislators likely won’t expand Medicaid or legalize marijuana anytime soon. Rather than support families in need, these lawmakers likely will erect further barriers to nutrition, health care and secure housing.

So what, these profoundly irritated people say. Voters wanted this. Let them suffer the consequences.

The same sentiment can be heard in national post-election dialogue. Voters can select leaders who harm them, experts warn.

“Authoritarianism is often popular. Many people support a strong and decisive leader,” said Timothy Longman, a professor of international relations and of political science at Boston University. “In Africa, which is the focus of my scholarship, military coups have frequently been greeted with dancing in the streets, because people think that military rule will bring order.”

People want a state government that throws the needy to the wolves. Let them feast.

I understand why people feel this way. I understand the temptation to throw up one’s hands and retreat, leaving callous lawmakers free rein to slash taxes for oligarchs, pare budgets to the bone and legalize discrimination against minority groups. After an election in which consequences were clearly spelled out — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly explicitly connected Medicaid expansion to state legislative races — a majority chose callousness.

But here’s my modest proposal: Forget that nonsense.

What’s right is right, no matter the majority’s whims. In Kansas, sizable numbers either voted another way or chose not to vote at all. Should we blithely accept policy that harms these folks as well?

A rising tide lifts all boats. But a sinking tide lowers all boats. Giving the people what they want could hurt everyone and everything.

Before starting at Kansas Reflector, I spent nearly four years in nonprofit children’s advocacy. My former boss, John Wilson, laid it out in a column published here Wednesday. Children will suffer the consequences of a neglectful Legislature. They can’t vote. They can’t make the kind of decisions that hand political power to one party or another. Their fates are up to the adults who take care of them.

“We cannot let the next legislative session go by without providing targeted relief to Kansas kids in need,” Wilson wrote.

He added: “We need every lawmaker to go into the 2025 session with the belief that there are tangible answers to the complex issues we’re facing.”

That means transcending rigid ideological frameworks. That means working across the aisle. That means accepting that sometimes government can provide solutions rather than simply create problems. That means opening lawmakers’ minds to the possibility that they can build and create, rather than slash and burn. Sometimes, the right thing to do — making sure that children grow up healthy and educated — transcends any one election.

This goes for Kansas’ delegation in Washington, D.C., too. Our U.S. senators and representatives will confront an dizzying array of choices in the coming months, along with great pressure from the new presidential administration. Can they chart an independent course, one that includes the folks who didn’t vote for them last month? Hope springs eternal, as Alexander Pope wrote.

I’m making a narrow point here, one that I don’t want folks to misconstrue. Lawmakers will reflect ideologies and policies supported by the voters who elected them. That’s natural. That’s the electoral name of the game. I raise no objection to such representation, even if I object to the policies that result.

Give the people what they want.

On the other hand, not all governmental functions can or should be viewed through an explicitly political lens.

Basic human rights transcend any election. These include the right to necessities such as housing and health care; the right to live unimpeded by prejudice; and the right to raise one’s voice in opposition, no matter the circumstances. They are elemental. They are foundational. While partisans may view such rights as liberal, they are in fact just reflections of our shared humanity.

In the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking in 1941: “Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”

Some might say Wilson’s column sounds too optimistic. Some might say my column sounds too confrontational. (Some might say Roosevelt was just another liberal Democrat.) They might be correct. Or maybe we — and a huge number of Kansans — understand that politics can only take us so far.

Working together, let’s give the people what they need.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

I am an old gay. This is an important part of the story that I am about to tell.

If you are an old gay like me, you well remember living in a world in which the vast majority of people disapprove of you. This was the United States up to about 20 years ago. It didn’t matter if you were promiscuous or flaming or even out — its simply mattered that you were gay and therefore a deviant who would go to hell.

I didn’t believe this. My friends and family didn’t believe this. Nonetheless, quite a few Americans believed it. An awful lot of Kansans believed it. To live in the world of 20 years ago as a gay man required the willingness to accept that most of the people you lived around and worked with didn’t just dislike you but disputed your basic personhood. Three years after I left the state to work in Florida, Kansans overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution.

People like to believe that this former world didn’t exist. But it very much did. I have not forgotten it. And I know that others my age have not forgotten it either.

I write this because of the 2024 general election results, which I know for many progressives and moderates and even a handful of conservatives has come as a dispiriting shock. Unfortunately, being right has nothing to do with majority support. Slavery had majority support in the South. Women had no separate legal identity from men for hundreds of years.

None of that was right. The people who supported such vile policies were wrong.

Likewise, the embrace by a majority of Americans of a would-be autocrat in the presidential election is simply wrong. They picked a man who encouraged an insurrection against the United States government. They picked someone who emboldens America’s enemies and alienates our allies. They picked someone who catastrophically mismanaged the COVID-19 crisis. They picked someone whose reelection bid was opposed by his own cabinet members.

On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be sworn in as our 47th president. He was elected, and that’s that. Perhaps this time things will be different. But our nation will likely suffer because millions of Americans took the path they did.

Kansas will likely suffer because our state’s voters took the path they did. More will die from a lack of health insurance. More will face absurd criminal penalties for possessing and using cannabis.

I don’t believe that voting one way or another or belonging a certain political party makes people good or bad. But those who participate in the civic life of our country should take responsibility for their actions. That goes for politicians and voters alike.

New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie encapsulated my feelings perfectly, while explaining the perils of overanalysis.

“As long as journalists and pundits act as if they are amateur political strategists and not people trying to understand and tell the truth about the world, they are going to take the implicit view that voters can never be wrong, which then demands endless explanation of their morally blameless choice,” Bouie wrote in a thread on Bluesky. “Not me. It is not my job to say what a political party should or should not be doing. It is my job to tell the truth, and the truth is that a lot of people willingly abandoned their faculties to make a bad, destructive choice.

“This is not a popular opinion these days but people have agency. People are in control of the choices they make. No one is forced to do anything.”

Not everyone voted with these majorities. Some chose a different direction. They decided to live with empathy and caring and concern and made political decisions accordingly. They put the welfare of their fellow human beings ahead of the price of eggs or their own resentment of a changing world (spoiler alert: It’s going to change no matter which candidate you select).

As an old gay, though, I understand how this works. We do not come naturally to empathy for others. Humans look out for themselves primarily, and perhaps a handful around them. Prioritizing the nation or the needs of the disadvantaged? It’s a heavy lift. And it’s not just voters. Leaders from parties have seized the opportunity to demonize those who were different when needed.

President Ronald Reagan looked the other way while hundreds of thousands of gay men died of AIDS.

President Bill Clinton signed “don’t ask, don’t tell” into law and “reformed” welfare by ending the benefit as we know it.

President Barack Obama said he opposed sex-same marriage.

Reagan was wrong. Clinton was wrong. Obama was wrong. Kamala Harris was wrong when she rebuffed progressive dissent about widespread death and destruction in Gaza. Unfortunately, I have seen too much to expect genuine caring from politicians. I wish they would do better. I hope they would do better. I support a world in which stout-hearted activists pressure them to do better. But I don’t expect them to suddenly develop a conscience — voters alone hold that power.

So if you’re a straight, white person afraid of what another Trump term portends, welcome to the club. Some of us have been members for an awfully long time.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

Vibes aren’t enough.

From my perspective on election night at 10 here in Kansas, that’s the takeaway from a day of voting that didn’t produce much in the way of thundering progressive results in Kansas — or anywhere else, really. That might be the proverbial bitter pill, but sometimes we all need a dose of strong medicine.

Another term of Donald Trump as president? Likelier than not, from all indications. The Republican supermajority in the Kansas Legislature? Apparently still in place come January.

I wrote about a multitude of encouraging shifts and promising signs in Kansas over recent months. There were the PACs and educational groups boosting moderate Statehouse candidates. There was the 32,000-plus Facebook group supporting Kamala Harris. There was a spate of polling, including numbers showing Trump ahead by only five in Kansas and Harris up by three in Iowa, that suggested a broader realignment thanks to fired-up women.

All of these stories happened, of course. But if you don’t have the votes to support the vibes, those stories remain anecdotal. Regardless of your enthusiasm or that of your friends, the folks with the most votes win elections, and they’re the ones who will make the choices we have to live with over the next two to four years.

This column has come together without knowing the final results of all these races. Final tallies may take days to arrive.

But I think it’s worthwhile for all of those who follow politics or work somewhere in the spectrum of public affairs to recognize that our own personal morality doesn’t matter one iota when it comes to wielding political power.

The vibes the progressives clung to over the past few months — at least since Harris entered the presidential race — appear to be nothing more than vibes. Not just in Kansas, either. When a nation has fractured 50-50, winning takes ambitious strategy, relentless focus and a willingness to rethink your basic approach.

Perhaps one day that will change and a blue wave will sweep across the nation. But no such wave crested Tuesday.

At this point, I’m not drawing wider conclusions about the United States or Kansas. I will leave that to others with more time to process raw information into steaming hot takes.

I have two additional thoughts this evening.

One is that Kansans and voters across the United States have made their decisions. That’s how our representative democracy works. We will now see how those decisions play out. I hope, regardless of my personal beliefs about our leaders’ character or ideology, that they succeed in improving our state and nation.

Second, as I wrote on Monday, everyone’s lives continue. Everyone’s world continues. Those of us interested in making it a better place, in whatever way we can, should keep doing so. If that means speaking truth to those in power and making our voices heard, so be it. If that means taking care of ourselves and our families and our communities, so be it.

I’ll be here, writing these columns and editing this commentary section, because that’s what I know. See you soon.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

You want to talk about that new poll showing Kansas as a potential swing state? OK, let’s talk about that new poll showing Kansas as a potential swing state.

The annual Kansas Speaks survey from the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State University showed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a mere five points behind Republican candidate Donald Trump. Given that the survey covers traditionally conservative Kansas, political pundits pounced.

“BREAKING: Trump only winning by 5 In KANSAS,” wrote legal commentator Tristan Snell.

“If Harris is only down 5 to Trump in Kansas – election night is going to be very good for Democrats,” added Obama campaign and administration alumnus Tim Fullerton.

“…holy s---?” exclaimed journalist and lawyer Seth Abramson.

Let’s step back from excited progressive reactions for a moment and actually talk about the poll, what it means and whether Harris has a shot in Kansas. (Spoiler alert, she almost certainly does not). We found a great person to help us break things down: Brett Zollinger, director of the Docking Institute itself. He sat down with Kansas Reflector staff on Tuesday afternoon to give background on those surprising results.

First off, we should understand that the data presented comes from a survey, not a poll. Kansas Speaks primarily tracks public opinion on issues rather than candidates. It gathers a representative panel of Kansans and collects information from them via a carefully designed survey online.

“The presidential election is a very minor focus for us in Kansas Speaks,” he said. “We are far more focused on policies, issues that are going to be relevant to Kansans, likely to come up in the legislative session, that sort of thing. But every four years, we get this unique opportunity to see what our survey methodology bears out in terms of some actual voter decisions in the state in the presidential election. So in 2020, we were within 0.2% actually, in the spread between Trump and Biden with our survey panel methodology.”

For reference, in 2020 Trump finished at 56.2% in Kansas, while President Joe Biden reached 41.6%, a 14.6 percentage point gap. The 2020 Kansas Speaks survey found 52% support for Trump and 37.6% for Biden, a 14.4 percentage point gap.

That earlier accuracy was much remarked upon by online commentors. But Zollinger wanted Kansas Reflector readers to understand that the modeling and weighting decisions made for the Kansas Speaks survey are not necessarily the same ones made by political polling firms. They’re playing different games.

“If we were actually trying to measure, with a lot of predictive ability, the presidential vote turnout, we would probably engage in a fuller methodology common to the survey industry, especially the presidential polling industry,” Zollinger said. “We don’t. But we do winnow it down to registered voters who say that they plan to vote, which is not a bad methodology necessarily for doing that. And the survey panel is what it is. These are folks who have opted in to be surveyed. It’s not uncommon to use these today. Pew Research has its own big one. Gallup has one.”

Researchers looked at various demographic factors, he said, “and we did pretty much a simple proportionate weighting.” (You can dig into the crosstabs on page 96.) They did the same with their 2020 results.

“We took the proportion in the sample who fit a certain age profile, and we adjusted it to the state’s age profile of adults, same with gender, same with education. … We believe it is the most reasonable approach to trying to make up for some underrepresentation by some age groups in the panel and some underrepresentation by certain education levels,” Zollinger said.

Which brings us all down to the basic question: Do we believe the survey results?

I do, with caveats.

Kansas has changed. In the eight years since I returned to the state, I’ve watched as a motley mix of Republicans, Democrats and independents have rejected Trump and extreme ideologies. I’ve watched a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Legislature to ban abortion fail by an 18-point margin. I’ve watched voters twice elect Democrat Laura Kelly as governor. I’ve also heard, over and and over, and read, in repeated email messages, that Kansans don’t like the current political atmosphere.

Now, that doesn’t turn us into an immediate swing state. It doesn’t guarantee a Democratic Legislature anytime soon. But it does, at least from my perspective, suggest that Republicans can’t count on a blank check from Kansas voters.

Trump will almost certainly win Kansas. But that margin will matter.

Alex Middlewood, a political scientist at Wichita State, weighed in on the survey results via a Tweet thread. She said the results showed that Trump has been losing ground in Kansas over the past eight years.

“His vote share in 2020 was lower than it was in 2016, and 2024 is very likely going to be even lower. Make no mistake, Trump is going to win Kansas,” she wrote. “However, any shift in the margins, like we’re seeing from these results, will likely have major impact on the state legislature races. Ds are working hard (and spending lots of money) to break the R supermajority. These results should give them hope.”

More Kansans speak

I’ve been keeping track of interesting presidential endorsements in Kansas news outlets over the past couple of weeks. You might not be able to read an endorsement from the Washington Post, but these plucky Kansans have a lot to say.

“Rep. Steven Howe reflects on voting for Trump after earlier criticism,” by Steven Howe, Salina Post, Oct. 26.

“My fellow conservatives, we have to split the ticket to save the US Constitution,” by David Mastio, Kansas City Star, Oct. 29.

“Oops, I voted for Hitler…again,” by Dane Hicks, Kansas Informer, Oct. 30.

“Kamala Harris has what it takes,” by Susan Lynn, The Iola Register, Oct. 25.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

Sometimes you need to step back to see what’s right in front of you.

That alarming fact struck me last week as I watched firsthand how institutional forces conspire to deny Kansans the ability to vote for the candidates of their choice. I don’t believe the parties involved all gathered in some smoke-filled room to make their decisions, but they have nonetheless aligned themselves against pluralistic democracy and encouraged creeping authoritarianism.

On Wednesday, Facebook deleted our post referring to freelancer Grace Hills’ simple story explaining how Kansas can vote in the upcoming election. With Oct. 15 as the deadline for voter registration, the story was a timely reminder of how Kansans could participate in the political life of their state.

But Facebook didn’t want you to see it, claiming that “it looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.” Not only could we not post the article but Kansas Reflector followers couldn’t either. The platform has at various points shut down pages belonging to the League of Women Voters of Lawrence-Douglas County and Kansas Reflector. Meta, the parent company behind Facebook, apparently has been deploying an artificial intelligence bot that mistakenly targets innocuous political material.

On Thursday, a press briefing from the Alliance for Youth Organizing featured Loud Light president Davis Hammet in a roundtable discussion with youth voting advocates from across the nation. Hammet recounted how the Kansas Legislature passed the bill that essentially shut down voter registration drives formerly carried out by Loud Light, the League of Women Voters and other groups. Those carrying out such drives could theoretically be prosecuted if someone mistook them for government officials, leading to uncertainty and legal exposure. A judge finally blocked the law’s enforcement this summer.

“The reason this really matters is that when you register someone to vote when they’re 18 or 19, they become more likely to vote for the rest of their life,” Hammet said on the call. “And the inverse is true. When they are deprived of that opportunity to get registered, to get engaged, they are less likely to participate. Not just in elections, but in civic life in general for the rest of their life. So voter suppression, but particularly voter registration suppression, causes irreparable harm, not just to young voters but to our entire country and to the idea of democracy.”

I didn’t want to just write about Facebook taking down links to our article. And while youth voting advocacy matters a great deal, Kansas Reflector reporters have covered that story. (Columnists have taken it on, too.)

But then it struck me: This is the same story. This is one and the same story.

This is a story about powerful institutions on the state and national levels who have decided that they want to make it more difficult for people to participate in the political process. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has apparently soured on the entire political process and reconciled with former president Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Kansas legislators have routinely found themselves in thrall to charlatans who claim voter fraud is a pressing threat.

Rather than steel their nerves and push forward with what is obviously the right course of action — engaging people of all ages in the democratic process — the Kansas Legislature and social media oligarchs have decided to shut it all down. Or come as close as they can.

We have no idea how many Kansas youths missed the opportunity to register through a drive conducted by Loud Light or other civic organizations. They may be silenced for decades to come. Likewise, we have no idea how many people browsing Facebook last week might have seen a link to Hills’ story and clicked, learning more about engaging with the political process. Facebook didn’t just suppress the story but actually took it down, leaving them without the opportunity.

In the background, Trump and his poisonous partisans have continued to claim without basis or justification that the 2020 election was stolen and that the 2024 election may be tampered with as well. The first didn’t happen, and the second won’t happen either.

But that’s not the point. These political actors hope to use confusion and anti-democratic messaging to suppress voter turnout and advance their own political project. It’s an absolute scandal. No matter your party, no matter your ideology, no matter your age, or background, please recognize the threat.

Our individual rights do not come from Facebook. They are not granted by shortsighted Kansas legislators. They do not issue forth from one campaign office or another. Our rights belong to us and us alone, as Kansans and Americans. We have the right to guide our government. We have the right to speak against those who would silence us.

We will only be suppressed if we allow ourselves to be.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are fleeing for the exits.

News broke Thursday that two-term Rep. Jake LaTurner of Kansas, a shiny-cheeked lad of 36, would retire at the end of the year. He joins Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Ken Buck of Colorado and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina in choosing not to run or resigning right away. Altogether, reports Axios, nearly 20 House GOP members have decided to leave the chamber without firm plans.

Everyone who leaves, of course, wants to explain their reasons for doing so. I’ve taken the liberty of composing a generic explanation for these departing politicians. Anyone else wanting to abandon the “increasingly chaotic” chamber can use it as a template, too!

Dear home state friends and voters, although mostly those donors who wrote gigantic checks to fund my election:

I write with a heavy heart today to announce that I will not run again for my beloved congressional seat. It has been my pleasure to serve the amazing, wonderful, awesome and totally hot people of Wisconsin or Colorado or Kansas. This of course is why I decided to work in Washington, D.C., so I did not have to see many of them.

For these past two years in Washington, D.C., all I could think about was my home state of Wisconsin or Colorado or North Carolina. Mainly about how good it felt not to be there.

Unfortunately, the time has come for me to depart from the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol. Actually scratch that. I’ll probably return to those halls sooner or later, but as a big-time lobbyist making a lot more money and doing far less work.

Sure, some might say this has to do with the gridlock and dysfunction caused by Republicans having a narrow margin and a bunch of legislators who would rather talk about Jewish space lasers than legislation. But this isn’t true at all. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and myself all get along super fine. I would rather encounter their awesomeness at a safe distance. With security guards if necessary.

No, I want to spend more time with my spouse. Or I want to spend more time with my spouse and young children or my spouse and teenage children or my spouse and grandchildren. Perhaps I just want to spend more time with my mistress and possessions.

What accomplishments am I most proud of? Well, I did listen to Rep. Greene talking about those lasers for 45 minutes and didn’t throw my drink in her face. That counts, right? Also, I voted for whatever bills the speaker of the House told me to, whoever the speaker of the House happened to be that day. Whether he was Mike Johnson or Kevin McCarthy or anyone else who might have slipped in there for a minute or two, I respected and supported him.

Please know that we always wanted to do the best for Kansans or Coloradans or Wisconsinites. Like when we didn’t pass Ukraine aid for months and months and let Russian President Vladimir Putin come close to winning! That was great and something I’m totally proud of. So was the way that our Senate colleagues killed an immigration compromise with the Democrats for purely political reasons. Yay for us.

Don’t worry, though, we might suffocate even more important bills before my time is up.

I can’t close without paying tribute to the Big G, our lord and savior, the one who makes all this possible: Donald Trump. Ha ha, I kid (although not if you’re paying attention, Mr. President, sir). I of course mean Yahweh, the creator of all that surrounds us. He’s never led me wrong, except perhaps when he suggested that I should run for office during a time of corrosive partisanship and existential threats to the republic.

Naturally, attention now turns to my potential successor. Whoever follows me in representing North Carolina or Kansas or Colorado, I look forward to helping them in whatever way possible. As long as they’re a Republican and don’t talk about space lasers.

Also, whoever follows me in this job will have an incredibly awful time and find their soul being crushed every single day because of the horror that infests this place.

USA! USA! USA!

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

It shouldn’t take courage to do what Rep. Steven Howe, R-Salina, did earlier this month.

But it did.

Howe wrote a column about former President Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection and election denialism. He asked his fellow Republicans, in plain language, to take a different path while they still have time. With a full primary schedule ahead of us — and the Kansas presidential primary set for March 19 — the party could choose to look forward rather than backward, focus on attracting new voters rather than exacting revenge, and work together with Democrats for the good of our country.

Sure, I can hear you all out there saying, fat chance of that ever happening.

Yet Howe speaks with remarkable sincerity. As long as the GOP includes folks like him, we can’t abandon hope.

“For our republic to survive, it needs the peaceful transfer of power,” Howe told me during this week’s Kansas Reflector podcast. “And that is a bedrock foundational issue that has allowed us to survive as a democratic republic. And I feel like that is not something you toy with.”

Opinion writers and political pundits have spilled a lot of ink in recent years about party asymmetry. In other words, Democrats and Republicans don’t always behave in the same way. Democrats encompass a wide variety of warring factions, while Republicans look for order imposed from above. This can be overstated, but you certainly don’t have to look far before finding Democrats bad-mouthing President Joe Biden or his reelection campaign.

Finding Republicans willing to speak out against Trump — a twice-impeached former president who lost reelection and was subsequently indicted on 91 felony counts — takes more effort.

Yes, Howe is conservative. Yes, his political beliefs and ideology likely differ from mine. He also respects reality.

Thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters storm the U.S. Capitol building following a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. The protesters stormed the historic building, breaking windows and clashing with police. Trump supporters had gathered in the nation’s capital to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump in the 2020 election. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“After I wrote this, I received a message from a neighbor, or someone in the neighborhood, and someone that I’ve known for a while,” Howe said. “And they said they still believe the election was stolen, three years since Jan. 6 has happened. And I don’t know if I can change the minds of fellow Republicans that still believe that, because people will believe what they want to believe. And I’m only one person, and that I’m trying to shine the light on some things here for our fellow Republicans to consider.”

He added: “I think Republicans need to know that there is a Republican at the state level that isn’t going to support the former president.”

The most recent polling data aggregated by FiveThirtyEight.com suggests that even in Iowa, only a smidge more than 50% of Republicans would support the former president in the caucus. But as happened in 2016, an array of other candidates split the opposition vote.

As we’ve seen repeatedly in Kansas, reliable Republican voters seldom feel comfortable straying from their party when the general election comes around. That means that the choice of voters in primaries and caucuses — even if they represent a fraction of a fraction — carry outsized weight. Kansas political operatives have used this fact over the years to purge the Kansas Legislature of moderate voices.

All this empowers an ideologue like Trump.

And it leaves normal people out in the cold, unrepresented by their party.

“I’ve received quite a few encouraging notes from constituents, people that I’ve never heard from before, or maybe I’ve never met in person, but have sent me notes by email, some phone calls,” Howe said. “And people were encouraged by me coming forward and in writing the piece. And I think there’s more Republicans still out there that perhaps don’t want to speak publicly. They don’t want to get the backlash or the retribution that the former president has talked about if he’s reelected.”

The representative craves, as do I, a return to a different kind of political discourse. As Kansas Reflector’s opinion editor, I would love to write more often about truly progressive topics. Throughout the past three years I have instead written repeatedly about basic facts. Science is real. Vaccines work. Widespread election fraud doesn’t happen.

Both Republicans and Democrats used to agree, if nothing else, on a shared basis of real-world experience.

Not so much today.

“To continue as a civil society, we need to allow each other space to be heard, and to listen,” Howe said. “And just because someone disagrees with your opinion, on a policy matter, or something like that, doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. And so I think a lot of times these days, people take things so personally, or they make it personal, when it doesn’t have to be. And I think that’s the way we move forward is being civil, allowing for discourse, especially discourse from the other side. And we can find common ground.”

I sure hope so. But we all have to make it through the next act of the Donald Trump show first.

Read Rep. Steven Howe’s full column in the Salina Post.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

Everyday folks don’t want to think about it because it makes them uncomfortable and sad.

National news media types don’t want to think about it because they have stories to write throughout the next year.

The truth is, however, barring a bolt from the blue, next year’s U.S. presidential election will feature Democratic incumbent Joe Biden running against Republican Donald Trump. All of the drama and dread we came to expect in 2016 and 2020 will return, only tireder. The sooner we focus on the specifics of the likely race, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson told me in this week’s Kansas Reflector podcast, the better off we’ll be.

“There’s a natural desire to want to have a political horse race, there’s a natural desire to want to have a contest, even where one doesn’t really exist,” said Wilson, a longtime GOP strategist and ad maker who spurned Trump all the way back in 2015. Founded by former Republican stalwarts, the Lincoln Project has devoted itself to opposing Trump and supporting democracy.

“We all know how this is going to turn out,” he continued. “We knew from the beginning there wasn’t gonna be a big Democratic primary. We knew from the beginning that Donald Trump had a dominant position inside the Republican Party at every single level that mattered. … It’s one thing to want something politically, but it’s another thing to acknowledge the realities of where we stand in the country. And the reality is, it’s going to be a Trump and Biden shootout.”

Since Wilson and I spoke last month, Trump has continued to trample on norms. He called for the execution of outgoing U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. He may have purchased a handgun illegally. He pushed for a government shutdown to “defund” the myriad criminal prosecutions against him.

Most Americans, most Kansans for that matter, likely don’t want to pay attention.

They want to move on and think about something else.

But that’s not going to happen. Trump has a pathological need for attention, and as long as he breathes and has a receptive audience, he will do anything to get it. Forget running for president in 2024. If he loses and stays healthy, he will run again in 2028. If he wins, he will push for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so he can run for a third term. If the man could push through the horror of Jan. 6, 2021, when he instigated an armed insurrection against the government he led, he will push through any barriers in pursuit of power.

Meanwhile, Biden seems like a nice fellow who has done a credible job as president. The United States boasts low unemployment, workers have seen higher wages (although inflation has taken a toll) and NATO has been united in fending off an authoritarian aggressor. Those accomplishments haven’t translated into widespread support, though.

Wilson sees that as more or less baked into the current partisan environment.

“We live in a country now where where no president is likely to get above 50% ever again. That’s how divided we are as a nation,” he told me. “And I get it, I do I get it. The difficulty (Biden) faces is that there’s a massive media machine on the other side that every day declares that the world is burning. The economy is terrible. And has this sort of fantasy vision that doesn’t match up to the realities or the numbers.”

I’m flummoxed looking ahead to next year.

On one hand, Trump seems like more cartoon character than candidate at this point. His rallies have devolved into bizarre soliloquies of rage and vengeance. What kind of second term would he have, and who on earth would volunteer to work for him?

On the other, Biden seems to fade into view like a faint TV transmission from an earlier era, the kind of spotty broadcast where you miss every third word. He hails from a more genteel era of politics that has been almost entirely obliterated by angry ideologues. Even a lengthy list of accomplishments, it seems, can’t match the allure of angry talking heads.

Are we really going to do this?

If so, a wider perspective might help. Kansas proved last year how voters would turn out to support abortion rights. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade has transformed politics around the issue. Wilson told me engagement with the subject has scarcely waned.

“If you ask a random Democratic consultant, ‘Hey, what are the big issues?’ they would tell you, the economy, climate, guns, cat and dog other things, right?” he said. “None of those things break out of the lowest possible tier compared to Dobbs. Dobbs is the killer app. Dobbs is the thing that has that has a wildly disproportionate impact on voter behavior.

“As of right now, the other thing that has been underscored is that Americans now understand that our democracy is under threat. And between jobs and democracy … there’s a much different political climate in the country than anybody anticipated two years ago.”

Wilson and I talked about so much more during the podcast, including the current political environment and next year’s elections. He also gave his opinion on the “No Labels” group, which has been attempting to put a third-party presidential candidate on the ballot. Please listen.

For the next 13 months, you might want to buckle up.

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