Tag: Kansas

The Story: On Tuesday, August 4, Republican Party voters in Kansas selected Roger Marshall, a physician and a staunchly pro-Trump figure, to run for the...

The Story: The much-watched race to replace Pat Roberts, a Republican who has represented Kansas in the US Senate for 24 years, has heated up....

The Story: The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, declines to be pinned down on the question of whether he will, at some point in...

The Story: The US Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments again on the first Monday in October. This year that falls on October 7.  Some...

The Story: Pat Roberts (R - Kan), a man who has been in the US Senate for more than two decades and who for...

The Story: Pat Roberts (R - Kan), a man who has been in the US Senate for more than two decades and who for...

The Centre for American Women and Politics and Rutgers University, which has been keeping track of the number of women elected, showed that even before all the races had been called, women had broken previous records in the Congress. Many of these women are trailblazers in other respects too. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Abby Finkenauer of Iowa are both 29 years old, making them the youngest women ever elected to Congress. Davids will also make history as the first openly gay woman of colour in Congress, and forms part of what the New York Times has described as an “LGBT wave” who hope to counter the threat posed to civil rights by legislation such as the so-called “bathroom bill” and the Trump administration’s attempts to define transgender out of existence. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota will together be the first Muslim women in Congress. Their stories are both remarkable: Tlaib is a social justice attorney who grew up in Detroit, the eldest of 14 children born to Palestinian parents, and ran on a progressive platform including a $15 minimum wage and Medicare-for-all. Omar is a refugee from Somalia, who spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before arriving in the US aged eight and is similarly running on a left-wing platform. Ayanna Pressley has become the first black woman to represent to Massachusetts in Congress, and Jahana Hayes the first black woman to represent Connecticut in Congress. Things are looking less hopeful in Georgia, where progressives had high hopes that Stacey Abrams could become the first black woman appointed to governor. Analysis by ABC suggests that minorities, women and young people are voting in higher numbers than usual, which boosts the Democratic vote and could help explain voters’ support for diverse candidates with non-traditional backgrounds.

A political candidate once gained traction in the Kansas governor’s race running on only a single issue. That political outsider — to put it in today’s terminology — was Emporia’s own William Allen White, and he wanted to ensure the Ku Klux Klan did not gain a foothold in Kansas, much as it had in several other states at the time. The talk addressed the attempted rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas and what White did to help shut it down. Whatever the cause, this resurgence ultimately resulted in White running for governor as an Independent candidate in the 1924 election. Those three anti-KKK candidates all won their races, including incumbent Attorney General Charles B. Griffith. White ran because he was dissatisfied with both Republican candidate Ben S. Paulen and Democratic incumbent Jonathan M. Davis. Though Paulen ultimately won the governorship, he didn’t show any favoritism to the Klan, she said. Buller said she believes he may have learned from White’s campaign. “Whatever his Klan ties were, I like to think that he learned something from William Allen White, from all of the things that he said for those six weeks,” she said. “But yeah, that’s really something to think about and I think he very well could have been one of them — could have joined the Republicans that we’re seeing on TV now saying, ‘I’m a lifelong Republican, but I can’t vote for our current candidate.’ I’m not positive.

Watch LIVE on October 6th at 7:30pm EST: President Trump goes to Kansas, where GOP Congressman Kevin Yoder is locked in a tight race against his Democratic opponent, Sharice Davids. Trump is likely to talk about Brett Kavanaugh, his Supreme…

Emily Reid National: Hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh started this week. President Trump selected Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh, a conservative judge, was questioned this week, by the Senate Judiciary Committee about his position on key topics such as abortion rights, presidential power and the second amendment. Former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, 76, will be filling late John McCain’s senate seat until a new congressional term starts in Jan. 2019. Kyl and McCain served together representing their home state for almost 20 years. President Trump fired back, calling the writer “gutless” and demanding the New York Times release the name of the author. Local: The GOP spent 1.8 million dollars this week on two competitive Kansas representative districts: the third district race with Republican incumbent Kevin Yoder verses Democrat Sharice Davids, and the race for the vacant seat left by Senator Lynn Jenkins, which is a toss up between Democrat Paul Davis and Republican Steve Watkins. Republican Kris Kobach, Democrat Laura Kelly and Independent Greg Orman, the candidates for Kansas governor had a fierce debate in Overland Park on Wednesday. They talked tax cuts, immigration, education and gun rights., only agreeing on legalizing sports betting in Kansas. Former Republican Kansas Governor Bill Graves announced his support Tuesday, for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Laura Kelly.