Over the past few years, moderate Republicans have seen their numbers dwindle as the Kansas State House, as increasingly ideological lawmakers took charge. A new organization with former Senate President Steve Morris as a founding board member hopes to change that equation. Unclear wire stone the Kansas reflectors, opinion editor, and I sat down with Morris and GOP operative Mitch Rucker to learn more about their plans. Yeah, so happy, happy Monday morning to you. Tell me a little bit about this project that you're involved with and and launching this month,
the project is a 501 c 4501. C four is an entity that set up for mainly education. But in fact, 51% of the resources for a 501 C four are dedicated to the education. And the need is we want this entity to be able to educate voters about issues and about candidates that are on the right side of those issues. And that's basically the purpose of the 501 C four.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, even even taking it a step further is identifying the the voters who are kind of with us on those issues, is, I think, a challenge that that kind of more moderate or centrist candidates have had over the years, we know that they are out there, and that they're willing to turn out at least every so often then in a primary. But you know, it's also I think, part of our work to identify those voters and to help get us and then organized around around a set of ideas that we do agree on.
So drilling down a little a little more gentleman. I mean, what do you see is the need in Kansas right now? So like what's what's pushing the creation of this educational entity? You know, why? Why do you think it's be it's needed at this point?
I believe that we have a legislature that's out of touch with the majority of Kansans give you a couple of examples, Medicaid expansion, I think the some 70% of Kansas, support Medicaid expansion. And the legislative leash leadership has refused to let it come up for a vote. That's why passed several years ago when Brownback was governor, that unfortunately, he vetoed it and there weren't enough votes to override the veto. That's to spend a little bit on Medicaid expansion, not 90% of the cost is paid by the federal government. And I think it's a win win, to get the 170,000 people in Kansas, provide them with medical care. In that way, some of the hospitals and other medical facilities that have to eat that cost will be helped, that a lot of the hospitals are struggling. And I think that will help them and it will be a win win for Kansas and certainly help on economic development. So that's one of the issues that we're concerned about. But in general, I think that the legislature has migrated too far to the right, you have a super majority of Republicans in the legislature, the legislative leadership, telling them what they can do and what they can't do.
Yeah. You know, just to expand on that, to put the numbers that I happen to be, you know, working in the State House at the the time that he mentioned, when we did have, you know, that 40 Republicans there in the house at the time, who would you know, who were not only supportive of Medicaid expansion, but who were willing to vote to override a veto of Medicaid expansion by Governor Brown back and to go from that just, you know, five or six years ago, to where we are today, where they will not even allow it to have a hearing, I think is is one example of just how far these ideological extremes, you know, folks have have taken us to the, to the extremes and the real impact that it's having on public policy here.
But another issue is the flat tax proposal that came up last year in the legislature and the governor vetoed it. And she looked at what will happen if flat taxes passed, be a major tax cut for wealthy and well to do people, and a tax increase for everyone else. And if you look back to the Brownback years when he engineered a severe draconian tax cuts, it took several years for the state to recover from that. And I would certainly hate to see us go back to those days. Not only would it be a tax increase for most people, but it would be a major hit to the state general fund.
Yeah, you know, Steven and Mitch, both of you, obviously, have worked in the Kansas legislature and various in various ways from higher to lower. What do you think has changed? I mean, Mitch, you mentioned this, you know, the Medicaid passing not very long ago, from in the legislature, you know, what do you think has changed over this, you know, this five to 10 year period?
I think that many of the legislators that have been elected are, are really hard, right? We we've done the hard right for voice. Several years ago, when I was involved with the Senate, we had majority of the the Senate in the house, either in the center center, right or center left, we didn't have the extremes of hard left or hard. Right. And I think the hard ride is where we are right now. And, and I don't believe that the majority of Kansas are there. I think the majority of the Kansas majority of changes are in the center or center, right or center left.
Yeah, I think the Senator Patrick just right. I mean, we've seen a change in the, the focuses, I think, are the reasons the motivations for people, you know, when they when they come to speak at, you know, maybe used to be more common that folks were there to think about good public policy and how we could, you know, do do good things to help with people Kansas, and now it seems to be more about just creating partisan fights and making sure that you seem hard writer, you know, seem conservative enough, you know, for the for the next election cycle, rather than doing the work of, of trying to build consensus and, and reach across the aisle to actually get things accomplished for for the people of Kansas.
So let me sorry, go ahead.
No, I was just gonna say, in the past years, we had a coalition of butter Republicans and Democrats that work together to do good things for the state. And we were successful in doing that. But I don't see that bipartisan cooperation happening now.
Well, and I would add that even on the national level, where you just saw Democrats join with Republicans in the US House of Representatives to pass just a temporary funding patch, you know, that might be costing the Speaker of the House his job, just because they had some bipartisan cooperation to pass 45 days worth of funding.
That's very true.
And I think that is probably the bigger the big example of kind of the maybe the issue we're trying to take a bite out of here is that, you know, in our current political environment, there's a cost, there's a political cost to anybody who does, at least on the Republican side, not if not more so than on the Democratic side here. Anyway, there's a political cost to trying to reach across the aisle because of, you know, our partisan system. And the you know, that we see that playing out at, you know, the big stage in Washington, DC, but we are certainly not immune from those same challenges that are that are kind of baked into the the two party system. That's, you know, right here at home.
So,
let's talk a little bit now about about Kansas, Kansas first, or Kansas first, Kansans, Kansas first. Obviously, this is something that's probably been in the works for a little bit. So if you guys could tell me what kind of response are you hearing from folks, as you describe this, this new organization? What kind of feedback are you hearing? I'd say
people have been very positively been receptive. And IT folks are frustrated. I think with the fighting that they see coming out of all levels of government, you know, federal and state And the lack of any seeming desire to work together, you know, we at least used to used to see that as an ideal worth working towards. And it's, you know, hearing hearing our legislative leaders talk, it sounds like that's not even something that they want to do anymore. And people are fed up with that, at least the ones that I talked to, and they need that they feel the need, for some way to organize and hold people accountable to the, to the center, to the center, that we can all kind of coalesce around, and that's what we're building Kansans first, to be. And, yeah, people seem to be hungry for something like that.
Thinking back to 2016, we had a similar entity called Save Kansas coalition. And we were somewhat successful with that coalition was able, we were able to, to help get some moderates elected. And because of that, in 2017, the Brownback tax cut was reversed. And then that started the state on their road to financial recovery. But then, nothing was really done after that. So we lost that impetus. And now we're back where we were back then.
Although, I mean, on the positive side with those budget changes, I mean, the state is now sitting on I don't know, what is it two or $3 billion in the bank at this point? I mean, Kansas is in a much different fiscal status situation than it was for most of the 20 teens.
That's right. And their argument against Medicaid expansion by some of the legislature said we can't afford it. Yeah, that's
absurd. It is. And, yeah, it certainly were, the legislature that that's there now, and will be coming in is in a much different situation than they were in when was a staffer, you know, looking at, you know, several digits of worth of red ink budget profiles. But, you know, the, the environment obviously, is very different, a lot of that, we can't attribute all of that the current surplus, you know, to that to that tax from obviously, a lot of it's one time money from the federal government, and, and, you know, the funding that came out during the pandemic. So, you know, it's a different situation, but I hope that they are willing to exhibit some restraint. And, you know, just again, be responsible stewards of our state government. And I'm not sure that the legislative leaders that we have in there right now, are the ones who would, you know, who love the key desire and being good stewards? And, you know, we'll try to do something ideological with it, that'll that'll put us right back in the red. Like,
no, I'm going to paraphrase this. But I understand that the majority leader, Senator Ali, made some comments the other day, saying that he would prefer tax cuts to spending money on health care.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. It's, it's funny, though, too, because I feel like the relative robustness of the state budget right now, it really is, is almost a bad situation for moderates of either party, because folks who are more ideological are not being called to account for kind of bad spending decisions, or bad fiscal policy believes, because you've got this kind of cushion in the treasury. Whereas, you know, I think before during the 20, teens, you know, there was, there was this kind of cut, cut cut mentality, and people could actually see the consequences of that. You're not so much seeing the consequences of that now. Accepting in the stuff that we have, we're not being able to do like Medicaid, for instance. So talk to me a little bit about the educational part of this, what what kind of education are you looking to do? What are kind of the what's the plan there
are certainly, you know, have wanted to build a coalition of those of us who who do reside closer to the political middle. And, you know, one of the challenges, you know, is that it's a group of folks where we have differing policy beliefs, different policy motivators Some motivations for what gets us interested in politics and the public policy process. And so we have to do some education on a lot of different issues and find where we can build that consensus. A lot of this is just finding out where were those of us in the middle are we have to find each other and start to get organized. That will be, I think, around issues like Medicaid expansion, you know, some of these things where we do have an A 70%. You know, 70% of us agree that that's something worth doing. We got to find more of those issues so that we can rebuild the practice of bipartisanship and working together to find those areas of agreement rather than focusing only on the areas where we where we disagree. I think that's a habit that we have lost over the last few years. And I think that that part of our job, in the coming months will be to help us get, get used to that, again, get used to talking to each other again, and having these sorts of big picture, sometimes difficult conversations that are still important to have
a 501 C four, we're not able to make direct contributions to candidates. But that's the reason for the education. Part of this is to educate people on positions of candidates and educate them on the need to address these major issues.
Talk me through kind of the the short, so I guess you kind of met, we're at answering the question about kind of the short term, a little bit in terms of figuring out these areas of consensus among folks in the middle. But what's kind of the more medium term goal? What are you guys hoping to accomplish over the next, you know, year or two? How do you how do you see the Kansans first developing?
Well, I would help them be successful and helping more reasonable candidates get elected. I think that, in some cases, even a few new, more reasonable House members or senators, there makes a difference, particularly in override issues, such as Governor vetoes something. And if there are enough people to sustain those vetoes. That would be one of those short term goals.
Yeah, I second that, and, yeah, I think short term, short term. Yeah. And, and probably an ongoing goal will be to continue to build the coalition to those of us in the political middle, and make that as broad as possible, actually strive to, you know, be a big tent where people can, can come together. And, and yeah, and hopefully, we will be able to turn that into, you know, something that we can we can use to get people to the to the voting booths, you know, income coming, especially come August, I think that that is really the the main challenge is that is that we have in our partisan system, we have a two different elections. And a lot of these people, you know, these kinds of extreme ideologues get in there, simply because, you know, they when they went in in August primary that very few people, relatively speaking vote. And so we need to change the makeup of that election and remind folks that, hey, we have two elections every, you know, every cycle. And it's important to vote both times, if you're fed up with your choices come November, vote in August, because that's when your choices get chosen. So I think that is probably the medium, the medium term goal.
And I think it's somewhat encouraging to see what happened a year ago, August with the vote on that constitutional amendment, you know, 60% of the of the people voting against that amendment. And that was a much larger turnout in a primary than we've seen in past years. So maybe people are starting to pay more attention.
Absolutely. Hopefully, we can, you know, build on, you know, build on that.
Well, it's interesting, you're talking about the primary because I was reading a piece and this was talking, speaking about the national situation, but it's much the same thing, which is that there's a very small sliver of the electorate, who actually decides who represents us, a shocking number of people in America. It's just those primary voters because we have At least in the United States, so many safe party seats for like the House of Representatives, and so whoever is going to be in that safe seat, you know, as decided in the primary election, like that's, that's the ballgame. And that's whoever turns up in turns out in August,
right. And it really is just as simple as showing up in August. And we see that people do from time to time. And it was just that we need to do that on a consistent basis, in order to have to build long term sustainable, you know, power and actually having strong a strong middle, you know, to tether, you know, our more ideological friends to
this will probably never happen. But I would like to see an open primary. There was a lot of problems, but we'll probably never see Kansas. So,
in also in talking about Kansas, first, are you guys willing to talk about some of the some of the folks that you're you're working with, or some folks that are part of the the team with you right now?
Yeah, so I'm really excited that, you know, I'll be able to work with someone named Chris Kortright. He has graciously agreed to join our board. It is a bipartisan board, it's going to take a wide group of people to to make this effort work. And, yeah, Chris, he was an economist, for a long time recently retired, but as agreed to kind of help us out and, you know, again, so that we can, you know, work to establish, again, work from the same set of facts. And again, use US policy as kind of what we're able to, to organize around. And again, just kind of define what what the political middle means. So I'm, I'm really excited to work with with smart, well intentioned people like that across the state.
Chris is an expert on tax tax history and tax issues probably as much as anyone else in the whole state of Kansas.
Yeah. And I also have to ask, given that a month or two ago, we, we heard from Governor Laura Kelly on this podcast, she starred in kind of a middle of the road pack, you know, under her a kind of under her initiative, how would you say what you're doing is different from that? Go ahead, Mitch. You got senator?
Well, I would say it's complimentary that what the governor is doing. So as I mentioned earlier, we cannot contribute directly to candidates. But a PAC certainly can. And I think, was her middle of the road pack. And we've said throughout Kansas, first, they'll work together. The governor is always, in my opinion, Minar not really a partisan person. I remember working with her when we were both in the state senate, on things that were good for the state, and I never did see any partisan efforts from her. And if this is a continuation of what she's tried to do, as governor is to, to do this middle of the road pack.
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. And I think that, you know, wherever we can, we can find, you know, groups who agree that the center is something worth building up. You know, we certainly want to want to work together. I think that it's it's good that the governor has started started her back and hopefully, this with it's probably more Republican focus will be a nice complement so that we can build up the political middle path on on both sides of the aisle and, and, and work together.
I've been told to center President Masterson has, has told people that anyone accepts that trips or contribution from this pack will be kicked off of their committees.
Which, I guess in and of itself kind of says a lot of why you feel like your organization is needed.
Exactly right. I mean, that's just
so, Steve, Mitch, any any parting thoughts about what you're what you're wanting to do and what you're looking forward to?
Well, we're looking forward to as we talked earlier, about educating the public about this is about candidates position on those issues. And I hope that we can convince enough people to vote in the right direction, we can help the state move forward in a positive direction.
Yeah, and and I think that is that is our goal, that's our mission. One other thing that I think is going to be particularly important that we didn't touch on yet is, is the issue of education and of rural education in particular, you know, this legislature, you know, has shown itself unwilling even to be fully fund our special education needs. And, you know, meanwhile, we have schools in rural Kansas that are that are struggling, in closing, shoot, the one in my hometown, has closed. And so that, that is a massive challenge that our state is going to face in the coming years, it doesn't seem like we have the folks in there in the legislature at the moment, who are willing or even interested in working on policy that will do anything to help our rural students. They keep, you know, pushing these, these voucher plans that, you know, may be fine for a more populated areas, but certainly aren't going to do much for us in western Kansas. So, you know, I think that's going to be another major issue that we look forward to work on. But, yeah, I mean, I think even more so it is just simply doing the work of finding each other, you know, and then trying to strengthen that that political middle that we used to have in Kansas, and that we'd like to build back up.
What are our Secretary of State, Scott Schwab, has said that our last several elections were run very smoothly. And he was proud of the way they run. But yet we have so many legislator that are trying to do voter suppression laws. In fact, I think one of those laws is in the courts right now. So I hope that we can educate people about not doing voter suppression laws and makes it more difficult for people to vote.
Well, Steve Morris, mesh rocker, thank you so much for coming on the podcast this week. I appreciate it. Take care. Well, thank you.
