Hello Kansas reflector listeners. I'm Reporter Rachel NEWPRO. And I'm here today with State Representative season who is surely Democrat. We're going to discuss how legislation drafted by national hate groups have trickled their way into state law. Thank you for being here.
Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for the invitation.
Yeah. So I think first, what I'm really curious about is you're one of the first openly gay lawmakers pretty much in the state right as you and Woodard and you were both elected around the same time. 2018 2018 Yeah. And so what's that been like for you?
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's had a lot more highs and enhance lows, that's, that's for sure. You know, it was it was something to be able to be elected, and as the first two openly gay legislators in Kansas, and it comes with a lot of pressure, because it feels like we have the LGBTQ community on on our shoulders. And, you know, and of course, we came in hoping that there would be a lot of good things that we could do. And, and, you know, we talked about our gay agenda, as as many people want to say, in a negative way, but our gay agenda really was about Medicaid expansion, and it was about fully funding our public schools. And it was about funding our, our universities, it's about innovative kind of things we could do in our community colleges. You know, how what what could we do in order to better the lives of Kansans versus taking people's rights away. And, and in a part of the that long list that we that we had, you know, was to try to protect our rights as, as citizens, LGBTQ citizens in the state of Kansas, and we've not been able to accomplish that a lot of our agenda items have not, we have not been able to accomplish that. But what we met up with, were people trying to take away our rights, and they've been successful in this past session, they succeeded the most. But we, you know, we are not going to go down without a fight, so to speak, you know, we are going to just speak out, and we'll continue to fight for all those things. I'm also a clinical social worker. So there are things that I want, you know, that I know, that that the majority of Kansans have want. Medicaid expansion continues to be my number one priority. And with the, the disdain or the trying to dismantle our, our public school system, in Kansas, and Kansas isn't the only one, many, many states across the US are all facing those kinds of attacks and the trying to bring in vouchers, that will again, you know, really will dismantle our public school system. Those are all will continue to be the things that we will fight for. And yeah, you know, that's, that's our gay agenda.
And in the three years, you've been in office, I mean, what's it been like? Have you been worried? Have you seen positive change over these years?
You know, there, I have seen some positive change. And, you know, I tend to try to want to be more positive than negative. And the positive changes is that more and more legislators who are not Democrats are obviously would be more Republicans have are more comfortable with talking about LGBTQ issues, you know, rights. And so many have spoken to me have apologize for their party for things that that have happened. have told me, you know, I'm with you, but I can't, you know, because, you know, my party, our leadership won't, will put pressure, you know, on me in the pressure for most Republicans means that somehow they're going to be taken off committees or they're going to get primaried in the in an election. And so that's, it's disheartening to hear that I would rather hear people say I'm going to stand up to leadership and, and they're not. I understand, you know, the I understand both sides of this, but it's really difficult. But I think we are getting more here I mean, more and more allies, even if they are closeted allies in one sense. And I'm still hopeful that we can, you know, at some point, be able to change things around, you know, for the LGBT community. But I've and I just, I don't receive the same amount of publicity or even animosity that my colleague Brandon Woodard receives in, he sees he receives much more hateful things, not so much by legislators, although it has come through from some of them. But, you know, primarily on social media, and I don't, I don't get the same amount of that kind of nastiness. You know, it wasn't until like, stood up at one point during the legislature will be coming back to that, yeah, that I started receiving a lot of hateful stuff.
And we'll come back to this in a bit. But the incident she's referring to is this was very before the student athlete ban, or was this SB 180?
I think it was SB 180. I won't have blocked it out. Yeah,
it was a few things got heated there. But we'll go back to that a minute. In terms of apologies, was this during the recent session, or what really apologize it
was during the recent session, and it was primarily because of how, you know, I know, we're gonna go back to it, but it has to do with, you know, the, what ensued after the vote for 180.
So that will bring us to our next point, you've kind of covered this a little bit, but how is your experience as a gay Kansan citizen, like just as a policymaker, how has that affected what legislation you support what legislation you really advocate for and against?
Well, you know, it's, it's, you know, as a, as a legislator, who is, you know, who's gay, you know, I've, I have to be able to, to look at a bigger picture, you know, and not only issues affecting, you know, being affected or affected LGBT, Q community, but the reality is anything that has to do with social services, you know, medical practices, health and any health and human services, issues are going to affect the LGBTQ community. And so part of what I like to do is, is in feel like I need to do is to always keep so many groups in my mind, you know, I'm also Mexican American. And so as a Latina, I'm, you know, I'm also concerned about our Latino community in Kansas. And so, you know, I've, there's so many things that I have to be able to speak out, for and or against. And so there's a lot of groups, you know, in my head, and so I'm always having to kind of juggle all of that, you know, in my head, but the reality is, for me, I feel the, the pressure on my shoulders to, to carry the LGBTQ community. And when things don't go well, knowing what those those consequences are going to be, you know, and I, when I go to a to the well, and they speak against a bill that I know is going to take people's rights, take away their rights, I you know, oftentimes it has to do with kids in, in in when we talk about kids, we're not talking about necessarily 18 year olds, you know, we're talking about children in kindergarten, little kids. And, and, and, and how many of them are very, you know, they, the children are watching, they are watching us, and they're listening to us. And you know, it's, I hear way too often of kids taking their own life, or at least attempting to take their lives because they don't get the kind of support that they need, and or literally their rights to exist are trying to be taken away. And let's
talk about one time during the recent session in which he stood up for that, as we talked about a little bit earlier, SB 180, which is at the time everyone was building it as its wide ranging bathroom ban for transgender students, youth everything. Um, some of the language in the bill is that biological males I think it was a term should be banned from females specific spaces such as locker rooms, bathrooms, things of that nature. And right now we're having a sort of ongoing legal battle with Attorney General Kris Kobach. And Governor Kelly, over what in this law will be enforced and went into effect August 1. So during the discussion for that, I think things got a little bit heated there on the floor. What I think you didn't show it was that you're full of shit to someone supporting that
I did not. And I the Fox Four News miscoded. And that was partly why I got so much hate mail. Oh, yeah, it was because of that I was misquoted. What I said is, and I stood up and I pointed towards where the majority of the Republicans are sitting. They were laughing, joyfully. And about the fact that in this was after Governor Kenny Kelly had vetoed it. And this was after it was overturned. And again, you know, just just feeling that pressure of kids on my shoulders. I stood up because it was I felt it was disrespectful to those kids. For these legislators, grown adults to laugh at me Be joyful at at the defeat of that bill. I stood up and said that you don't give a shit about kids. And I was misquoted, but that is actually when I said is that I didn't think that they gave a shit about kids. And it did it got very heated, I was gaveled over and over. I didn't listen to the gaveling Because at that point I had, I was just so incensed at the fact that they were laughing about a defeat of a bill that can potentially and we're seeing the REM though the consequences of that right now. But we're, you know, we there are kids out there who are just teeter tottering on on on whether they should live or not. And I thought that that was just inhumane, you know, just, it was just a, it was just horrible that they would do that. And it was after that it was, you know, a couple hours after that, that some Republicans came to me, you know, if I was with them on the elevator, I'm walking down the hall or something they were saying, I'm sorry, I want to apologize for my colleagues, that we should not have done that. And you know, and there's, there's, there's decorum they should be followed, you know, that you don't you know, you don't celebrate, after you defeat a you know, a bad bill, or even if something passes, and we're all like yes, you know, a year, year, we're not supposed to really show emotion for that. So yeah, I did get, I get many, many legislators came to me and said that they were they were apologizing for the colleagues. But the people that were actually laughing about it never apologized.
And this little this new law, that was part of legislation from a national kind of hate group, I think they build it as like, I think we saw pretty much the exact draft of this SB 180, the anti Transgender Law as part of the independent women's forum, or independent woman's voice, which has been like a big proponent against things like equal pay a lot of national stuff. So I mean, do other lawmakers? Do you think they know that this is from national group? Has this bill been promoted as something unique to Kansas?
No, not everyone is aware of that. And, you know, and I don't, I think there were there were many of us, at least in the Democratic caucus, that we would bring that up. And hey, we found out that this is actually being authored or being influenced, you know, by, you know, this group or that group. And so I know that I and several other of our of my colleagues have, we've pointed that out to our caucus. I don't know if if other people even in the Republican Party even know that. That how it was influenced, you know, by by outside groups. I don't. I'm not sure I don't I'm not for certain.
So it's like, not it. It's just different in the party. Again, it's but no one's for sure. Acknowledged, hey, this is not coming from within our state.
No, no. And even if we were to go to the wellness and ask whoever's the carrier, the bill who actually authored the bill, you know, there's a lot of circling around that and then you never really get an answer. So there you have to do digging on your own. We have to do our own research to find that out that Oh, look. We know this group was in was in the car Capital and here they were at this committee, and now they're influenced. And now all of a sudden, we have a bill that's been influenced, you know, by them. And that's, you know, it's not unusual for groups to come to us, you know, you've got advocacy groups, we all have advocacy groups, we have lobbyists. But then you've got groups that really, they're intense it is, it seems to me, I don't know if this is for sure. But it just feels like to me that their intent is really to influence policy. And, and so for me, that makes a difference, you know, when you're an advocacy group, and you're a group that's trying to really influence policy, and or helping to write, you know, a bill. And so I think those are some distinctions that we have to make in it be in as a legislator, I have to be aware of those kinds of things. And just if I have to be aware about any advocacy group, or a lobbyist that comes, comes to me, or that I listened to, I have to have a third year over here saying, you know, you know, what are they really trying to do? And so I, I make no promises, you know, to folks, but you know, I will listen to what people have to say, but there really is a difference between an advocacy group and one that their goal is to is to, is to create policy. And it's interesting, because a lot of a lot of these groups are not based in Kansas, they may have an office in Kansas, but they're not based in Kansas, they're coming from Florida, Texas, Virginia. And, and is interesting, because when I've looked at their at their websites, they all say they're either nonpartisan, or they're bipartisan. And But yet, when you read everything, all the issues in in the resources, and then their policy papers that they put out, it's not it's a very biased, it's,
and we were talking about SB 180. But there is a bunch of, like different laws and legislation that we've looked at this legislative session that have been from outside groups, national groups. Let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, so we have the student athlete ban that's from I believe, again, independent woman's forum or National Alliance Defending Freedom. What else have we seen in terms of laws that you think are significant?
Well, I'm, in all these laws haven't passed, but what I just been in Health and Human Services Committee, you know, we there's a lot of bills that come through. And our chair, you know, we'll have to figure out which which which bills are actually get a hearing, you know, in our committee, but there was an organization there was a an organization called do no harm, and there was a physician by the name of Stanley Goldfarb, who who's out of we're based out of Virginia. And anybody, you can just Google, I do no harm. And you can see this what this group is about, and they're interesting group, because they think that, that anything that is dei related or anything like, you know, they bring up a lot about critical race theory, because it's, it's a catchphrase. And it's interesting, if you read his definition of critical race theory, it's, it's all wrong. But anyway. But his theory is that really having, like, if your medical schools in particular, if you're going to accept medical students, that it should be based on other things, and not on, you know, trying to get a diverse medical student group, or that they should not even have as part of their curriculum, anything to do with any differences in ethnicity, cultural groups, you know, when you're looking at when they're their medical school. And so they were particularly negative about the University of Kansas, KU. And I, you know, the deal is, we all have our laptops in front of us, you know, so it took nothing for me while this physician, so call physician is talking, I'm looking them up on the website, and I'm going, Oh, this is interesting. And it really comes down to the fact that they are very much against gender affirming care. They were targeting University of Kansas because you know, they they have a clinic and, but what they don't do is explain what gender affirming care really is people right away, you know, and Folks like this guy, this Do No Harm group want people to immediately have a picture of a child being you know, quote unquote, you know, worked on having surgery done on them to change their their gender. And when when that's not true, and they don't bother to educate anybody what gender affirming care really is. And for us women who have gone through menopause or have had hysterectomy, your might be put on estrogen or progesterone is any hormone that is gender affirming care. If you're a male, and you have erectile problem, and you're given a medication for that, the so called blue pill, that's gender affirming care, you know, so So to lump everything into that, and say, it's all negative is wrong, you know, so they don't do any kind of education about it, what they do is that they point to the fact that their belief children are having sex changes done when they're five, you know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's all really full alive.
So we're seeing that we're seeing ESG, which is environmental, social, and governance, investing. That's been a big thing promoted this past year, like, you know, we shouldn't be relying on ESG influences our government, there was a lot that got through your a bill that was forbidding anyone, any trustees within the Kansas public employee retirement system, for making investment decisions based on ESG principles. So basically, they're saying like, we should not be looking at these factors in any sort of investing. I mean, yeah, that's saying that
capers should not, you know, because, you know, our retirement money, is there and papers should not be looking at those kinds of investments. Yeah.
So this is also part of like a national push to kind of get rid of ESG. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And what else have we seen? I know, you're mentioning election law before we started the podcast.
Yeah. You know, I mean, there's just all these organizations are all a part of it, the the opportunity solutions project, based out of Florida, they're also very influential and influential. And with election laws, you know, they've got, they put out policy papers and all of that, and they go to legislators, legislatures, and then try to influence you know, leadership, you know, and, and say here, you know, here's a model bill that you could introduce. So they kind of do all the work for you in one sense, you know, so yeah, I mean, part of what they're they're about is about welfare reform, election reform. And they were trying to influence us regarding a bill on childcare reform that that came about towards the end of the session, and that, that, that did not that did not get passed. And with that, there were a lot of legislators on both sides of the aisle who were very much questioning how the bill was put together. Why did it come in through so quickly, he came into health and human services, you know, and on our committee, but the day before it was in commerce, and then all of a sudden, it popped into our Health and Human Services Committee.
And for our readers, this was going to deregulate or just take away some of the regulations on childcare center.
Yeah, yeah. So it kind of relaxed some things. And one of the things there were two things that were concerning one was that the, the, the footprint is the footage, the square footage that each child should have that's in law right now. And they were trying to shrink that up. So therefore, you can have more kids. In theory, it sounds Oh, well, how bad is that? Well, it's bad. Because if you don't have fire marshals, telling, you know, there's regulations, because through fire marshals, you know, and so of course, we have state regulations, you know, on daycares. And so they were, there were a lot of things that felt like was trying to get passed over and not look at those safety issues, you know, and it is about safety. The other piece that concern me was the fact that they had lowered the age of volunteers to
14 for people taking care of the kids in the centers. Yeah, exactly. And
that an 18 year old could actually become director of daycare center.
That's interesting to me, too, because, again, with the only things like election law, like abortion, like transgender issues, you kind of get why this will be passed on a national level, but things like this childcare bill, I mean, why would national groups try and get involved with Kansas child care centers? What's the point of that?
Well, it's it's trying to deal with and if you look at that, this the opportunity solutions project for look at their website, you kind of get a sense of where they're going with They're in what they're going with is is, is that it's, it should be treated more as a bit like a business versus an education. So if your child's going to daycare while they're being taped, yes, they're being taken care of. But it's much more than that they're being educated. So if you think about the brain of a child, you know, the sweet spot is zero to three of, you know, your, your brain is about 80%, formed by age three. And that's the real spongy brain time, right? So there's so many things you can do with that. So it's the childcare providers are our educators, they're not the you don't treat treat it as a business model, you treat it as my child, the most precious thing to me, is being educated because that's their little spongy brain can take in all kinds of stuff. And, you know, there, there are daycare centers who purposely try to help them learn other languages, because that's the title learned. You know, I've seen in other states where there's a child that's learning three languages, and picking it up like nothing in the child is under age three, you know, so that's the time to do it. You don't treat it like a business model. And so you know, what, what people were, you know, what legislators were looking at is, was just as daycare is just, it's like babysitting. Well, no, it's not babysitting. It's, it's, we have to treat our, our childcare providers as educators and pay them that way. If you we really want to have more daycare centers and more slots open for kids, let's pay them a living wage, they're not being paid where they shouldn't be paid at all. So you know, there's that issue, but this for age 14, there are other states who have who are lowering the child labor laws, and they're relaxing them so that, you know, right now, you know, even a 14 year old or 16 year old going to school that is working, they can only work until I think like nine o'clock or something like that, right? Because if they're supposed to be in school, right? Well, then we start relaxing that so you look at one, one piece here, of they're trying to dismantle the public school system. So if you're not actually going to require kids to go to school, under a voucher system, then you've got a teenager at home, hanging out. So at what point does not parents say well, why don't you go get a job? Right. So then if you relax the employment laws, child labor laws, then now you're allowing 14 1516 year olds to work much longer hours, but you're also relaxing those laws that say that kids cannot work in meat plants, they cannot operate role heavy, dangerous equipment. So all of that is all together. And again, just doing a little bit of research. I discovered this that other states are doing the same thing and bringing down those that age. There were enough legislators in our legislature that in I think it was in the Senate who they took that out this was halted. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was a good thing. So they they didn't do they didn't do that, ah, 14 thing. So it doesn't mean that's not going to continue, you know, and so what 14 year old in case there's a fire, what 14 year olds gonna really know what to do, and make sure that the cribs are out, you know, this got infants and cribs, and you get them out a 14 year olds gonna be like, I'm gonna, I'm scared I'm gonna run. And then, you know, so they don't have,
so we'd have a lot of consequences. Yeah, we're running out of time, though. So I'm just gonna ask you in general on Is this your been worse in terms of national policy finding its way in? Or has it ever been more of an influx in all the years in terms of
it's it's this session, it felt like there was more and in I don't know if it was because I'm much more aware of it now. Or, or it is more, but it felt to me like it was much more, much more outside influences.
Yeah, so I guess, to all of our viewers and listeners out there, make sure to do your research and Google everything. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here with us. You're welcome.
