Opinion: Kansas voters coping with 'daddy' issues

By Rod Haxton

We’ve been saying for years that voters - including those in Kansas - continue to act against their own interests. And elected Republicans could care less about acting in the interests of the majority.

But you don’t have to take our word for it.

Those are the conclusions shared in the latest Kansas Speaks survey conducted by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University.

When it comes to Medicaid expansion, abortion rights and legalization of marijuana, for example, Kansans overwhelmingly think like Democrats but vote Republican. In that regard, the survey didn’t reveal anything new, but confirmed a trend that we’ve seen for years.

For example, 70.2% of those responding to the survey support Medicaid expansion (only 10% don’t) while 74.3% believe expansion would help rural hospitals keep their doors open.

Similarly, 70.4% “strongly or somewhat support” legalization of medical marijuana and 64.8% would like to see Kansas legalize recreational pot.

And 72.2% believe that a woman is in a better position to determine what she wants to do with her body as opposed to politicians.

Kansans are a “good deal more progressive” than their party label would suggest, confirmed Alexandra Middlewood, chair of the political science department at Wichita State University, who also worked on the survey.

But ask yourself, what are the odds that Republican leadership in the Kansas Legislature will allow debate on Medicaid expansion, let alone a vote?

What are the chances that ultraconservative lawmakers won’t continue to push for more restrictions on abortion access because they are convinced that they know what’s best for the women of Kansas?

We already know the answers.

In a democracy, the government is responsive to the will of the majority. In a republic, representatives are elected to make decisions on behalf of the people - presumably the majority.

We are living under a third form of government in which Republican lawmakers are elected by the majority, but refuse to fulfill the wishes of the majority.

Most of us grew up in a similar political environment in which a despot (often times referred to as “Dad”) would remind us - despite whatever we were pleading for at the moment - that “this house is not a democracy.”

Cruel - not so much. Though it certainly felt oppressive as a 16-year-old.

No opportunity for redress. No recall election. No armed revolt.

We accepted that one vote overruled all others.

We also learned that it’s a generational thing. When we left home, got married and began raising our own families, those despotic tendencies surfaced once again.

Our house. Our rules. End of discussion.

However, we didn’t sign onto that narrow interpretation of democratic rule when it comes to our state and federal lawmakers. There is the expectation that our state legislators, for example, will act in accordance with the wishes of the majority who elected them to office.

As someone who has chosen to call Kansas my home, I also understand that the decisions made in Topeka won’t always reflect my values.

When Republican lawmakers decided to sell the economic snake oil known as trickle-down economics - marketed to us as Sam Brownback’s “real live experiment” - it didn’t take an economic guru to know what the outcome would be.

We opposed the tax policy because we’d seen before who the winners and losers would be.

But we also knew that, along with everyone else, we’d have to suffer the consequences because we were in the minority - until the majority came to their senses long enough to chart us a path out of the economic disaster.

Unfortunately, the lessons of the past do not remain with us for long.

Ultraconservative lawmakers are again hellbent on creating another economic disaster. What had been a nearly $3 billion surplus in the state treasury in 2022 is projected to become a $460 million general fund deficit in just two more years.

Kansas voters didn’t ask for that, but that’s the possible outcome because ultraconservative lawmakers believe they know what’s best.

As the Kansas Speaks survey reveals to us year after year, this problem goes beyond economics. Ultraconservatives in the legislature are on the wrong side of a host of issues such as LGBTQ rights, school funding, marijuana and gun laws.

That’s only half the problem. The other half is that they simply don’t care.

So why the disconnect?

Again, it’s what we’ve said time and again . . . while the majority of Republican voters in Kansas prefer the progressive policies that are promoted by Democrats, they simply can’t bring themselves to vote for anyone other than a Republican - even if it means a pox on their families.

There’s no logical explanation.

And Republican lawmakers exploit this. It’s as though they are daring us to kick them out of office.

Yet no matter how extreme they become, no matter how far they are willing to push their conservative agenda into our classrooms, or drive a wedge between women and their physicians, the majority of Kansans seem oblivious to this every time they enter a voting booth.

Perhaps it’s genetic. A psychological impairment.

Or, as Sigmund Freud might suggest, maybe it’s daddy issues.

Rod Haxton is publisher of The Scott County Record. He can be reached at editor@screcord.com