Mike Pryor

Democrat Mike Pryor is entering the 2nd District Kansas Congressional race without a big campaign war chest, a fact that dovetails with his message.

“The first thing for me is getting money out of politics,” the 76-year-old Lawrence man said. “As long as you can buy and sell Congress, how can anything get done that the people want? The corporations can step in and say, ‘Here’s what we want and here’s a pile of cash for your re-election.'”

He doesn’t have those connections nor a personal fortune to bankroll his campaign, Pryor said.

Mike Pryor

“I don’t have any money,” he said. “I’m either stupid or have a lot of guts. I live on Social Security and a small teacher’s retirement pension. I just feel like I have to do this. If I didn’t, I’d never forgive myself.”

Pryor is the first candidate to file for the congressional seat Republican Lynn Jenkins has held since winning election to her first two-year term in November 2008.

Pryor said he planned to crowd-fund his campaign and to depend heavily on social media to get out his message. He already has a GoFundMe account, but plans to de-emphasize that when he his ActBlue account becomes active in a few days.

If an underfunded candidate in his 70s entering a race to take on an established female candidate seems familiar, that’s fine with Pryor. He said he was an early and strong supporter of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who is competing with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

“I started a website for Bernie Sanders three years ago,” he said. “I founded Douglas County for Bernie Sanders. I was chair. I resigned because I wanted to dedicate my time to this.”

Pryor, who was raised in Scammon, in the southeast corner of Kansas, said he moved to Lawrence in 2011 when he retired from a 43-year teaching career. Now divorced, he has been a volunteer with Just Food since his arrival in Lawrence.

He spent the last 28 years of his career teaching the children of U.S. military personnel in Guantanamo Bay, Germany and England, Pryor said. It was his time in England that made him a supporter of single-payer health care, he said.

“Sanders is right when he says it wouldn’t hurt us to think about looking at how other counties do things,” he said. “During the Obamacare debate, there were so many bad things said about the British and Canada health care systems. British national health care is fantastic. I used it for 21 years and never had a bad experience. I remember a doctor coming to our house at 2:30 in the morning when our daughter was sick. I remember thinking, ‘If I was back home, I don’t know how I would pay for this.'”

Pryor said his platform agreed with “pretty much everything” Sanders advocates. Among his platform positions are free college and technical tuition, an increase in minimum wage, equal pay for women, investment in alternative energy, expansion of Social Security, tax code reform to eliminate loopholes and corporate subsidies.

His goal is to serve in Washington, D.C., to advance those policies in partnership with a Sanders Administration, Pryor said.

“I have a great life here,” he said. “I’ve fallen in love with Lawrence. I have a nice house. I really feel the need to do this. I don’t think the people of the 2nd District are getting getting good representation.”