Local Columns

Opinion: Same-day voter registration makes sense

While the 2024 presidential election may be more than a month and half away, it is time for Kansans to make a voting plan and check their voter registration status. This is because Kansas has chosen not to implement same-day voter registration. For the most part, election law is state law. ...

Opinion: Will Harris take Johnson County too?

For over a century, Johnson County residents voted for Republican presidential candidates. Even during periods of Democrat strength, including Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide victory in 1932 and Lyndon Johnson’s overwhelming triumph in 1964, the county stayed true to its Republican ...

Opinion: If Kansas politics were the Olympics

Citius, Altius, Fortius. The original Olympic motto — translated: Faster, Higher, Stronger. — was never in more splendid display as the past few weeks in Paris. If the Olympic spirit was a religion, the athletes were its evangelists. Time after time, we were moved by sheer will or ...

Opinion: Overturned law a win for democracy

In 2021, in the aftermath of unfounded accusations of election fraud, the Kansas Legislature passed a series of laws making it harder for citizens to vote. One bill, HB 2183, included a false representation provision, which made it a felony for an individual to “represent oneself as an ...

Opinion: Is the nation better off than in 2020?

“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” — Ronald Reagan It is no secret that President Biden is unpopular. In the 2023 Kansas Speaks poll, a whopping 62.8% of respondents were dissatisfied with Biden’s performance, versus 32.9% who were dissatisfied with fellow Democrat ...

Opinion: The political surprises of summer

Before my family and I moved to Kansas, 18 years ago next month, I didn’t consider summer my favorite season. As a perpetual student and then a college professor, summer vacations were obviously a nice break, and of course summer activities were fun. But compared with flowers in the spring, ...