Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly radiates rock star charisma. Our sluggish Legislature can’t keep up.

Gov. Laura Kelly tours the Axe Shedd during an April 25, 2024, visit to Emporia. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

I lived and worked for a decade in New Hampshire, watching aspiring presidential candidates make their pitches to everyday folks. I listened to Barack Obama give a speech the day before the 2008 primary, sat across a table from Jeb Bush as he enthused about tech companies, tried to follow Hillary Clinton explaining foreign policy, laughed at John McCain’s grandpa jokes and wondered what on earth Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee was doing running for president.

But in all that time of watching politicians strut their stuff, I never saw a reaction like that received by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Thursday in Emporia.

The 74-year-old Democrat has star power. Unlike Obama, who seemed more comfortable when proclaiming his words to an auditorium full of people rather than chatting in the confines of an editorial board meeting, Kelly connected with people one on one. While no grand orator, she spoke to an auditorium audience later that afternoon and sounded perfectly comfortable.

The Kelly files

• Kansas governor’s tax proposal throws a bipartisan wrench into GOP leaders’ ambitions

• Kansas governor cooked renegade rep’s goose. Like it or not, that’s how politics work.

• Kelly delivers dazzling show of bipartisanship — however unlikely — at State of the State

• Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly flaunts pragmatism, fortifying reelection plans

I have written about Kelly’s political talents before. She’s the best politician working in Kansas today, of either party. Watching her interact with people in Emporia — and draw an enthusiastic crowd simply by stopping by a handful of Commercial Street businesses — brought it home for me in a visceral way. People wanted to see her, shake her hand, say how much she means to them. They thronged, despite a gravel gray sky threatening rain and a stern breeze.

The woman is a rock star.

That being said, it’s difficult to know what Kelly’s political talents will mean for Kansans in the long run. She stopped in Emporia to tout Medicaid expansion, which flopped the next day on the Senate floor. Obama threw the considerable political capital of his 2008 win into passing the Affordable Care Act. That was — and remains — a monumental achievement. George W. Bush prosecuted a war on terror, for better or worse. Even former Gov. Sam Brownback had his signature tax “experiment.”

Kelly’s key achievement thus far has been steering Kansas back onto a sustainable fiscal path.

That was good enough to win her reelection, but the sputtering embers of this legislative season reveal how limited the options can be for a Democratic governor facing Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate. Medicaid expansion? Legalized marijuana? Sensible tax policy? Nope, nope and nope. Good policy and honest arguments were no match for the flood of toxic sludge pumped into the legislative chambers by GOP leaders.

At Emporia’s Granada Theatre, Kelly summarized her goal: “My North Star for my second term as governor is to make Kansas the best place in the country to live, to work and to raise a family.”

Fat chance with our current partisan powerbrokers.

Kaila Mock, owner of Trox Gallery, shows Gov. Laura Kelly around the store during the governor’s April 25, 2024, visit to Emporia. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

If Kelly were 10 years younger or 10 times as ambitious, I would suggest that she run for senator. Heck, she could be an outstanding Democratic nominee for president. I watched how she artfully dismantled the bombastic Kris Kobach in 2018 and disingenuous Derek Schmidt in 2022. Can you imagine how she would eviscerate Donald Trump in a debate?

However, part of Kelly’s appeal is that she clearly doesn’t want to run for Senate or the U.S. presidency. She’s not using the governorship as a steppingstone to something else. She has her hands full with Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins.

You might say she should have tried harder to pass Medicaid expansion before this session. However, the harsh math of the COVID-19 pandemic and a reelection campaign meant her options were limited. She steered the state sagely through uncharted waters but couldn’t enact enduring policy changes at the same time.

Kelly’s reluctance to engage in political theater for its own sake has endeared her to Kansans, but that reticence leaves me with a slightly hollow feeling. A shrewd politician with talent, ideas and a devoted constituency should be able to accomplish more than blocking bad policy.

The governor has two more years in office, and it well may be that the best is yet to come.

I’ve also written about multiple groups attempting to shift the Legislature’s balance of power. On the more partisan side, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has been making noise — at least in my email inbox — about breaking Republican supermajorities in Topeka.

It’s difficult to understate how transformative that would be. Masterson and Hawkins would be forced to negotiate seriously with Democrats rather than pushing and punishing their own members. Groups working on these goals have good intentions and big plans. But a lot can change in seven months. Activists have a shot at picking up seats for Democrats and sensible Republicans, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life savings on the prospect.

As Kelly said when discussing expansion Thursday, “I’m not a bookie.”

If past is prologue, however, and Kelly finds herself blocked by intransigent Republicans for another two sessions, it will be difficult to feel as though her political gifts weren’t squandered on a state that did not deserve her.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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