Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly warns polarization is ‘crushing’ the ability to govern the state

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Friday bemoaned the polarization that she says has fundamentally upended the state’s politics since she first entered elected office nearly 20 years ago as a state senator.

A Democratic chief executive in a state with a Republican-controlled Legislature, partisan division has blocked the second-term governor from achieving some of her key policy goals, most prominently expanding Medicaid.

Kelly aired her frustrations while delivering the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University – a prominent lecture series that has hosted presidents, U.S. Supreme Court justices and foreign leaders. While Kelly made no grand new announcements in the speech, the address underscored an emerging theme of her governorship.

As she enters her likely final two years in elected office, Kelly is growing more outspoken about the importance of civility amid the growing political and cultural gulf between Republicans and Democrats.

The second-term governor has long staked her reputation on being a commonsense, moderate policy maker focused on the nuts and bolts of government over politics. In her speech at K-State, she sought to further cement that brand, lamenting that politicians at the state and local level have lost sight of compromise and laying the groundwork for healthier political discourse.

“Polarization is crushing our ability to get things done for Kansans,” Kelly said, citing her decade-long fight to expand Medicaid. Kansas is one of 10 states that haven’t expanded who is eligible for health coverage under the program.

Kelly argued a toxic political discourse was blocking meaningful conversation and compromise within the Legislature on a slew of issues including child care, education, and tax reform. Republicans are preparing to vote to override Kelly’s veto on a tax package that includes some of her priorities alongside a flat income tax she opposes.

Kelly insisted Republicans opposed Medicaid expansion because they didn’t want her to succeed. If the Legislature approved expansion, Kelly said, she’d be happy to let them take the credit.

“The idea that people aren’t getting the care they need because of petty partisan politics is just shameful,” she said.

House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican and vehement opponent of expansion, said his party was focused on solutions for those already on Medicaid rather than expanding the program. His position, he said, wasn’t about “giving someone a win.”

“The Governor’s claims to the contrary are a disingenuous example of the type of politics she claimed to be opposing in this speech,” Hawkins said in a statement that highlighted bipartisan policies on water, transportation and rural broadband.

Kelly, Hawkins argued “has a long history of blaming polarization and politics whenever anyone disagrees with her.”

In the past decade, moderate Republicans have seen their power and presence shrink in the Kansas Legislature. Once an influential voting bloc, moderate Republicans are now rare in Topeka. Some became Democrats following the election of former President Donald J. Trump. Others lost primaries to candidates running to their right.

Former Kansas Senate President Steve Morris, a moderate Republican who lost a primary challenge in 2012, argued this change has harmed the state.

“It promotes these culture war bills and legislation gets passed that’s specific to somebody that has an agenda item that’s not good for the state,” he said.

Morris couldn’t recall many significant policy differences between legislative leaders and then-Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius when he was in office. Kelly’s relationship with the Legislature has been more fraught; last year she vetoed more bills than any of her predecessors in the last three decades.

The polarization, Kelly said, can be attributed to the nationalization of politics and an inability for Americans to disagree about politics while seeking common ground. Local and state races are no longer about the issues those politicians can control but instead about national hot button issues driving the conversations on cable news, she said.

“Both of my opponents, in 2018 and again in 2022, didn’t attack me based on my record, or really anything happening in Kansas,” Kelly said, referring to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

“Instead, they ran ad after ad trying to convince Kansans that I’m actually Bernie Sanders in a wig – or Joe Biden in heels.”

The strategy, Kelly argued, encourages voters to pick candidates based solely on their party and results in more extreme candidates being elected into office.

Former Kansas Gov. John Carlin, a Democrat who left office in 1987, said polarization in Kansas is not nearly as bad as the U.S. Congress. But he said the discourse was still unrecognizable from his time as governor when he regularly played racquetball with a Republican lawmaker.

At times, Carlin said, Republicans were better allies to him than his own party. “There has been a dramatic change,” he said.

While bipartisan progress remains possible in Kansas, and has occurred on issues like economic development and school funding, Kelly said it only happens when elected leaders abandon their partisan impulse to meet in the middle.

More of that is possible, she said, if Americans break out of their political bubbles and engage with people they disagree with and walk in the “middle of the road.”

“We need to get back to a place where people can disagree about politics, but still form a bond – still engage in community service and civic life together,” she said.