Category: Election 2022

Two candidates run for Republican nomination for 33rd District, Kansas House

Two candidates are seeking the Republican nomination in the 33rd District, Kansas House.

Clifton Boje and Mike Thompson are running for the Republican nomination.

Clifton Boje

Boje, 44, of Bonner Springs, said he is seeking office primarily to deal with the abortion issue.

“I want to see it criminalized as murder, for putting to death God’s creation unjustly,” he said.

Boje said he would support a proposed law that would classify abortion of living children as homicide. Homicide laws already in effect then would take care of the process, he said. A bill has been crafted and already was introduced, and would be reintroduced next session, he said.


Boje said the proposed law would not apply to miscarriages, or to cases in which the child dies at some point that is not part of an abortion. He said it would apply if the child is being put to death on purpose.


He said he spends a lot of time in front of Planned Parenthood offices, trying to convince women to let them help. (A video of Boje’s protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic, with arguments back and forth on loudspeakers, has been posted on YouTube by those who support pro-choice at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9QXcT4vA9Y.)

Boje teaches private music lessons and plays music for his church, Cornerstone Community Church. He is the founder of Acorn Performing Arts.

Boje has three associate degrees, including two in general studies and one in worship and music. His degrees were from Johnson County Community College and Kansas City College and Bible School, now called Kansas Christian College, in Overland Park. He studied music at the college level but did not complete his bachelor’s degree.

Besides his church membership, he is a member of Kansas Abortion Is Murder and Abolish Abortion Kansas.

Boje said the abortion issue is the main reason he ran, and he has been studying other issues that may come before the Legislature. He said he wants to see the government “doing its main job under what God has given it to do,” which is “to protect people and their personal property.” He also said people should be encouraged to be accountable in their actions.

See more information about Boje at bojeforkansashouse.mystrikingly.com.

Mike Thompson

Mike Thompson, 71, said he has lived a life of service, and now that he is retired, he would like to be of service to democracy.

That is one of the reasons he is running for office, he said.

Thompson served as an Army chaplain, and before that in the U.S. Navy as a SEAL. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.

“As a chaplain I’ve buried soldiers who have died for our freedom, and I do not take that lightly,” he said. “Instead of complaining, I always learned you get in and serve and work to make things better.”

Another reason he is running is that it’s time for a new voice in Wyandotte County, he said.

“What I can bring to the table is the new voice,” he said. His background demonstrates his integrity, honesty, commitment and loyalty, he said.

It also demonstrates the ability to relate to people of all diverse areas of life, being open-minded and listening to them, he said.

“Ninety percent of what I did in the hospital in the military was counseling, and I learned to listen and be open to both sides, and listen to what’s going on behind the presenting issues,” Thompson said.

As he goes door-to-door in the district, he hears people say they’re ready for a change, he said. The economy plays a role in that.

“If our community prospers, our citizens will prosper, and right now they’re struggling,” he said.

Thompson, who is not the meteorologist by the same name who serves currently in the Kansas Senate, is a retired military officer. He spent 22.5 years with the military, first in the Navy in the 1970s, where he served with the SEAL team, and later, returned to active duty with the Army as a chaplain at age 43.

He served as a command chaplain for the 82nd Airborne, and had different assignments through the years, retiring as garrison chaplain at Fort Leavenworth.

Between his Navy and Army service, he was a chaplain at several hospitals, doing a lot of grief counseling.

Thompson currently serves in his second term on the Bonner Springs City Council. One of his roles is liaison between Bonner Springs city and the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville area church ministers. He also volunteered at Vaughn-Trent Community Services and served as Tiblow Days car show chairman in 2012 and 2013.

Thompson has done undergraduate work at Pittsburg State University, then finished his degree at Dallas Baptist University. He has a Master of Divinity degree from Southwest Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Texas, and did internships at two hospitals.

Thompson currently teaches Sunday School at his church. He belongs to the VFW, American Legion and the UDT / SEAL Association. UDT stands for underwater demolition team, including Navy teams who dived in to help astronauts in space capsule recovery.

According to his campaign information, he also is a former Lenexa police officer and a former business owner of a welding shop in Oklahoma.

His campaign information also says he is in favor of growing jobs and wages, cutting wasteful spending, keeping neighborhoods safe, improving public safety, more funding for schools, more say for parents in education, putting families first, protecting constitutional rights and protecting the unborn.

He has endorsements from the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Kansans for Life.

Campaign finance reports filed this week at the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission stated that Thompson’s campaign had cash available of $25,062, raising $13,927.17 during the reporting period, expending $4,861.53 and having $20,200.47 cash on hand at the close of the period.

Boje’s campaign filed a statement that said he intended to receive or expend less than $1,000.

See more about Thompson’s campaign at https://thompsonforkansashouse.com/.

Voting details


Early voting in person is currently taking place in Wyandotte County.

Voting on Election Day, Aug. 2, is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at assigned polling places.

For more information about voting, see https://wyandotteonline.com/early-voting-in-person-starts-saturday/.


Visit the Wyandotte County Election Office website at wycovotes.org or call 913-573-8500 for more details on times and places to vote.


To see an updated map of Kansas House seat boundaries in Wyandotte County, and determine what district you are in, visit https://www.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/election-office/kshouseofrep24x36clip.pdf. Some boundaries recently changed.


Registered voters also can learn their district number and see what will be on their ballot at Voter View, https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org/VoterView.


To see a story about the Democratic candidates for the 33rd District, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/33rd-district-attracts-three-democratic-candidates/.


To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].

Kansas governor warns passage of constitutional amendment will invite wave of abortion restrictions

Kansas voters at forefront of national debate following reversal of Roe v. Wade

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Gov. Laura Kelly warned passage of an amendment removing the right to abortion from the Kansas Constitution would prompt an emboldened Republican-led Legislature to pass new restraints on the right of women to control their reproductive health.

“The amendment is written in such a way that the proponents of the amendment want to suggest that this would just leave things as they are in Kansas. But that’s not true,” Kelly said during the Kansas Reflector podcast. “What would happen if that amendment would pass is that the Legislature would immediately come back with some very severe restrictions on a woman’s ability to control her own fate.”

Kelly said she was voting against the amendment because it was essential to reinforce the right of women to maintain bodily autonomy. She expected the statewide vote to be “very close.” It follows the June reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed nationwide the right to abortion.

Voting in Kansas closes Aug. 2 on the amendment, which was drafted by opponents of abortion and approved by two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate. Campaign finance reports show more than $11 million has been spent to influence public opinion on the amendment.

Kelly said she was confident in the security and accuracy of voting in this and future Kansas elections, because state and local officials took their duties seriously.

“You know, I think if you want to have a voice in what happens in your life in your world, then it’s important that you take the time, make the effort to go to the polls and elect people you think will truly represent your values,” the governor said.

Kelly is seeking reelection as governor in November. She will be competing against Republican Derek Schmidt, the state’s attorney general and a former colleague of Kelly’s in the Kansas Senate. In addition, state Sen. Dennis Pyle, a conservative Republican from Hiawatha, is collecting petition signatures in an attempt to get on the Nov. 8 ballot as an independent candidate for governor.

Kelly said during the podcast interview she would focus her campaign on “bread-and-butter” issues of education, transportation, health care, tax relief, the social safety net, economic development and stability of the state budget. She was elected in 2018 following eight years with Republican Govs. Jeff Colyer and Sam Brownback at the helm.

“Our budget was a mess when I came into office,” Kelly said. “We have now fully funded our schools for the last four years. That was incredibly important to Kansans. Not only have we been able to fully fund, you know, basic essential services in the state, we’ve also been able to eliminate the sales tax on food. And we are now sitting on the largest ending balance in the state’s history. We’ve got about $1.5 billion in our ending balance.”

In the 2022 legislative session, Kelly and legislators set aside nearly $1 billion in a rainy day fund for future use by the state and invested more than $1 billion in the state’s pension system. State lawmakers adopted an unprecedented economic development incentive program relied upon by the Kelly administration to leverage $829 million to attract a $4 billion Panasonic vehicle battery plant to Johnson County.

Kelly said growth in the state’s economy during her term was important to recovery from Brownback-era tax policies that starved the state treasury. Funding was cannibalized from government agencies, including the Kansas Department of Transportation, as revenue plummeted. The Brownback income tax “experiment,” as he referred to it, was largely repealed in 2017 by the Legislature.

“If I wanted to be able to fund the services that I felt essential — our roads, our schools, our foster care system — that I was going to have to grow this economy and do it quickly,” said Kelly, a Democrat. “I have no interest in raising taxes. I think our property taxes are too high. And, obviously I wanted to eliminate food sales tax. So the only other way to accomplish my goals was to grow the economy and increase the amount of revenue coming into the state.”

With the Panasonic development, which includes 4,000 direct new jobs, Kelly said the state had benefitted from $13.5 billion in capital investments and creation or preservation of 50,000 jobs since she became governor.

“We looked back at the last administration to see what had happened over their eight years, and they brought in less new capital investment in eight years than we have done in three and a half,” Kelly said.

Kelly predicted that following her reelection in November the Legislature would pass a bill expanding eligibility for Medicaid services to lower-income Kansans.

The Legislature approved expansion in 2017, but Brownback vetoed the measure. Since then, the House and Senate haven’t agreed on an expansion plan.

“I presented four different proposals for Medicaid expansion,” Kelly said. “I think that leadership will finally let the rank and file vote on it. You know, our rural hospitals desperately need this, but even our urban hospitals. They’re taking care of a lot of uncompensated care patients.”

Kelly signed a bill this year eliminating the state’s 6.5% sales tax on groceries over a three-year period starting in 2023. She had proposed repeal of the food sales tax effective July 1. If reelected, Kelly said she would again seek immediate end of the state sales tax on groceries.

“That’s precisely what I would want to do,” Kelly said. “I’ll come back with my original proposal. There’s really no reason not to go ahead and just do it.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/07/25/kansas-governor-warns-passage-of-constitutional-amendment-will-invite-wave-of-abortion-restrictions/

35th District candidates seek election

Two Democrats and two Republicans are seeking election in the Aug. 2 primary election for the 35th District, Kansas House.

Incumbent Rep. Broderick Henderson, who has served in the district since 1995, is not running for re-election.

Running for the Democratic nomination are Nelson R. Gabriel and Marvin S. Robinson II.

Seeking the Republican nomination are John H. Koerner and Sam Stillwell.

Democratic candidates

Nelson Gabriel

Nelson R. Gabriel is running for the Democratic nomination for the 35th District, Kansas House.

Gabriel said the northeast area of Kansas City, Kansas, is probably the most underrepresented area of Wyandotte County. For the past 20 years there has been no real economic development, he believes.

Gabriel said his top issue is Medicaid expansion.

“A lot of people in our area have mental health issues that they can’t get treated because they don’t have access to health care,” Gabriel said. Medicaid expansion should help with that, he added.

Besides Medicaid expansion, he favors additional funding for adult basic education, he said.

“I thought I could lend my voice to helping with this affordable housing piece,” he said.

“In our district, about 46 percent of 66101 and 66102 residents do not have a high school diploma,” Gabriel said. Workforce efforts need to be expanded, and education is a way to do that, he said. While almost 7,000 jobs are available in Wyandotte County, much of the workforce is not trained and does not have the skill sets to fill those positions, he added.

If elected, Gabriel said he would like to communicate more with constituents, including holding town hall meetings.

Gabriel previously ran for the House 35th District.

He is president and CEO of Made Men, a workforce education organization in Kansas City, Kansas, that helps people get their GEDs and high school diplomas and connects them with jobs, food and rental housing. He has his GED and has attended classes at Donnelly College.

Gabriel is active in his church and also is a member of the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Marvin Robinson II

Marvin S. Robinson II is known for his efforts to preserve the Quindaro Ruins and townsite in the northeast area of Kansas City, Kansas.

He is an independent volunteer researcher.

Robinson was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy, where he served as an operations specialist.

He attended Sumner High School, Emporia State University and the U.S. Naval Training Command School at Great Lakes, Illinois, where he received certification as an operations specialist. He also has done course work at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Robinson was co-organizer of a Black Think Farm on the Quindaro Ruins and Underground Railroad. He has devoted many years to environmental justice and historic preservation restoration attempts.

If elected, he would like to see the state formally invite the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Veterans Archaeological Project, to come in and begin preservation of the foundations of the Quindaro Ruins townsite, providing opportunities to veterans of the area.

He also supports flood control state-of-the-art implementations for the Quindaro area. In addition, he supports implementation of a drone imaging system at the Quindaro Ruins that would identify what lies below the surface of the land.

If elected, he would support getting assistance from Kansas for preservation of African-American burial grounds, he said. Legislation has passed in the U.S. Senate for this effort. This project would help identify veterans who are buried there without any gravemarkers or headstones, according to Robinson.

Robinson also stated that he supports more services for veterans, including more assistance with paperwork for benefits. He is aware of a new veterans facility by the Legends, but all veterans’ needs cannot be resolved by it.

He also supports updates and modifications to the Kansas African American Advisory Commission to expand its reach.

In addition, he supports more jobs and job creation, expanding entrepreneurship platforms, with diversity, equity and inclusion.

Robinson stated his background in the Navy has given him skills such as team building. He said his family history includes many members who served in the military since the American Revolution.

Robinson has been endorsed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. He also is active in his church, and was introduced at a summer convocation.

Republican candidates

Running for the Republican nomination for 35th District are Sam Stillwell and John H. Koerner.

Sam Stillwell

Stillwell, 53, has 23 years experience as a teacher. He received his diploma from Lincoln Academy, a Bachelor of Science in political science from Ottawa University and a Master of Arts and Teaching from Park University.

Stillwell is a member of the National Rifle Association and the Wyandotte County Republican Party.

“I want to be a stronger voice for the citizens of District 35,” Stillwell stated. “As Wyandotte County develops, District 35 remains undeveloped and overlooked. The Northeast of KC, Ks is a strong, historical community that has much to offer the great state of Kansas. I will be their voice in Topeka.”

Stillwell’s top three issues:
“I would lower taxes for Kansans. I would promote economic prosperity throughout the state, but especially in District 35. I would work with the state board of education to address issues keeping our kids from getting as proper education.”

Stillwell previously ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate, 4th District.

John Koerner, 50, said one of his reasons in running for office is to bridge the gap between the two parties.

“I believe that a representative needs to be a civil servant,” he said. He explained the representative needs to be a servant of the people and bring morality back to the government.

“With inflation as high as it is, we need to get rid of the taxation on food products, so that we can help relieve some of the stress on families for putting food on their table,” he said.

Koerner has not run for office before. He said he has always been kind of an independent, voting for the best candidate from the different parties, and he likes some of the Libertarian views.

Koerner, who was born in the Topeka area and grew up in the Big Springs area, has some college and has gone through classes as a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. He worked on maintenance of Chinook helicopters with the Reserves. As a civilian, he drives a flatbed tractor-trailer. He has lived in the Kansas City area about 15 years.

Koerner also said he supports term limits for Congress.

He is doing a grassroots campaign and not taking campaign donations, he added.

Voting details

Early voting in person is currently taking place in Wyandotte County.


Voting on Election Day, Aug. 2, is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at assigned polling places. Mail-in ballots also are available until Tuesday, July 26.

For more information about voting, see https://wyandotteonline.com/early-voting-in-person-starts-saturday/.

Visit the Wyandotte County Election Office website at wycovotes.org or call 913-573-8500 for more details on times and places to vote.

To see an updated map of Kansas House seat boundaries in Wyandotte County, and determine what district you are in, visit https://www.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/election-office/kshouseofrep24x36clip.pdf. Some boundaries recently changed.

To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].