Category: Gov. Laura Kelly

Wyandotte County expected to see economic benefit from Panasonic plant

Gov. Laura Kelly

by Mary Rupert

The $4 billion Panasonic project that was landed in DeSoto, Kansas, should also benefit Johnson and Wyandotte counties and surrounding areas, Gov. Laura Kelly said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“It will have a huge ripple effect through Johnson County, Wyandotte County and beyond,” Gov. Kelly said. She’s also expecting it to benefit Lyon, Miami and Franklin counties, all within a driving distance.

The new plant will make electric vehicle batteries. The project will bring in 4,000 jobs, and following them will be other companies that make more capital investments, Gov. Kelly said. She is anticipating approximately another 4,000 jobs for the suppliers who will set up shop in and around northeast Kansas.

Gov. Kelly currently is making an economic development tour of Kansas, in a sort of victory lap, discussing the recent gains for the state. She is scheduled to make a stop in Kansas City, Kansas, on Thursday.

Wyandotte County should expect to see people moving in, and will probably need more housing, with schools seeing an increase in enrollment, and businesses should have more customers as a result of the new Panasonic plant, she said.

Unequivocally, the $825 million in incentives that Kansas offered Panasonic will be worth it, Gov. Kelly said. There are a lot of guardrails around the incentives, and the plant will not get any incentives until it produces, builds a facility and hires people, she said.

“Panasonic is a well-established, reputable company that doesn’t do anything second-rate,” she said. They won’t make an investment and decide to pull up roots shortly afterward, she said. When they make an investment, they’re in it for the long haul.

Every year Panasonic is up and running, they’ll see $2.5 billion in economic activity in the state of Kansas, Gov. Kelly said. Even in the first year, the state would recapture the incentives, she added.

“You have to invest to grow, and that’s what we did here, and it will be a game changer for the state of Kansas,” she said.

Gov. Kelly said she wanted to see economic development in all areas of the state, in the rural, urban, suburban and inner city areas.

“You can trust that we are working, partnering with our counties, Wyandotte County and others, and cities, to look for economic opportunities that are a good fit for them,” she said. When projects come along and it makes sense for a project to locate in eastern Wyandotte County, the state will be right there working along the folks from Wyandotte County, she added.

Gov. Kelly said she is also working on other issues that will help with economic development. One of those is working with the county to increase the number of quality child care slots available here. Also, there are housing issues here that differ from rural communities, and they are working on solutions to these.

Sometimes Kansas City, Kansas, residents say that they have not been able to get some of the high-paying jobs that are offered here.

Gov. Kelly said Kansas has a very strong Workforce Partnership operation going on, Kansas Works, where they are connecting with potential employees. Residents may research the jobs online and get connected, and there are also Workforce centers where they can go, and receive job counseling on what would be a good fit. Currently, there are about 65,000 jobs on the state’s Workforce database.

Gov. Kelly said the state and the local community, including Kansas City Kansas Community College, are working with a scholarship program that essentially pays for people to go to a community college or technical school to get a certificate or associate degree in a trade, nursing, welding or other program. These graduates are picked up very quickly by employers, she added.

“With all of the success we have had, we know that Kansas in the next few years will be in really good shape,” Gov. Kelly said about the future of the state.

“We need to keep our eye on the ball here – economic development is not something you do one year and let it go,” she said. “This will be ongoing during my administration, to continue to focus efforts on growing the state of Kansas, attracting more business, building our work force.” Younger residents will be able to stay in Kansas with jobs available to them, she said.

The state also is doing recruiting efforts to draw people back to Kansas or invite them to live here for the first time, she added.

When these efforts are packaged together, the state can be pretty attractive, a good job, a place with good schools and good housing, she added.

Kelly, Schmidt secure party nominations in Kansas governor’s race — wildcard Pyle awaits

GOP candidates tangle in key primaries; Democrats trim field in U.S. Senate race

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Democrat Laura Kelly and Republican Derek Schmidt emerged victorious from Tuesday’s primary brandishing the organizational framework and burnished messaging of gubernatorial campaigns ready for a three-month sprint to November.

Schmidt, who spent the past dozen years as attorney general of red-state Kansas, secured the GOP nomination and the opportunity to take on Gov. Kelly. No incumbent Kansas governor, who won the job in a statewide vote, has lost reelection in more than 25 years.

Gov. Kelly, who defeated Republican firebrand Kris Kobach in 2018, is seeking a second term in a campaign requiring she display bipartisan appeal.

The unexpected twist is the presence of independent governor candidate Dennis Pyle, a state senator capable of peeling die-hard conservative votes from Schmidt. Another player: Libertarian Party nominee Seth Cordell.

On election night, the major party candidates for Kansas governor offered a glimpse of what kind of narrative they intend to offer voters this fall.

Gov. Kelly said Kansans put her in the governor’s office to bring stable financial management to state government after eight years of turmoil under Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer. She delivered on that voter mandate, she said, and went on to fully fund K-12 education, stop bleeding of the state highway program, cut the grocery sales tax, help the state pension system and bolster the state’s savings accounts.

She said unemployment in Kansas was a record low and the private sector invested $13.5 billion in the economy to add 48,000 new jobs during her administration.

“Our state’s fiscal house is back in order,” Gov. Kelly said. “But at the same time, the same politicians who drove our state into the ground want the keys back. They must think Kansans have a very short memory.”

The governor warned Republicans would have the state return to days of budget deficits and schools so poorly funded they resorted to four-day weeks. She said the GOP wanted a replay of the Brownback era when “extreme political ideologies won over basic common sense” and the state was getting national attention “for all the wrong reasons.”

“We’ve tried that approach before and it was a total mess. We cannot go back,” Gov. Kelly said. “With stronger schools, an economy that keeps growing — not just with jobs but with careers you can build a life around — and safe communities where neighbors help neighbors. I want to make Kansas the best state in America to get an education, raise a family and start a business.”

Schmidt: ‘Come together’

After the polls closed, Schmidt addressed a gathering of Republicans in Johnson County to express gratitude for the privilege of carrying the party’s nomination for governor.

“Kansas needs a new governor,” Schmidt said. “One who didn’t hurt our kids by rushing to lock them out of school, who won’t trail far behind the nation in recovering jobs her lockdowns destroyed and who never again will lose $700 million to unemployment fraud while utterly failing to help thousands of out-of-work Kansans in their time of greatest need.”

In addition to a campaign defined by criticism of Gov. Kelly’s performance on the economy and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Schmidt said he would be a governor who championed religious liberty, defended freedoms, kept people safe from crime and deadly drugs, opposed abortion, improved election integrity and reduced reliance on welfare.

He’s worked as attorney general to challenge policies implemented by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. With Biden, he’s focused on mandates related to immigration and COVID-19.

“I have stood up for you time and again against the illegal big government overreach of the Obama and Biden administrations,” Schmidt said. “I have stood before the Supreme Court of the United States on your behalf, and won. I have sat with brokenhearted Kansas families, comforted abused children and ached inside at the cruel mistreatment of the elderly and the innocent.”

He appealed to moderate and conservative Republicans, battered during the campaign on abortion rights, to come together ahead of the general election.

“It is time for Republicans to come together behind our nominees and reject the big government liberalism that binds Joe Biden to Laura Kelly. Biden’s bailouts are what’s propping up Kelly’s unsustainable reelection spending spree,” Schmidt said.

Competitive primaries

Kansas voters of all stripes and loyalties participated in the statewide vote on a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would declare the document couldn’t be interpreted to include a woman’s right to abortion.

In addition, Kansans determined the nominees for all 125 Kansas House races and the lone Kansas Senate race required due to a lawmaker’s death.

Republican voters stared down a ballot with GOP three choices for attorney general, two options for secretary of state and a pair of challengers for state treasurer. The most prominent of those contests was to select a nominee for attorney general to replace Schmidt.

The race featured state Sen. Kellie Warren, a Johnson County attorney without much courtroom experience. She received political endorsements that included the Kansas Chamber, Kansans for Life and Kansas Livestock Association. Joining that list were former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Her chief rival was Kobach, the two-term secretary of state who sought to align himself with former President Donald Trump. The former president remained popular in Kansas after easily carrying Kansas in 2016 and 2020.
But Kobach has suffered a loss of prestige after dropping the 2020 Senate primary race to Marshall and falling short in 2018 against Kelly in the governor’s race.

The other GOP candidate for attorney general was Tony Mattivi, a former federal prosecutor who previously worked in the attorney general’s office. Winner of the Republican primary will challenge Democrat Chris Mann, a Lawrence attorney who had his career as a law enforcement officer ended when hit by a drunk driver while on duty.

Chris Mann, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said he was ready for a hard fought general election campaign at Douglas County Democrats Watch Party in Lawrence. Mann, a former police officer and prosecutor, said there are few races with candidates in such stark contrast as the state’s race for its chief law enforcement position.

Mann said he would put policy over political games, something he said recent attorney generals struggled to do. He would focus on filling vacant positions to better hold violent offenders accountable, while also redouble efforts to investigate consumer and Medicaid fraud.

“We can’t let a career politician with an ideological political agenda set foot inside the state’s top law enforcement position,” Mann said. “As a former police officer and prosecutor, my focus will be on the people of Kansas and their safety.”

Congressional options

Elsewhere, Republicans were given the option of sticking with Secretary of State Scott Schwab or going with challenger Mike Brown, who argued Trump was cheated out of the presidency and Schwab was soft on election security.

The GOP contest for state treasurer was between state Sen. Caryn Tyson and state Rep. Steven Johnson. The final stage of this showdown involved a dispute about their work and votes on tax reform bills while serving in the Legislature.

On Democratic Party ballots, voters had to choose from among six candidates for U.S. Senate. The most prominent was Mark Holland, who served as mayor of the unified government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Of course, incumbent U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, was awarded the GOP nomination for reelection.

The primary affirmed the general election candidacies of the state’s four members of the U.S. House. That list includes Republican U.S. Reps. Tracey Mann, 1st District; Jake LaTurner, 2nd District; and Ron Estes, 4th District, as well as Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids.

Rep. Davids, who ran without opposition in this primary, will face Republican and former Brownback campaign manager Amanda Adkins, who lost to Davids two years ago.

“From a six-way primary four years ago, to running unopposed today, I’m honored to be the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 3rd District,” Rep. Davids said. “Even as we face growing division, this campaign has remained focused on listening to and delivering for Kansans. That has let to a record I’m proud of. Working across party lines to lower costs on everyday expenses, repair our aging infrastructure and make more here in America — not China.”

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/2022/08/02/kelly-schmidt-secure-party-nominations-in-kansas-governors-race-wildcard-pyle-awaits/

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/