Category: KCKCC

In the race for U.S. Representative, 3rd District, two Democrats, Kelly Kultala and Reggie Marselus, are competing for the opportunity to run against Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder in the general election.

Kultala, who lives in the Piper area of Kansas City, Kan., is a former state senator, a former Unified Government commissioner and a former Piper School Board member. She also was a lieutenant governor candidate in 2010. A consultant, Kultala formerly worked in the nonprofit philanthropy field.

Kultala has been endorsed by several groups and individuals, including the Kansas National Education Association, the AFL-CIO, the Mainstream Coalition, and Kansas Democratic Party Chair Joan Wagnon.

A Lenexa resident, Marselus is a retired electrical worker who is active in a union retiree group and other union groups. He also is a retired church organist.

Yoder, an Overland Park lawyer, is running unopposed in the Republican primary election. He began serving as U.S. representative in 2011. He is from a small community outside Hutchinson, Kan.

At the candidate forum July 30 at Kansas City Kansas Community College, Kultala was represented by Devon Roberts because of a scheduling conflict.

“We need more women in Congress to continue the progress of fighting for what we’ve been fighting for, for generations,” Roberts said. “Kelly is committed to ensuring that equal pay for equal work becomes a reality in this country and is no longer just an unfulfilled promise.”

She said Kultala knows too many middle-class families are living on the edge because she has been a member of one of those families.

“She knows that no family should ever stare bankruptcy in the face because someone gets sick,” Roberts said. “She will fight to ensure that we do not regress to a time when insurance companies could drop you just because you’re ill.”

Her campaign has been very active, making more than 9,000 phone calls, she said. Roberts said that Kultala is the candidate who can beat Yoder in November, and that her polls were in her favor, with only 30 percent wanting to elect Yoder.

“For 30 years, I wore a hard hat, I wore bib overalls and steel-toed boots and safety glasses, and I worked to build things that you can see,” Marselus said. “Now, in my retirement I want to work to build something that you cannot yet see and that is your future.”

“President Obama said, send me a Congress in 2014 that wants to build a road,” Marselus said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I build things, and I want to build roads. Our nation’s infrastructure has a potential of $3 trillion to our economy, with hundreds of thousands of workers. For decades, all paid taxes, and it will revitalize our nation’s economy. I also want to see Social Security protected. My approach to that is hands-off. I believe that if we open the door to any reform, once we open the door, reform comes in a flood. The Social Security system is doing just fine.”

He said all citizens in America should get the rights they deserve as citizens.

Marselus said that Kultala and he share many of the same opinions on the issues. “I believe that I bring the experience of a working man and I will work for you as a working man in the U.S. Congress,” he said.

Despite huge differences in the campaign finance warchests between the Republican and Democratic candidates, Marselus still had hope.

“Even big money can be defeated by a large amount of small people,” Marselus said. He said he planned to work his way into the U.S. Congress.

“If you allow advertising to affect your vote, then you’re not paying attention,” he said. “If you elect someone who buys more advertising because they have more money, then the only person you’ve elected is someone who had more money and can buy more advertising.”

To see more of the candidates’ views, see https://wyandotteonline.com/candidate-forum-to-be-shown-on-kckcc-cable-channel/
or visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSR0tns6Mf0&index=3&list=PLMfeRPiOepX3eMxZvUqSyLgAGYAra4qls

by Mary Rupert
One of the most shocking statements at the candidate forum July 30 at the Kansas City Kansas Community College was made by Alvin Zahnter, a Republican for U.S. Senate from Russell, Kan.

In discussing the president’s executive orders, he alleged that money was going to America’s enemies and said, “It’s got to stop.” Zahnter said he would support impeachment.

“In fact I won’t be happy until what our country stands for, my constitution, has somebody hanged for this,” Zahnter said.

His remarks came on the same day that President Obama visited Kansas City, Mo., and called for federal lawmakers to “stop hating all the time.”

Zahnter, of Russell, Kan., was the only one of four candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate who showed up at the forum. Earlier in the day, incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts, of Dodge City, Kan., and one of the opponents, Milton Wolf, of Leawood, Kan., were seen on news reports after a sidewalk meeting in Emporia, Kan., with Sen. Roberts declining to debate Wolf. Also running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate is D.J. Smith of Osawatomie, Kan.

Zahnter said he opposed executive orders. “These executive orders are not from we the people,” he said. He said the president was giving arms and federal money away to enemies through executive orders.

“We don’t give our money to our enemies,” Zahnter, a Vietnam veteran, said.

He said he was for term limits, for guns, and for medical marijuana.

In discussing immigration reform, Zahnter said the border should be shut down.

“We cannot take no more,” he said. “We can hardly feed our own, let alone, at the rate that they are breeding.”

“We’re multiplying too fast,” he said, adding that he does not support abortion after a certain term.

Zahnter, wearing a red, white and blue outfit, said, “God put me in this race one morning.”

“This is our country, and I plan to keep it our country,” he said. “My God, my state, my Bible and my flag. I’m here to fight and if you’re here to fight, let’s get it on.”

For more of the candidate’s comments, view the candidate forum on the KCKCC cable channel or on YouTube; see https://wyandotteonline.com/candidate-forum-to-be-shown-on-kckcc-cable-channel/

by Mary Rupert
Chad Taylor and Patrick Wiesner are facing off Aug. 5 for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

In a candidate forum July 30 at Kansas City Kansas Community College, Taylor said he was concerned about three recent Senate votes by Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican, including the vote on the agriculture bill; the vote against funding for vocational treatment and post-traumatic stress rehabilitation for armed forces, and the vote against the biosciences facility in Manhattan, Kan.

“Those three votes sound more like a vote of a Virginian than a Kansan,” Taylor said. He said he would have voted yes on all three of the votes.

He is the district attorney for Shawnee County, which includes Topeka. Those three bills would have helped the Kansas economy, he believes.

“People are hurting and we need jobs, and we need to start focusing on jobs for Americans and jobs for Kansans,” he said.

Wiesner, a tax attorney, a CPA, and Army veteran from Ellis, Kan., who has a law office in Overland Park, said he would like to use his experience as a certified public accountant to improve the nation’s system of collecting revenues. He also supported adequate staffing for the Treasury Department.

Wiesner said the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land now, and that “we can make it work.” He would support changing the law to allow Medicare to negotiate prices on prescription drugs, take steps to make sure that everybody is covered, and do medical malpractice reform.

Taylor said many people like the Affordable Care Act because those with preexisting conditions are not denied coverage; there is no lifetime cap; and kids can be on their parents’ health coverage through age 26. It has allowed the underemployed to leave their jobs they held onto only because of the health insurance, and create their own full-time businesses because they now can get coverage, he said.

While there has been some confusion about this new law, it is still the law of the land, Taylor said, and “we have to get the right people around the table.” The professionals in the health field, along with consumer advocates, will then help this wide-sweeping public policy to evolve, he said.

Wiesner, who has been self-funding his own campaign, said he was the “get America out of debt” candidate. Wiesner, who is an Army reservist, wrote legal opinions on the Army’s requests to spend appropriated money on different projects, and he said he has ideas of how money can be saved.

Taylor said America needs to go back to its “pay-go” rules, where the government showed where the money was coming from before it spent the money.

For more of the candidates’ comments, view the candidate forum on the KCKCC cable channel or on YouTube; see https://wyandotteonline.com/candidate-forum-to-be-shown-on-kckcc-cable-channel/