From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week.

A major ruling could change the future of abortion policy in Kansas, a judge strikes down restrictions that have been on the books for nearly three decades.

Also, a pair of primary upsets will reshape Wichita's delegation in the Kansas House.

Two incumbents are thrown out of office.

But first, Kansas voters have chosen their nominees for governor, setting the stage for a high stakes battle that could shape the state's future for generations to come.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Jared Cerullo.

Kansas voters have set the stage for a high stakes race for governor this November.

Republican Ty Masterson won a crowded seven candidate primary, riding an endorsement from President Donald Trump to a decisive victory on the Democratic side.

State Senator Cindy Holsinger defeated fellow Senator Ethan Corson despite cautions endorsement from Governor Laura Kelly.

Masterson campaigned on lower taxes, public safety, and education freedom, while Holsinger promised to protect public schools, expand Medicaid, and legalize cannabis.

The two now head into what is expected to be a knock down, drag out battle with plenty of fireworks.

Here to discuss this and some of the other big stories of the week are Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell, Wichita City Councilman Dalton Glasscock, attorney to political attorney and political analyst Matt Agnew, and mental health advocate Eric Weiler.

Thank you all for joining us.

Jim Howell, let me start with you.

You're never afraid to talk about these things.

What do you make of of how this played out?

It's going to be Ty Masterson with, Cindy Holt.

Sure.

You're a Republican.

So what do you what?

What happened in the Republican contest?

Well, you know, I think there's maybe too many candidates.

It was one of the problems.

And I know a lot of people really likes ronicky.

He had a he had a pretty good following, but, I think the I would just criticize this whole Nikki campaign just a little bit.

I think they were way too negative the last month of their campaign.

I know people who are kind of on the fence thinking maybe I'll support Sara Nikki, but that last month has turned them off.

And I know a lot of people thought that Masterson was going to win.

But nobody, no, nobody expected this large of a margin.

So, it was it was a bit of a surprise, and I'm not quite sure how to read that going into the November election, but I can tell you that both candidates do this in Kansas politics all the time.

Republican gets far to the right and the Democrat goes far to the left.

And then in November, we have a real challenge on which one is going to win.

I think it's going to be a very tight race.

Yeah.

This is you know, Laura Kelly prides herself as being a middle of the road governor, whether you agree with that or or not.

But the two candidates here are definitely not middle of the road time.

Masterson is far right.

Cindy Holsinger seems to be far left.

Map.

What do you make of the contest coming up in November?

You know, sort of my take on it is I think politicians exist on a spectrum.

Some of them sort of sit on one side of the spectrum of like sort of I'm elected and it should be my wisdom that sort of fills the day in terms of what should happen.

And then there's the other far end of the spectrum, like populist politics.

I think you're end up seeing that.

I think you're going to see Ty Masterson on one side, where his politics are not greatly appreciated by the the statistically by the people of, of the state.

And then you have Cindy sort of just poking at those sort of holes.

Ethan Corson, by the way, got the governor's endorsement and lost.

How does that how does that happen?

I think it's the trend of the country at the moment.

I mean, I think on the left side of the aisle, people are looking for more populist, sort of the democratic socialist, angle of politics these days.

And if you don't sort of step into that pocket at least a little bit, and I don't think Ethan really was willing to even just a little bit, I think you can win, with that sort of politics these days, Ethan kind of seemed like a boring candidate, to be real honest with you.

It just seemed like he.

He didn't have much personality.

Is that how it came across, or am I wrong on that?

I mean, that is kind of the formula for winning on the Democratic side somewhat is like, let the other side mess up and just introduce someone really boring.

So I mean, I'm no no shade to the governor.

She kind of fits that same model, right.

Like it just, you know, and so I think it was just someone who fed the same model that she had followed to the same place.

Councilman Glasscock, how do you see the shaking out in November?

Well, I find it.

And what does the governor's race mean to a city councilman like you?

Well, I think when you're looking at the governor's right now, it's who's ever going to build consensus build, especially about the big issues that they're talking about in the day.

We all recognize that property tax reform is needed.

But who can actually get both sides of the chamber together with the governor's office to make meaningful reform.

That's also not going to put pressure or undue pressure on municipalities, or recognizing there's still a role and function that we have to govern and that we have to lead in the state.

So I'm interested in seeing not even the political side of it, but who can govern.

And who can answer the big questions that Kansans expect them to answer.

Eric, tell me your thoughts.

You know, my experience has been the Democrats really need a reason to come out and vote.

And the middle of the road candidate does not excite the base.

When you market yourself as middle of the road, you're not calling to your Democrats to come out and vote for you.

Ty Masterson has name recognition.

I don't know that Cindy has that same thing.

So, honestly, I think she's going to struggle in the general against Ty Masterson.

Interesting.

Also on Tuesday, three Kansas House incumbents lost their primary elections, including two right here in Wichita.

Democratic Representative Henry Helguson nearly 30 year career in the state House will come to an end after losing to former Wichita mayor Brandon Whipple.

Whipple won with 61% of the vote and now advocates to November's general election.

In another high profile Wichita race, incumbent Representative Ford Car was defeated by community voice publisher Bonita Gooch, who captured 70% of the Democratic vote.

So with no Republican in the race, Gooch is all but assured a seat in the Kansas House.

I'll start with the to the left leaning people over here.

Eric, what do you think?

Is that a surprise that Brandon Whipple beat Henry Helguson a long time and very well.

Like, that's not a surprise to me at all.

I mean, I think the people who were in in Wichita when when Mayor Whipple was in office, if you if you liked him, you really liked him.

And when you see that name, it's a really easy button to push.

So that one doesn't surprise me at all.

Honestly, Benita Gooch probably surprised me more, but she had some incredible support.

I mean, most notably in my book, A new way would be from Brandon and Danielle Johnson, both really heavy hitters, both really popular.

Both have massive networks.

I would argue they're a big reason that, Councilman Sheppard is in office, and I think they brought her along as well.

Interesting.

Matt, what's your take on the, Whipple and Helguson race?

You know, I found it a little bit interesting because what I talked about, like, the trends earlier of, like, the sort of the left going left.

I don't perceive that as the direction in that race.

Like, I see sort of Whipple being a more centrist and Helguson being more sort of progressive.

And so it's interesting seeing the swing a little bit the other direction in that race while the rest of the country goes one way.

I don't think I've ever heard Brandon Whipple described as a centrist.

He's also Dalton.

Go ahead.

What I found, I think Brandon won because Brandon door knocked and he went out there and he was talking to voters every single day in retail.

Politics matters, especially in these House races where you can talk to every voter multiple times.

And I think the controversies of Representative Carr, help helped, Benita sail through with a victory.

She's also well known in the community as the editor of the Community Voice, and is from a well-respected family in the state as well.

And so I think they're just very unique, races.

And I don't know if there's anything to draw upon.

That's a larger question.

In either one of those races, her father held that seat, I believe, for many, many years before car did.

He actually has a legacy for this community.

RIP.

Rip was a great guy and I think everybody loved him, even no matter what side of the aisle you're on.

And he was a great guy.

But you know, but it is actually very likable as well.

She's super smart.

She is articulate.

She is grounded.

She she's lived in that district for a very long time.

She was a very great, a great candidate.

I think that that district is going to do really well to have her represent them.

And I think Ford had a lot of problems, you know, he, he that that whole controversy about the Celtic fox in Topeka is, is something I think that, is a cloud over his, over his legacy.

If you will.

So I'm actually really pleased about Benita.

I think she's going to be great to work with.

And then, honestly, with the Henry Helguson race, my only thought would be that Henry's just too conservative.

For that, for the party.

I hate to say this, some people call him a dino.

You know, he's a Republican, but he's not.

He's a rich Democrat.

I will tell you, though, you know, he does support a lot of the things the Democrat Party supports.

So he has been faithful to the party.

Okay, I don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he's a fiscally conservative.

And Whipple connected the dots.

And, you know, he's a he's a cook.

You know, AFP supports Henry Helguson, for example.

So Coke supports Henry Halvorson.

And they may have resonated.

Perhaps that district is pretty pretty hard Democrat district.

And if you're Brandon Whipple and you bring those items up, it hurt Henry pretty badly.

Kansas voters have also rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have changed the way state Supreme Court justices are chosen.

The unofficial results, showing about two thirds of voters cast ballots against the measure, which would have replaced the state's merit based appointment system with popular elections.

Supporters said the change would give voters a greater voice in selecting the justices.

Opponents argued it would inject more politics and campaign money into the courts.

The vote leaves in place Kansas current system, which has been used to select Supreme Court justices for nearly 70 years.

I'll start with Matt.

Have you analyzed this one?

I'm sure you've analyzed this one.

How did it end up?

More than 70% voting no.

Is this, a question of voters?

Not agreeing with the Republican tactics of bringing this forward in the first place?

I'm not sure.

It's really a sort of a sort of a talk on how the Republicans brought it forward.

Like, I think it's more or less that when you're given the choice of, as it was sort of framed, of like corruption or just leave it alone, it's easy to just say, leave it alone.

If you don't know.

The other thing is not going to lead to corruption, right?

So I just think for voters, when they were sort of framed, that they also sort of I mean, it's important to state that one side outspent the other 2 to 1.

So like one side had a really effective campaign strategy and outcome in terms of the way they performed.

Jim Hall, don't tell me it's actually a poll numbers, just, just before the show here and right now it's 61, 39.

I'll just say that the value of them both was 6040.

So it's almost exactly the same numbers right now.

And, you know, I think most people don't don't perceive the Republicans.

And yet I voted yes.

I'm proud to say that.

I think that to me it's a constitutional issue.

I think we have a Republican form of government that people should be the ones that pick.

They're the leaders of all branches of government.

So to me, it's philosophical, it's constitutional.

But for most people out there voting, they they don't see this as a huge problem.

They just don't perceive that how the courts are derived is something they need to change the Constitution over.

I would say, though, our Constitution, 165 years old, to tell people this, it's been amended 99 times.

It's something we should change once in a while if we find things that are wrong.

And right now, it's arguable that we may have the most liberal court in the entire country.

So how do we get there?

It's because of our current process.

It's not ideal.

We can make it better.

I'm not sure that people thought that, hey, I know great Republicans who are conservative like me, who voted no because they said, I'm not sure there's a right solution to the problem.

So it's interesting, Eric, he just mentioned that we may have the most liberal court in the entire country, but we may also have the most conservative state legislature in the entire country.

True or not, does that balance out?

Well, I think it's the fickleness of politics depending on time lag and who's doing what.

You know, if we have a liberal court, I would argue it's because we've had some liberal governors and governors select four of the nine members of the nominating committee for our Supreme Court.

But, you know, in a few years down the road, if Ty, for instance, is elected into office, my guess is a little swing the other way.

It's the nature of the beast.

It's like the complaint you always have about the budget.

Well, it's the previous president's budget, not mine.

It's kind of the same situation.

It will be interesting to see kind of how it happens.

I also would be a little surprised if you walked out on the street and ask 100 Kansans, how Supreme Court justices are nominated and put into office.

I would be very surprised.

More than 1 or 2 of them could actually even tell you there was a nominating committee that plays a part in that.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Dalton.

Last word.

Go ahead.

I think to Matt's point, voters start at no.

They have to be convinced to get to yes.

And I don't think that there was a good convincing argument for most voters get to.

Yes.

I also think voters are tired of elections that are not held in November as well.

And I think they see that as a mechanism or a tool to discourage voters, whether that's right or wrong.

And their interpretation, I think that's what voters see.

And so any other amendment, I think, in the future has to be on a November ballot in a related story, a Kansas judge has struck down a series of state abortion restrictions, ruling they violate the constitutional right to bodily autonomy.

The 260 page decision permanently blocks laws requiring 24 hour waiting periods, state mandated information for patients, disclosures about abortion reversal and questions about why a woman is even seeking an abortion.

The ruling comes just hours before Judge Christopher Jayaram was sworn in as the newest member of the Kansas Supreme Court.

Supporters called the decision a victory for patient rights, while opponents criticized both the ruling and its timing coming right before the vote on the constitutional amendment that we just discussed.

Dalton, I'll give you the first word here on this.

What are your thoughts on this?

One is the Republican Party has obviously been trying to fight abortion, and maybe that had something to do with the, the question, the constitutional amendment or not.

But tell me your thoughts on this one.

I think two commissioners, House point, it's about the same breakdown as values and both was.

And I think when we're going, this is not going to be the last conversation we have.

This I imagine there'll be appeals immediately.

And this is going to be an ongoing conversation in the state as well.

Eric Lukather, go ahead.

I think, you know, the question of timing paints the perfect picture of why the constitutional amendment was so dangerous in the first place, and why I'm so glad that, that the no vote one judges should be based should raise the rules on constitutional law and not on the timing of their legal opinions.

Legal opinions are being weaponised by politicians to influence elections, and that's really dangerous.

Jim.

Well, I think this is dangerous and extreme.

This 260 page opinion makes it clear there's not a single abortion regulation in the state of Kansas that will stand up as a war for our state.

Everything will be thrown out.

There's nothing I will stand.

And this is based essentially on a very loose interpretation of our state's constitution about the pursuit of happiness, frankly, is the basis for this law.

This, this report and my opinion is this is this is reckless and it is extreme.

And it shows, if you will, that someone who can issue that type of an opinion is now sitting on our courts.

I don't think these courts are not political.

They're very political.

This was not a good decision.

And my opinion is it just shows you what's wrong with the entire system.

Matt, I assume you disagree with that.

Yeah, I think they got the decision spot on.

I mean, when you look at the court's decision in terms of, and 2024, where they subject this to, to strict scrutiny, that means the government must have a very, very tailored, specific approach to trying to regulate our own personal freedoms.

And honestly, they don't have a good excuse for doing so.

And so that's sort of what the opinion lays out.

All right.

Second Light Shelter in downtown Wichita is having a leadership change.

And the shelter's board of directors says executive Director Dan Clifford, has been removed from his position, calling it a personnel matter but offering no further details.

Clifford last appeared publicly at a Wichita City Council workshop last week, where he took part in discussions about proposed changes to the city's illegal camping ordinance.

Board Chair Steve Dickson says day to day operations will continue without major disruption, with Mental Health America of south central Kansas continuing to provide staffing and operational support.

Eric, let me start with you on this one.

You've you've talked you've been no stranger to the homeless.

Situation in Wichita.

Tell me your thoughts on the shakeup that's going on now all of a sudden, what do you think has caused this?

Do you know?

Well, I don't know.

I, you know, obviously, I have no more inside information than anyone else at the table.

I think it's really unfortunate.

I think, you know, there's still a lot of public concern, for lack of a better term, on the shelter in the first place, there were concerns about where it was going to be and what it was going to look like and how was going to affect the neighborhood and all that sort of thing.

And I think there's still a lot of that.

And so to have a leadership change, a sudden leadership change and ambiguous leadership change, so early into the full time operations of the shelter, not not a great time and not a great look.

That said, you know, I know all but one of the members of the board and I consider them all friends.

And there's any number of reasons why someone can be removed in a situation like that.

Looking at the list of boards of directors for that organization, I have to trust that they know what they're doing.

And without any better information, I'll leave it at that.

Councilman Glasscock, any insight as to what's what's happened here?

All of a sudden?

The community needs the shelter to be successful.

And I think we all realize that.

And government is messy because we're making decisions for other messy people.

And that's the whole process.

We're a public.

And so sometimes we have to make tough decisions to be able to move forward on a project.

But I'm encouraged and hopeful that we can continue to increase the number of shelter beds at second light.

I think that's a requirement and that should be needed, and I'm going to be leading that discussion when we have these budget conversations for City council.

So did the changes to potential changes to the camping ordinance have anything to do with this?

Not to my knowledge.

Do you think Mayor Lillie Lou had anything to do with this?

I don't serve on the board of Second Light, and I haven't been given a report on, the reasons for the departure.

So just like everybody at the table, the information, I just know that he's no longer in that position.

Interesting.

Mr.

Agnew, sort of.

My feelings on this one was just like, can't the homeless community get ahead?

Like, you know, it seems like every time we're taking steps in the right direction and we're sort of getting in the it's a better solution, which I think you all have done a beautiful job of doing.

So I think it looks a lot better than, you know, the solutions we have in front of us look a lot better than we've had before.

But it just seems like it's always, you know, one step in the right direction, two steps in the wrong direction.

So I hope that we get that, you know, same momentum still headed in that direction for the homeless community.

Commissioners, I think Dan seems like a nice guy.

He seemed like his heart was in the right place.

And there was a recent city Council workshop on this topic, and I think he was there.

I don't know if there was contention that came out of that meeting or not.

I don't really know what happened.

I have no idea.

But I'd like to just tell the world, I guess.

I think Dan, from from my from my perspective, Dan seems like the right guy, and I'm sad to see that he's been replaced or will be replaced.

The second light needs that needs to have some stability.

It needs to have some some future plans that are crisp and we can count on right now.

Right now.

Second, like just feels like it's just not not where it needs to be.

Yeah, it seems like it's flapping in the wind, quite honestly.

And and you know, this discussion, councilman, has been going on for a long time.

A lot of people have criticized that.

A secure funding mechanism has never been secured for the shelter.

Can you talk about that at all?

Well, I think voters rejected one of the opportunities for that mechanism in April of this year.

And now we have to figure out what does funding look like long term?

When I committed to funding originally for this facility, it was to provide shelter beds, not program beds as a capacity.

And that's something that I will be looking at when I move in this budget is how do we create the shelter beds and make sure that people in our community have the ability to sleep there and offer three meals a day as well?

And again, to Mount Point.

We want this to be successful.

We're moving forward.

The homeless issue that we're facing in the community is the most complex issue that any community can face.

There's a lot of different factors, and it's, a lot different opinions on the sphere as well.

And so it's moving forward and trying to figure out what is the solution that works for Wichita, because our solution may not work in other communities or their solutions may not work in Wichita.

The public may have.

Can you explain what do you mean?

The public had their say because last year, championed by you, you helped to lower the mill levy.

How can we continue to lower the mill levy and continue to say we need more funding for things like this?

Yeah.

I mean, as part of the sales tax referendum, there was a funding mechanism to be able to support some of the funding for homeless operations in the community.

The public rejected that, and there could be a many factors for the rejection of that as well.

It may not be tied directly to the homeless issue.

So because of that decision, we are faced with the decision of how do we fund this?

I'm not interested increasing the property tax or the mill levy for our residents, and I don't think residents are interested as well.

And so we have to figure out a solution moving forward, and it's going to take a whole community to be able figure that solution.

Yeah.

Speaking of the mill levy I mentioned, the council lowered the mill levy last year.

Is is that sustainable or are we going to have to raise the mill levy again?

How can we continue to raise our police budget and ask for more money for our homeless, but not raise the mill levy?

How can we continue to go down that road?

Any any suggestions?

You know, there, I think for my money, the idea of public private partnerships comes into play here.

I've never served an organization, regardless of how much or how little, integration they've had into local, municipal, state, city, federal government, even even places that are getting 80% of the operating funds from government grants.

The first thing I do when I join them is start looking for private partnership, because I know the government funding is not sustainable because people don't like to pay more taxes, obviously.

So there has to be a way of balancing those two.

And if government funding starts to fall off because of, you know, lower taxes, different, leadership and party leadership, whatever it may be, you've got to have a private component to fill that gap.

Yeah, but the reality is the city tried to lower it by half a million, and the turnout was 0.46 mills at the end of the day, even at 0.46 mills, there's still a increase in the tax levy that exceeds the consumer price index.

So there actually is a tax increase.

And that's the reality.

People understand this.

The county this year's a little lower our mill levy by 0.7 by seven two mills or so.

Having done that, we're still increasing our tax levy by 4.2%.

So that exceeds the consumer price index.

There is more money in the system.

We just have it seems like the needs are huge and there is more money in the property tax funds.

Even despite the fact of the mill levy rate went down, there is more money.

The problem is there's not enough more money to take care of these kinds of problems.

All right.

Our last story today, after nearly 12 hours of public testimony, the Sedgwick County Commission rejected two proposed solar farms in southwest Sedgwick County.

Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to deny both projects, with Commissioner Ryan Beatty casting the lone dissenting vote.

Nearly 60 people addressed the commission, with opponents raising concerns about property values, emergency response, zoning and the impact on rural communities.

Supporters said the projects would create construction jobs and provide new income for landowners and boost the local economy.

Commissioners, however, said too many questions still remained to move the projects forward.

Commissioner, I'll start with you here.

It seems like why did you vote?

Yes.

Here?

It seems like a not a very Republican or a conservative stand.

You know what the motion or the motion seems backwards.

It was a motion to deny, first of all.

And there was over 100 people that spoke at these two meetings together.

These are some of the most complex things we do in, in county government, frankly, is a property rights case.

There's compelling arguments on both sides of the equation.

The people did a great job describing this.

But you know, there is.

And I'd like to see I also come in that the commission listened to every possible comment that could be made before these decisions were made.

At the end of the day, there's no easy answer to that.

I would just say the commissioners, you know, I actually do want to be honest with you, Jared.

I didn't even know, walking into that meeting how I was going to vote.

And I think we have to be we let the hearing speak to us.

I don't know how our my colleagues were going to vote.

I had no idea what was going to happen.

But when I'm sitting there thinking to myself, just for an example, the second application, for example, it's nearly 1500 acres and there's 134 homes, I think is the right number that live there are within 1000ft of the solar farm.

Some of them have solar panels on three sides.

Okay.

That those are things that, if those things are true for anybody, it is cast a yes vote to approve.

The whole thing is a little bit difficult.

I think there may be things we could do to amend portions of it, maybe to get more, more support from the Commission, perhaps at some point.

I don't know what those things would be.

I offered some amendment ideas and my colleagues were somewhat silent.

So I got the idea that even if we spent even if we spent a few weeks trying to amend these applications, I don't know what they would have supported them at the end of the day.

You're a lawyer, Mr.

Agnew.

Do you see a lawsuit coming out of this?

I think eventually, I don't think that's the first right response.

Right.

Like most people should appropriately lobby the system.

But honestly, I just see this as like I tell people, this is the summer.

This is the summer of not in my backyard.

I mean, Darby has rejected two big projects.

And Dover's rejected a decent sized project.

Goddard has rejected a decent sized pilot project.

Now you have people, 60 people showing up, you know, caring about their land values, their property values.

It's just, I think, sort of trend we're going to see continuing data centers aren't going away, though.

Council member are we going to see more of this in the future, do you think?

Well, I believe property rights are essential in our constitutional republic, and these are very difficult decisions.

Zoning case in some of the most difficult decisions we face.

I'm glad that you guys finally had a long meeting.

We're often the ones with a long meeting.

But America also needs to be energy independent.

And so we need to.

There's very complex issues, and we have to build up capacity in the community for these tough conversations.

30s I'll give you the last word, Eric.

You know, I was disappointed.

I thought the developers actually did a really good job of laying out the homeowners arguments about material safety, soil water toxicity, emergency shut offs, specialized training for local response teams.

But, you know, at the end of the day, I also have to think about this objectively and say when there is an oil pipeline being built, people express these same concerns and presumably they're overcome enough to be developed and get a yes vote.

So do we have enough, of the same issues, with the solar farms as we do with the oil pipelines?

All right.

Thank you so much to all of you for coming in today.

That's a wrap.

We'll be off for the next three weeks.

Also thanks to cake and CSN for sharing their video.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

Have a great weekend.