The headline was that Kansas legislators overturned Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a new Congressional District voting map. But the real news was that to get enough votes, Senate Republicans agreed to appease the anti-vax…

 We’ll be talking about Monday’s decision for years. Not because it’s Valentine’s Day, a moment long ago when a Catholic priest named Saint Valentine was executed for ignoring the edicts of a tyrannical Roman emperor…

NEAR KYIV, Ukraine — In a snow-covered forest one hour outside Kyiv, I am watching 250 Ukrainian civilians train to defend their capital if the Russians invade. It’s hard to comprehend that in 2022 —…

It took a day, and the possible reintroduction of polio and measles to Kansas schoolchildren, but Senate President Ty Masterson got the redistricting map he wanted. On Monday evening, after a brutal multi-hour lockdown, the…

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s Memory Wall of the Fallen Defenders stretches down a city block. It is covered with rows of portraits of the 15,000 young volunteers and bearded veterans who died fighting the Russians…

Conservative politicians across America are promoting state-level legislation aimed at preventing new wind farms from being built in their states. In Kansas, a conservative legislator from urban Johnson County has proposed three bills that would…

As Mary Kay Heard tells it, “I was a nobody,” for much of her life.    That’s when you want to shake her by the shoulders and say it’s because of people like her and…

When Donald Trump and his allies set out to alter the results of the 2020 election, they targeted local election officials and legislators all over the country. Very often the people in these critical positions,…

Where are the hearings? It’s been eight weeks since Liz Cheney, the top Republican on the House select committee investigating the attack of on the U.S. Capitol of Jan. 6, 2021, promised “multiple weeks of…

Like many scholars of democracy, I have strongly supported both the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. Both are necessary (though not sufficient) to secure the most precious rights…