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…

Alaska is a place both physically and psychically removed from the rest of America, which folks there refer to as “Outside.” Note the capital “O,” as it appears in newspapers, which reflects both standardization and…

On Thursday, the Kansas Senate passed a bill that will provide $1 billion or more in tax breaks for large-scale industries that plan to invest here. It’s our hope the House does the same. The…

In politics, there are many artificial divides: liberal and conservative, rural and urban, insiders and outsiders, past and future. When we are faced with problems of extreme gravity, though, we often stand united and work…