Change is afoot for Allen County.
For the first time in a decade, local voters — part of the newly reformed Ninth Kansas House District — will have someone new representing Allen County in Topeka when the State Legislature reconvenes in January.
Rep. Kent Thompson, who held the seat since 2013, opted against running for re-election.
Humboldt’s Alana Cloutier, Democrat, is facing Republican Fred Gardner of Garnett in the Nov. 8 General Election. Neither faced opposition in their respective party’s primary vote in August.
This year marks Cloutier’s second bid for elective office. She was unsuccessful in her bid against Thompson in 2020.
“I definitely learned a lot about campaigning,” she said, “about what to do and what not to do. I’m less hesitant to knock on doors.”
Cloutier’s candidacy two years ago came about at the last minute, after she was asked by the Democratic party to run against Thompson. She filed the day before the filing deadline.
“I hated seeing somebody run unopposed,” she explained. “It’s bad for democracy, especially in a two-party system, with a supermajority. It’s good for candidates to have to get out and talk about positions, knock on doors and talk to people, to find out what’s happening across the district.”
Since then, she’s learned much about the political process, and more importantly, what matters most to folks in this part of the state.
Cloutier is eager to discuss “kitchen table” issues: taxes and the economy.
“Democrats don’t always have a reputation for talking about taxes,” she admitted.
However, tax relief is one of the staples of her campaign. In particular, Cloutier laments rising property taxes and the high sales tax rates for food.
Cloutier, like Gov. Laura Kelly, is pushing for the state to once again fund the Local Ad Valorem Tax Relief Fund (LAVTR).
The fund was a staple of city and county budgets for more than half a century, in which the state allocated leftover tax revenues across the state, as a means for them to lower property taxes.
The state pulled LAVTR funding because of budget constraints in 2003 and has yet to reinstate the fund, even though the mechanism is still in place. There are a lot of things Kansas needs, a lot of things rural Kansas needs. When both parties talk about rural Kansas, they talk about farms. They forget we have towns with infrastructure issues, housing issues, childcare issues.
