TOPEKA — Republican governor candidate Derek Schmidt’s new campaign commercials castigate Gov. Laura Kelly for creating in 2020 a Commission on Racial Equality and Justice to search for solutions to problems within Kansas law enforcement agencies.
Ads released Thursday and Friday by the Schmidt campaign ripped the commission and focused on a key message in the attorney general’s end-of-campaign political assault on Kelly. The commercials seek to portray Schmidt as an unblinking supporter of law enforcement, while questioning Kelly’s commitment to public safety. Specifically, the attorney general’s ads one month ahead of the Nov. 8 election asserted the Democratic governor “called Kansas cops racist” and “appointed a woke commission that pushed for anti-policing laws.”
Schmidt took this tact despite affirming in October 2020, in a conversation with members of the governor’s equity and justice commission, that he believed racial bias was present within Kansas law enforcement agencies.
Schmidt’s reply to a question from one of the commissioners, captured on a video posted to YouTube: “Obviously, it does exist.”
“It exists in human relations and so it therefore exists in the subset of human relations that include law enforcement interactions with people,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt, the state’s three-term attorney general, told the governor’s commission the challenge of racial bias was enough that law enforcement agencies in the state and the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, the entity that licenses law enforcement officers in Kansas, took seriously allegations leveled against officers and deputies.
Leaders of CPOST and individual law enforcement agencies, especially the state’s larger policing agencies, have shown a commitment to dealing with “implicit or explicit” instances of racial bias, the attorney general said.
“It’s not an also-ran consideration and I give them credit for that,” Schmidt said.
Commission’s origin
Kelly created the Commission on Racial Equality and Justice one month after millions of Americans watched video of a Minneapolis police officer with his knee on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes. Floyd, a Black man, died. Before the Floyd incident, Louisville, Kentucky, resident Breonna Taylor, also Black, was shot to death in her home by police officers. The governor also referenced the hate-crime murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia by three white men, including a former police officer.
These and other incidents sparked nationwide protests woven into the Black Lies Matter movement, which took issue with police brutality and racially motivated violence against Black people. Some protests veered into riots.
“The recent protests over police brutality and institutional racism are part of a long tradition used by civil rights activists to compel our country’s leaders to address racial inequity,” Kelly said in 2020. “Americans have once again stood up and raised their voices demanding reform, accountability, transparency and their constitutionally guaranteed rights for all.”
Kelly went on to say elected leaders had to listen, learn and act to thwart racial inequity and injustice in Kansas and elsewhere.
“As governor,” she said, “I am committed to ensuring this latest tragedy does not fade into the next news cycle. Communities of color do not have the luxury of time for leaders to ignore these issues any longer. Systemic racism within law enforcement must end.”
Kelly said that by focusing her commission initially on policing and law enforcement, “we aim to make changes that will improve the safety of both citizens and police officers.”
