When incumbent Republican Rep. Patrick Penn stormed out of a candidate forum this month at a North Wichita church, his Democratic opponent shifted the focus of her campaign to question his mental health.
Democrat Aonya Kendrick Barnett attacked Penn in a Facebook post for his behavior at the Oct. 13 forum, saying that Penn became angry and threw his nametag at an elder while church security intervened.
“I think his anger got the best of him, and this is something that I’ve been hearing constantly about him,” Kendrick Barnett said in an interview.
Before the candidate forum, Kendrick Barnett’s campaign focused on Penn’s voting record. Now, she is voicing concerns over Penn’s outbursts.
One of her initiatives is to give Kansans more access to mental health resources, and her campaign has focused on bringing her values of community, integrity and progress to the Legislature. Penn’s campaign bills him as a “champion for conservatism.”
Penn did not respond to emails and phone calls asking for an interview.
Kendrick Barnett told Kansas Reflector the main difference between her and Penn is that she votes in alignment with what’s important to Kansans by respecting the issues the majority of Kansans support — such as abortion, Medicaid expansion and legalization of marijuana.
Penn, who won his first term for the northeast Wichita district in 2020 and was reelected by a 14-point margin in 2022, focuses a large part of his campaign on his childhood spent in foster care facing abuse and neglect. A campaign video from 2022 pins Kansas foster children’s rates of mental health problems and missing foster children on Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
Kendrick Barnett told Kansas Reflector she believes Penn is facing a mental health crisis, as evident by what happened at the Oct. 13 forum and by comments from others under her Facebook post.
“As we sit here, talking about someone who is displaying signs of stress, I’m here to advocate that we have to enhance our behavioral health infrastructure,” she said. “This is not to shame anyone, and this is from a very destigmatizing background.”
Both candidates are Black, and Penn is the only Black Republican in the Legislature. At the forum, Penn said the Democratic party has accused Penn of “blackface” on mailers sent to Penn’s constituents. In 2020, the Kansas Democratic Party sent mailers of Penn with a red filter over his face, which Penn and the Sedgwick County Republican Party described as a “racist dog whistling piece.”
“You can go to school all you want, but you can’t buy class,” Penn said at the forum.
Penn also said he’s the “most bipartisan leader in the entire Statehouse,” citing tax reform that passed with nearly universal support at a special session in June. He also said he aligns with Democrats who have fully funded education every year “in accordance with the law,” but the governor takes the credit.
Both candidates say public schools are essential and should be adequately supported. But Kendrick Barnett said Penn has not supported “education in an equitable way.”
Penn also has consistently voted for anti-abortion bills. That includes legislation to require abortion administrators to notify patients of the “effects of medical abortions,” and inform patients that a medical abortion could be “reversed.” This law was based on a debunked study and has been blocked by a judge.
Kendrick Barnett is an advocate for reproductive health care, citing her own values and Kansans’ 2022 abortion amendment vote as her reasoning. She said Kansans have clearly stated their stance as pro-reproductive freedom, and that Kansans clearly support Medicaid expansion, which Republican leadership routinely blocks.
At the end of the Oct. 13 candidate forum, Kendrick Barnett said she questions Penn’s leadership because he “dismisses what the people have said.” Kendrick Barnett and Penn were two of 10 candidates speaking at the event, and between Kendrick Barnett’s closing remarks and Penn’s there was a 20-minute gap where other candidates delivered their closing remarks. Kendrick Barnett believes that during those 20 minutes, her remarks were “simmering” with Penn, and amplified his anger.
Tabernacle Bible Church Elder Titus James said in an interview that he didn’t consider Penn’s behavior at the event to be a big deal. A Facebook live video captures the end of the forum, but not the outburst described by Kendrick Barnett in her Facebook post.
Under Kendrick Barnett’s Facebook post, Democratic Rep. Susan Ruiz, of Shawnee, wrote: “This is clearly his pattern of behavior and we have witnessed this same behavior toward our colleagues in the legislature.”
Tom Witt, a former lobbyist for Equality Kansas, wrote about an incident where he said Penn demanded to shake his hand. Witt said he refused, to which Penn responded with: “You don’t want me for an enemy, Witt.”
“As I started slipping forward off my barstool, I asked him if he was threatening me,’” Witt wrote. “ ‘I don’t make threats,’ he said, as he backed off and joined the group he had walked in with.”
Kendrick Barnett said that before the candidate forum, she canvassed only on Penn’s voting record.
“When he had his outburst, and I was able to witness it, it made it a little more important for me to let people know that our legislators need to be safe people,” Kendrick Barnett said. “We need to have environments where we can really talk about things and be empowered, and not dismissed and yelled at or ridiculed by someone who thinks they’re better than us.”
This story is reprinted under a Creative Commons license.
