There’s a lesson to be found in the race for Kansas House District 100, in Northwest Wichita, where Democrat Mike McCorkle is running against Republican House Speaker Dan Hawkins.
The three issues raised by McCorkle in his race against Hawkins are, according to a recent news article: “protecting women’s reproductive rights, expanding Medicaid and — especially — how McCorkle thinks Hawkins has failed to listen to his constituents.”
While these are important issues, I would submit there are other policies that McCorkle, and all other Democrats running for state office in Kansas, should raise that would enhance their chances of winning.
The No. 1 proposal Democrats should champion is the passage of an amendment to the Kansas Constitution allowing initiative and referendum petitions like Missouri and 25 other states that have some type of a referendum process.
Moderate Republicans looking for a way to distinguish themselves from others in their party might be interested in the issue, too.
In Missouri, an initiative can be placed on the ballot if a petition is signed by 5% of legal voters in any six of the state’s eight U.S. congressional districts. Using this referendum process, the electorate of Missouri has been able to pass several key pieces of legislation that were adamantly opposed by the Missouri Legislature’s right-wing Republican supermajority.
Those policies include legalizing marijuana, passing Medicaid for all Missourians, and keeping anti-union laws from being enacted.
The referendum amendment is how Missouri passed Medicaid Expansion as well as medical and recreational marijuana. Based on a handful of polls, both of these measures could pass in Kansas if referendum petitions were allowed.
Kansas should have the same kind of process, and it’s a winning issue for Democrats and whomever else wants to join the cause. How can you argue against a process that is democracy in its purest form?
I don’t want to understate the difficulty of making this change: Amending our constitution takes a two-thirds vote of both chambers and a majority vote from the public. That’s a tall order.
But the initiative and referendum process would allow a majority of Kansans to pass legislation blocked by legislators who favor a minority position.
Hawkins and others could argue that if you do not like what they are doing in the Legislature, you can vote them out of office. However, legislators tend to ignore the average Joe and Jane, and instead follow the dictates of their wealthy donors.
That brings me to the next issue Democrats should trumpet: term limits.
If Democrats and their allies want to win in November and avoid another supermajority, super-conservative Republican Legislature, they need winning issues.
Championing an initiative procedure and terms limits could be a path to victory.
Tom Arnhold is a retired attorney, judge and 24-year veteran of the Kansas Army National Guard. This opinion piece is reprinted from The Kansas Reflector.