Guest Column

by

Kris Kobach, Republican

Kansas Attorney General

Kansas Republicans are about to reap a rich harvest as legislation the Republican-controlled legislature passed becomes law tomorrow. We have a supermajority to thank for defending infants born alive and protecting girls’ sports.

Unfortunately, we have a Governor who thinks she can pick and choose which laws she will enforce. She announced yesterday that she will instruct state agencies to ignore the Women’s Bill of Rights, or SB 180.

The law says that school districts and agencies that collect “vital statistics … or other data shall identify each individual who is part of the collected data set as either male or female at birth.”

That means birth certificates and drivers’ licenses should reflect an individual’s sex at birth. I issued a formal Attorney General’s opinion informing the state agencies of their responsibilities under the new law. Gov. Kelly is claiming that the new law changes nothing.

Duly-elected state lawmakers passed the legislation with an overwhelming majority. Kelly vetoed it, and lawmakers, in bipartisan fashion, overrode her veto.

Her instruction to agencies essentially says that she believes the law changes nothing. If she truly thinks that, then why did she veto it?

The Governor doesn’t get to veto a bill and then ignore the Legislature’s override.

I will take her to court and ensure that the law is enforced as it is written. It is a sad state of affairs when a governor instructs state agencies to defy the law. It’s not just about SB 180, it’s about the rule of law itself.

As Attorney General, I will do what is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of Kansans, and protect the rule of law – even if the threat is coming from the governor’s office.

KSGOP Office Goes Virtual

The KSGOP Office in Topeka officially closed on June 30, 2023, and will now operate as a virtual office. The phones will continue to be answered and emails will be returned as normal.

It stood to reason that shuttering the KSGOP office was good business practice given the minimal traffic through the office and that technology that makes this change possible and seamless. Temporarily closing the office and eliminating the monthly expense was an obvious money-saving opportunity with no negative impact to our operations.

The anticipated monthly savings to KSGOP is in excess of $4,500/month which translates into an annual savings of about $55,000. This savings will get more Republicans elected statewide this year and next year.

The KSGOP Office will be reopened next year, possibly in multiple shared county party locations, across Kansas.

Your KSGOP is being managed like a business and we always have one eye on our expenses. We want to make every donated Republican dollar stretch as far as possible.

Please take a moment and DONATE NOW to KSGOP (CLICK HERE) or join the “1776 Club” NOW (CLICK HERE).

You can still reach the KSGOP at (785) 234-3456 or via our website or email.

Numinar Data Management Platform Training Sign Up

To sign up for Numinar, our powerful and cutting-edge data management and canvassing application tool:

CLICK HERE

To register for live, in-person Numinar training on Thursday, July 13th at 6:30 pm, join the Google meeting:

CLICK HERE

To watch a prerecorded Numinar overview video:

CLICK HERE

RNC Regional Fly-In Wraps Up

The RNC hosted a Midwest Regional Fly-In Meeting in Columbus, OH, this week. KSGOP Chairman Mike Brown, Johnson County Republican Party Chair Maria Holiday, Douglas County Republican Party Chair Brent Hoffman, and Kansas RNC Committeewoman Kim Borchers attended.

Much was presented and discussed, and many new alliances and friendships were forged.

Valuable tools for further Republican success were explained and demonstrated, and it was time well spent.

Kansas Republican

Calendar of Events

Note: If you have a Republican event you would like to tell folks about, email the details for inclusion consideration to:

[email protected]

Facts and Figures

“Bidenomics” is Failing Us

Failed "Bidenomics" is destroying the ability of millions of citizens to reach the American Dream.

What you need to know:

“Bidenomics” is maybe the worst political slogan to come out of Washington since Biden threatened to “finish the job.”

"Bidenomics” is failing. Under Biden, savings are down, real wages are down, and economic confidence is down.

Two years ago, Biden and his administration promised inflation would be "temporary."

Americans have lost over $10,000 on average paying for the increased cost of living since Biden took office.

In a new NBC poll, 74% of Americans believe things in this country are headed in the wrong direction, with only 20% of Americans believing we are headed in the right direction.

This week, the Biden administration said Bidenomics is incredibly popular.

Harvard CAPS-Harris poll: 74% say their financial situation is not improving, with almost half saying their financial situation is actively “getting worse” under Biden.

NBC News Poll: 74% say the nation is on the wrong track.

Fox News Poll: 83% rate the nation's economic situation as negative.

Almost 80% of Americans say Biden’s policies have not helped them, with nearly half saying that Biden’s policies are actively hurting their family.

CNN Poll: A CNN poll from May shows 66% disapprove of the economy.

Even within the Democrat Party, just 7 in 10 approve of the ecoconomy.

Biden’s speech this week forced our RNC Research fact checkers into hyperdrive to counter Biden’s lies, spin, and half-truths on the economy.

Americans know his economic plan is failing, and Biden is proving that he could not be more out of touch. See below for the facts. You can find all of these and more at FactCheckBiden.com.

Bidenomics Is Not Working

This Is Biden’s Inflation

Biden Did Not “Create” 13 Million Jobs

Biden's Deficit Spin

Biden's Middle-Class Deception

The bottom line:

Biden's plan is not working.

Under Biden, savings are down, real wages are down, economic confidence is down, and costs are up.

If Biden wants credit for an agenda that has made American families poorer, he's got it.

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What Churches Can

- and Can Not -

Do in Politics

Each day the news demonstrates the ongoing battle over religious liberties and our ability to live out our faith in our daily lives. The willingness to speak out on issues of the day is critical regarding government officials and public policies that impact our faith, families, and values daily.

There is a lot of misinformation about what churches are allowed to do in the political arena – misinformation spread by liberals and groups that don’t want to see conservative people of faith speak out and have an impact. They attempt to scare pastors from participating by claiming that if they get involved, their church will lose its tax-exempt status. But the simple truth is no church has ever lost its tax-exempt status over its participation in the political arena. Period.

Don’t be intimidated and withdraw from the arena. Know the facts and have an impact! Here’s a simple list of what churches can and cannot do in politics:

A Church Can:

- Conduct non-partisan voter registration drives

- Conduct non-partisan voter identification drives to identify conservative voters

- Conduct “get-out-the-vote” drives, encouraging conservatives to vote

- Conduct petition drives regarding legislation or other issues

- Distribute non-partisan voter education information

- Discuss doctrine as it applies to politics, legislative matters or candidate positions

- Introduce political candidates and allow them to address the congregation

- Host candidate forums where all candidates are invited and allowed to speak

- Educate church members on legislative and political matters

- Lobby on behalf of specific legislation

- Support or oppose political appointments (such as judges or cabinet officials)

- Make expenditures on behalf of state referendums

- Rent church member contact lists to favored lobbying groups

- Pastors may endorse candidates as individuals, but not on behalf of a church, (if title and church

name are used, include a “title and affiliation for identification purposes only” disclaimer)

A Church Can Not:

- Endorse or campaign for candidates for elected office in the name of the church

- Contribute money to a campaign, or make “in kind” contributions (such as resources or services), to

a candidate, political party or political action committee

- Pay for partisan political events with church funds

- Distribute materials that endorse a particular candidate or political party

- Allow candidates to solicit funds from the congregation (from the pulpit)

- Create a church political committee that would do any of the above

Of course, the list of things that CAN be done in a place of worship is much longer than what cannot be done. The important thing is that churches don’t avoid all political activity simply because some of it is prohibited

If churches and people of faith don’t stand up and speak out for their values, then who will?

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

America is simply the ideal that tomorrow is but another chance to be ever-better, and freedom is but the vehicle delivering the opportunity.