Taking Back Kansas: We need your help!

By Diane Silver

As we hurtle towards the Nov. 7 election, it's worth noting that we in Kansas have a chance to add a bit of blue -- not to mention a bit of sanity -- to this reddest of red states. To succeed we need to work together.

We have a good chance of keeping our Democratic governor in office, and we could well throw out our Republican attorney general whose idea of campaigning is to go from church to church to church. And then, of course, there's the continued work to add to the newly minted moderate majority on the state Board of Education. (hoorah!)

What has been getting lost in all of this, though, are some campaigns that may be more important, or at least as important, as these high profile races. I'm talking about the fact that all the seats in the Kansas House of Representatives are up for a vote in November.

Races for the House are often overlooked, but the people elected to these seats can have a greater impact on my life and yours than even the governor.

Case in point: If only a few members of the House had been different in 2005, the ban on gay marriage, civil unions and any other legal right for same-sex couples would have never made it onto the statewide ballot and would never have been voted into the Kansas Constitution. Because that proposal was a constitutional amendment, it did not require the signature of the governor.

The problem, though, with House campaigns is that they are seldom well funded, and often, voters have little information about the candidates.

That's where you come in. I need your help to get a better idea of where House candidates stand on moderate and progressive issues.

If you know anything -- and I mean anything -- about a candidate for the Kansas House from a district anywhere in the state, please reply to this post or email me directly at hopeandpolitics@yahoo.com I'll make certain the information gets out either on this blog or through my Liberty Press column.

Let's bring common sense back to the Heartland!