Women for Kansas protest rally highlights complaints in education, health care and politics

Issues in education, health care and religion in politics highlighted a list of complaints aired Friday night by several hundred women who gathered for a convention protesting what they call growing extremism in Kansas government.

Several women spoke on a variety of topics. All got standing ovations, but the biggest cheers came for 16-year-old Anna Jenney, a Wichita high school student who lambasted Gov. Sam Brownback on education.

Anna is the granddaughter of Rep. Pat Sloop, D-Wichita, and the daughter of Charles Jenney, the Democratic candidate for state representative from the 87th District.

“Sam Brownback says he’s the education governor, but let’s face it, a sixth-grader could do a better job,” Anna said to wild cheers and laughter.

“Gov. Brownback, would you like to know your grade for your Kansas experiment?” she said. Then, holding up a sign reading “F-,” she said, “You’re failing!”

Stephanie Harsin, a Topeka special education teacher, said she was at the Capitol protesting when the Legislature passed a law to remove teachers’ due-process protection from firing, but lawmakers refused to listen. Instead, she said, they sneaked into the chamber through back stairways to dodge the teacher protest and passed the law in the dead of night.

“These people were disrespected publicly and viciously by the very people who were elected to represent them,” Harsin said.

About 500 women and a few men gathered for the Women for Kansas protest rally that began on the hillside at A. Price Woodard Park on the east back of the Arkansas River. But rain forced the event inside, where it continued for registrants at the group’s “Take back Kansas” convention.

Organizers said the convention at the Drury Plaza Broadview Hotel had sold out to its maximum capacity of 500 attendees and that women were on a waiting list to get tickets for Saturday if there are any no-shows.

Saturday’s lineup of speakers will include Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis; his running mate Jill Docking; independent U.S. Senate candidate Greg Orman, who is in a three-way race for Senate with incumbent Pat Roberts and Democratic Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor; and former state Sen. Jean Schodorf, who is running against Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Friday’s event was part pep rally, part concert featuring the Cherokee Maidens, a local musical group led by former Dixie Chick Robin Macy.

Gina Austin-French, wearing a replica of an 1800s suffragette costume, said women can make the difference in the upcoming November election.

After tracing the evolution of the right to vote for women, she thundered: “We have votes for women. We need women to vote.”

Lori Lawrence of Wichita told the crowd that 182,000 people are without health care in Kansas because of Brownback’s rejection of federal funding to expand Medicaid. Because of a Supreme Court ruling on the federal Affordable Care Act, some workers make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to be eligible for subsidized health coverage through the ACA insurance exchanges.

The federal government has offered states funding to help close that gap, but Brownback has not accepted it, saying that it could force the state into a position where it would have to spend more in the future.

Lawrence told the conventioneers that because of that decision, 330 Kansans will die this year due to lack of proper health care. Her Facebook group, Help Expand Medicaid in Kansas is planning a “death count vigil” on Oct. 18.

“The only way we’re going to get that expanded is to have a new governor,” she said.

Former Wichita State political science teacher Vickie Stangl, a member of Americans United, criticized Brownback and legislators for mixing religion and politics. She said it goes against the founders’ vision of a secular government.

“In their imaginary world, only people of their faith are moral and worthy of holding public office,” she said. “Good government means listening to logic and reason, but Brownback only listens to his gang of corporate buddies and religious zealots.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2014 at 10:51 PM with the headline "Women for Kansas protest rally highlights complaints in education, health care and politics."