Sharice Davids’ GOP challengers talk police reform, pandemic response and civil unrest

Republicans competing for the chance to challenge first-term Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids in Kansas’s Third Congressional District stand united against defunding police departments. But the five candidates in the Aug. 4 primary hold an array of views on systemic injustice in policing.

“I am Latino and grew up in a minority neighborhood in eastern KCK. But I never had any problems with the police because my parents taught me self-discipline,” said Adrienne Vallejo Foster, a former Roeland Park mayor.

“The very few bad cops should be re-programmed if possible, and if not, then removed from policing,” she said.

Sara Hart Weir, a former president of the National Down Syndrome Society, has successfully advocated for police reform in the past. In 2013, after a Maryland man with Down syndrome was killed by three off-duty sheriff deputies who forcibly removed him from a movie theater over a ticket dispute, Hart Weir helped organize reform efforts that led to a statewide mandate requiring self-advocates with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be involved in training law enforcement.

“There are clearly significant problems in our criminal justice system that have been systemic for generations,” Hart Weir said.

“I believe we need to have better access to data on the use of ‘no-knock’ warrants administered by law enforcement. Congress also should pass anti-lynching legislation, expand funding for police body cameras, increase police training requirements, and outlaw the use of chokeholds.”

Amanda Adkins, a former Kansas Republican Party chairwoman, said she favors “police reform policies that focus on transparency, accountability and performance.”

“As a mother, I have looked at what is happening in communities across the United States and I find some of these actions and reactions abhorrent,” Adkins said. “We must support police officers and their service to all of us. When something bad happens, bad actors need to be held accountable.”

Adkins asserted without evidence that Davids has been an inflammatory voice in the wake of civil unrest.

“Citizens in the Third District should be concerned when they see their congresswoman, Sharice Davids, promoting violence against authority,” Adkins said.

Asked to justify the accusation, Adkins’s campaign manager Matt Patterson said that Davids promoted violence by attending the June 5 Black Lives Matter rally in Kansas City.

A Davids spokesperson characterized the attack as a “pathetic attempt to distract from the GOP candidates’ extreme, far-right records.”

“Representative Davids supports those who are speaking out against systemic racism and the injustices that Black Americans face every day,” Johanna Warshaw said in an email statement.

“She believes that communities need police, but also that law enforcement agencies must undergo serious reforms to increase transparency and ensure those committing crimes are held accountable for their actions.”

Over the last few weeks, there has been a groundswell on the left for redirecting funds away from law enforcement to areas such as public health, education and housing. Some candidates have seized on the term “defunding” to mean elimination of police departments — a position that few, if any, Democrats take.

“Demanding the defunding and elimination of the police is not a dialog. It is a one-way conversation similar to the one you will have when someone breaks into your home and there is no answer when you call 911,” said Mike Beehler, a former Burns & McDonnell executive.

Beehler noted that Floyd, who was unarmed when he was killed, only came into contact with police because he allegedly tried to pay for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.

“Had George Floyd not committed a crime, he would not have encountered the police,” Beehler said. “But the crime he committed in no way warranted the treatment he received, let alone a death sentence.

Beehler pointed to a system that protects officers with numerous complaints against them, as well former military personnel suffering from PTSD who join law enforcement.

“Are there systemic issues that need to be solved? Yes. Are they all racial? The data does not support that assertion,” Beehler said.

Former state Rep. Tom Love noted that more unarmed white people were killed by police last year than unarmed Black people.

Although half of those shot and killed by police are white, Black Americans are killed at more than twice that of white Americans, according to Washington Post data.

“There are cases of police brutality, but that’s the exception that proves the rule,” Love said.

“I support the police, but not the officer who brutally killed George Floyd.”

COVID-19

Civil unrest has compounded the COVID-19 crisis. After a recent wave of cases in Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly ordered all Kansans to wear face masks in public.

Love said that if he were to grade the federal government’s initial response time for testing, he would give it a D. Now, though, he believes the U.S. is on the right track.

“The number of cases is rising, but the death rate is going down,” Love said. “We need to continue to protect the elderly and the vulnerable until we have a vaccine and more effective treatments are available.”

But the pandemic has also devastated the American economy. Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi characterized the COVID-19 recession as “the shortest and arguably the most severe in history.”

“It shouldn’t be a partisan issue to say the number one sector that needs to be protected in the COVID-19 recovery needs to be American small businesses,” Hart Weir said.

She said Congress should fully debate a temporary payroll tax freeze, a measure that both Love and Adkins endorsed.

“I support a ‘Payroll Tax Holiday’ that would suspend the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax,” Adkins said. “Suspending this tax will immediately mean a raise to workers and a cost savings to employers, providing a much needed powerful boost to the economy.”

Vallejo Foster said she believes precautionary shutdowns in response to the virus did more harm than good.

“I was opposed to the total shutdown of our economy, which caused 30 million Americans to become unemployed and thousands of small businesses to go bankrupt,” Vallejo Foster said. “The forced shutdown has hit minority small businesses harder than any others. We need to keep the economy open and get people back to their jobs.”

Beehler, who attended an April protest in Topeka against Kelly’s stay-at-home order, said that as a society, America needs to get better at discussing and working through sensitive topics.

“The immediate impacts of the pandemic and civil unrest are amplified by a second pandemic of ‘non-dialog’ in our nation,” he said.

Follow The Star for more election coverage, including an in-depth breakdown of Third District candidates’ stances on such issues as healthcare, the economy and immigration.