Kansans working together isn’t a thing of the past. Join us for real change in Topeka | Opinion
Ad Astra per Aspera.
A couple weeks before we celebrated Kansas Day on Monday, members of the Kansas Legislature returned to Topeka to begin their work for the year. While there are certainly issues bubbling to the surface already — from the flat tax pushed by legislative leadership, to Medicaid expansion, K-12 education and child care — it is worthwhile to pause and reflect on our history as they, and we, set about making decisions for the future.
The land Kansans call home existed long before it was called Kansas, of course. It was home to Native Americans, including the Wichita, Pawnee, and Kansa peoples, among others. Parts of it have belonged to France, Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas. Early American explorers dubbed it the Great American Desert, and for some time the federal government paid folks to plant trees here.
Kansans born or moving here today might be surprised to learn that history. After all, Kansas is now a center of agricultural production of wheat, milo, soybeans and many other crops. In some of our rural counties, the cattle outnumber the people living there. Our roads and infrastructure provide a way to get these things to market — and to the people who need them.
Put another way: Kansans took a desert and found a way to help feed the world.
It may be a result of our politics, or because of them (or a little of both), that these seem like accomplishments of a bygone era — but they’re not. In the last century, Kansan and President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower led the Allies to victory in World War II, as he led the country through its aftermath, Amelia Earhart pioneered the skies when she took off from Atchison, and Jack Kilby of Great Bend invented the microchip. A Kansan recently won an Oscar for writing a screenplay about a Black cop infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, and another real Kansan has won numerous acting awards for playing a fictional one who moves to England to coach soccer, and winds up inspiring even the British with his classic Kansas wit and charm.
We believe the same spirit of perseverance and grit that have made these Kansans known throughout the nation and the world should be preserved in our social and political life. We and other like-minded Kansans formed Kansans First as a bipartisan organization to help moderate voters organize and make change on key issues such as high-quality public education and child care, Medicaid expansion and other issues that impact the day-to-day lives of Kansans. These problems won’t be easy to solve — but when the going gets tough, Kansans find a way forward. We encourage Kansans to visit KansansFirst.org to learn more about the organization, find resources and stay informed on what’s happening in the Legislature.
The authors of our state motto could have kept it short and simple — Ad Astra could have worked — but they valued foresight and pragmatism over expediency, and they knew what it would take for Kansans to reach the stars. So, as we go through this year and the elections coming with it, Ad Astra per Aspera, Kansans: To the stars through difficulty, but to the stars all the same.