In New TV Ad, Laura Kelly Omits the Truth on Grocery Tax

Photo credit: Charlie Riedel, AP

In a new TV ad that started airing across Kansas today, Democrat Laura Kelly celebrates the recent reduction of the grocery tax. But the truth is a bit more complicated…

Kelly vetoed a reduction in the grocery tax over three years ago. Since then, Kansans have continued to pay the second highest grocery tax in the country. A report from the Kansas Legislative Research Division earlier this year showed that, had Kelly not vetoed the May 2019 bill, Kansas families would have already been saving hundreds of dollars with a grocery tax that dropped to 2.9 percent in 2022 and would have been nonexistent by 2023.

Kelly didn’t “get to work” on the bill she eventually signed. It wasn’t until Attorney General Derek Schmidt wrote Kansas legislative leaders asking for a reduction or elimination of the grocery tax that Kelly suddenly remembered her unfulfilled 2018 campaign promise. And Kelly “didn’t publicly back the GOP bill until after it passed the Legislature” and “was not publicly involved in the negotiations that produced the legislation” she did eventually sign, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.

If you’re reporting on Kelly’s new ad, please use the following statement from RGA spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez: “Prices have been skyrocketing under Democrats Joe Biden and Laura Kelly for months, and all that time Kansans continued paying the second highest grocery tax in the country because Kelly vetoed a reduction over three years ago. Kelly failed to show any leadership and just stood idle as she forced Kansans to hand over their money year after year so she could fill her government coffers and say ‘bring it on‘ to the Biden recession.”