Schmidt Highlights Laura Kelly’s Failed Record in First Debate

September 10, 2022

Photo credit: Charlie Riedel, AP

The first of two debates in the Kansas gubernatorial race just wrapped up and there were a lot of hoops, hollers, and cowbells as Republican Derek Schmidt pushed Democrat Laura Kelly on her record and shared his vision for a better Kansas.

On the grocery tax, Schmidt held Kelly accountable for vetoing a reduction her first year in office that would have the grocery tax at 0% in January 2023. It was Schmidt who called on the legislature to eliminate or reduce the tax last November. It wasn’t until after Schmidt’s request that Kelly seconded his call.

Derek Schmidt: “Don’t forget this. The sales tax on food would be half of what it is right now and zero in January if she just wouldn’t have vetoed the bill when they put it on her desk three years ago.”

Schmidt took Kelly to task on her administration’s failures at the Department of Children and Families. Kelly was caught using the department and state resources to help her political campaign earlier this year.

Derek Schmidt: “Here we are four years later after the Governor called this a moral obligation, to fix this system, a statement of which I agree. And there are still children sleeping in providers’ offices, by some accounts more than there were before. There are still kids lost in the system. By a federal audit we rank near the bottom of all states in terms of the number of kids they just don’t know where they are. There are still kids dying in custody.”

And on the issue of immigration, Schmidt called Kelly out for looking the other way as Joe Biden fails to secure the border and refusing to answer the call for assistance from border state Republican governors.

Derek Schmidt: “The Biden Administration has retreated from border security. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it, I’ve challenged them on some of their efforts to pull back on fundamental border security issues… We haven’t had help from the governor’s office on any of our efforts on that. In fact, there were some border state governors in Texas and Arizona who asked Governor Kelly and lots of other governors, Republicans and Democrats, to send them help because they’re being overrun. And not only did Governor Kelly say no, she also called it a political stunt. I don’t think it’s a political stunt, I think it is fundamental to the future of this state and the security of this country.”