You’ve already heard this line, but I’m going to repeat it because it’s true: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting things to change.
Which means that Kansas and Missouri voters are in trouble.
Why? Because they don’t seem very happy with their elected officials these days. But they’re about to vote them back into office.
The evidence for this comes from the Midwest Newsroom — a collective effort of NPR stations in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas — which commissioned a survey from Emerson College Polling to take the pulse of voters in those states .
The results weren’t very uplifting.
Voters in each state were asked a simple question: Are elected officials in your state government out for the state’s best interests, or their own?
Fifty-seven percent of Kansas voters said their representatives are looking out for themselves. Just 20% said officials have the state’s best interests in mind. The numbers were barely better in Missouri — 55% of respondents gave a negative response, while just 26% spoke well of their elected officials.
That sure looks like overwhelming discontent, doesn’t it?
You can’t blame the voters for being unhappy, though. What they want is a lot different from what elected officials in Kansas and Missouri — overwhelmingly Republican, in both states — are giving them.
A few examples:
▪ In Missouri, 56% of the poll’s respondents say the state’s abortion ban is too strict. About a third say the current law is about right. Just 10% say the laws should be even stricter.
Republicans who run the state clearly disagree: They’re not loosening the laws — and in fact, they made every attempt to keep a constitutional amendment on the matter off this fall’s election ballot . They failed.
▪ Fifty-two percent of Missourians say the state’s minimum wage of $12.30 an hour is too low. Sixty-four percent say employers should offer paid parental leave. A whopping 72% say employers should provide paid medical leave.
And voters might get some of that stuff this fall — but only because of Missouri’s citizen-led petition process . The good folks in Jefferson City sure aren’t helping out.
At least Show-Me State voters can bypass their elected officials if need be. Kansas voters have no such good fortune. Which means they’re stuck with what Republicans who have supermajorities in the Kansas House and Kansas Senate are willing to give them.
It isn’t much.
▪ Fifty-six percent of Kansas respondents want the state to legalize recreational marijuana. An overwhelming 73% want medical marijuana, at the very least. So far, though, legalization efforts have been stopped cold in the Kansas Legislature.
▪ Finally, 49% of Kansans think it’s a “good thing” that abortion remains legal here, providing reproductive health services both to Sunflower State residents and other Midwestern women who come here because of bans in their own state. That’s not quite a majority, but it’s far more than the 38% who say it’s a bad thing.
No surprise there. Kansans voted overwhelmingly to protect the legality of abortion two years ago. Kansas Republicans have continued their efforts to restrict access. And Attorney General Kris Kobach — along with Missouri’s Andrew Bailey — are leading a federal lawsuit to end Food and Drug Administration approval of abortion drugs.
So much for the will of the people. Why this disparity between what Kansans and Missourians want, and what their representatives are willing to give them?
I don’t have a good answer. Voting is hard. We all have to hold our noses a bit when we go into the voting booth, knowing the people we elect will be with us on some issues and not on others. Everybody has to find their own balance.
The latest polling results suggest most of us aren’t very happy with that balance, though.
So here’s my advice to folks in Kansas and Missouri: If you keep voting for Republican domination of your state governments, you’ll keep getting Republican governance. And you probably won’t be happy with the results.
It’s your choice.
Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.
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