The Kansas Republican Party hosted the first gubernatorial debate for Republican candidates appearing on the August 4 primary ballot. The debate was held during the party’s Winter Convention on Friday, January 30, at the Wichita Marriott.
The host was Andy Hooser, a conservative radio host out of Wichita, known for The Voice of Reason on Wichita’s KQAM.
Six of the nine Republican candidates seeking the Governor’s office participated. These candidates met the Kansas Republican Party’s established criteria for inclusion, which were set by a statewide committee that unanimously approved the debate agreement. The agreement included both financial requirements and a unity commitment, and six candidates chose to sign and participate.
This transcript has been lightly cleaned for readability.
Host: Welcome back to the GOP Gubernatorial debate, this is part two of the first GOP debate. Here is our first question.
Coming up on the August primary ballot this year is a constitutional amendment to reform judicial selection in the state. Do you support the change in the judicial selection process, and how else could we reign in a radical state supreme court with one of the worst records of overturned cases in the nation?
Joy Eakins: Well, if you are a Kansan and you know anything about the history of Kansas, all you need to know, is how we have judges today, is called the Missouri Rule. It is a terrible way to select judges, and I am really thankful we are getting a chance to vote on that, because we elect judges all the time. We elect judges in Sedgwick County all the time. It is the best way to get the best people. We should be accountable to the people of Kansas.
I think, if you think about how often they have been overturned, you know this and you have seen it’s over 80% of the time, but all you have to do is think about the Carr brothers, who were in the news again, for 25 years or more, after brutal murders and rapes. They’re still waiting. The families are still waiting for justice, because the justice system in Kansas and the Supreme Court does not reflect the values of Kansas. So, I definitely support it, and I’m hopeful that we can get it across the line in the primary, at the same time, you’re voting for me. Thank you.
Host: Thank you very much Phil, you’re up my friend.
Philip Sarnecki: The answer is “do I support it?” Yes. Yes. Go to the ballot box and vote for the constitutional amendment. Our system is so broken, six of our seven judges are extremely liberal. And not only that, but think about the fact that they control spending on the education side. It comes from the judicial branch. No accountability. It should be on the legislative side. They should be responsible for it, and we have got to make sure. I mean, everybody, win, lose, and everybody on this stage, we have to make sure that this constitutional amendment goes forward so we can vote for Supreme Court justices in Kansas as we go forward. And, by the way, we need to make sure there’s an R and a D at the end of their name as well.
Joy Eakins: Amen!
Philip Sarnecki: So, we also know who we are voting for. So, let’s make sure that we make that happen. And that’s it, I’m good.
Host: There we go. All right. Sweet and simple. Charlotte, you’re up.
Charlotte O’Hara: Okay, yes, I support it. The system that we have right now is totally controlled by the Kansas Bar Association. And since the 1950s, they have held us hostage, especially, during the ’90s, when we were going through all of the school finance, even up to just recently. And we still have that held over our heads, and that’s one reason that our school budgets are so bloated, and our property taxes are so high. Yes, we have to have direct elections of our justices, and we have to do it statewide, because if you do it in districts, we’re going, it is going to absolutely decimate the reason why we did it, and absolutely, it needs to be a partisan election. We have to stop allowing the Kansas Bar Association to control our life through their erroneous judicial decisions. They are the reasons that we are the killing fields in Kansas with the abortion rate, 19,811 lost babies in 2024. Let’s get our Supreme Court justices by the people, and for the people.
Host: Very good. Thank you very much.
Jeff Colyer: So, here’s the Missouri plan. And you look at it from the position of being governor and lieutenant governor. The Missouri plan is, we have a committee; they’re going to select on merit. That committee is five trial attorneys chosen by the trial attorneys, and four people chosen by the governor. No wonder there are no conservatives. The only conservative they got through was my general counsel, who worked for me and for Sam, and he’s a fantastic justice. If you read his readings, he is amazing. So, yes, we support this. It needs to be a partisan election, so you know who they are, just like we need to do on all of our local elections. No, no, do it all. Right. But we need to return power to the people on the third branch of government.
But then there’s a whole lot more to this. We have an appeals court underneath it. We changed how that appeals court was selected through statute, so that we could have more conservatives come on. As a governor, I have appointed district court judges as well. And you have to interview these people, and you have to ask them the hard questions. And if they won’t answer it, I wouldn’t appoint them. We need to make sure that our justice system is working through district courts, appeals, courts, and the Supreme Court, so that Kansas actually has a court system that supports our ideals.
Host: Thank you. Thank you very much. Scott.
Scott Schwab: Yeah. I support it. People complain about election judges. One of the best jurists in the state is Jeff Goering, right down here in Wichita. No one is complaining that he is elected. Um… I would say that they need to run statewide, but we have to make sure that all the justices don’t just come from Johnson County either. So, we need to make sure they represent the state. My frustration with the current system is we get judges that say, oh, we’re just state founded by Puritans. They hated slavery. They wanted women to be able to vote, and they didn’t even think you should drink alcohol. Yet they thought it was okay if you had an abortion on demand. I mean, come on. Nobody’s buying it. But now it’s in the Constitution.
And when I call the Kinzer laws, like, its Kinzer, for 10 years, passed all this great prolife legislation, one by one, they’re peeling them away, and then throw them away, say that infringes on the right, that has never been written in the Constitution.
On K through 12: there are four school districts out of over 280 that sued the state. Our school model is based on what those four districts want. And the Supreme Court, get this, the state school board was sued, but the legislature had to provide remedy. That’s essentially saying, I hit your car, but Ty has to pay for it. That’s what the court has done to completely derail the state, and it’s time we hold them accountable.
And they don’t want to be elected because they can’t justify the record. You know what they do. You won’t let them be there. I always teach, ’cause right now, we do retain it, should this judge be retained? Well, okay, well, let’s just do this with every school board member, should they be retained? No, it’s a yes or no, or you don’t get the job. And you have to provide merit, not to a panel of a few, but to the under three million people in Kansas.
Host: Thank you. Ty?
Ty Masterson: Yeah, that’s right. Thank you very much. This might surprise you but as is important, as I think this race is, that question on your ballot is actually more important. Right. No matter who comes down with this, even if you make it two terms, eight years, that will make a generational shift in this state.
And it’s no mystery. They mentioned Missouri. It is the Missouri model on steroids. It is the only state in the country that cedes the power of that commission to five lawyers elected by only lawyers.
I think I can demonstrate how important this is. This is a super-informed crowd because you’re sitting here, and I know that. How many of you know, we have two Supreme Court justices resigned this year, and one’s been reappointed? Don’t feel bad you don’t know. That’s the problem. It’s not in front of the people. You elect your, you elect the governor, you elect the legislature, and you have no say in who manages the highest court in the land.
We need that voice. We need you. We need that voice. That’s how we get away from it. I mean, we have no caps on damage, state-owned casinos, just overturned the death penalty. They’re the most overturned court in the state in the country. And it’s Kansas. The point is, they do not reflect the Kansas people, and in order to do that, you need to elect them.
Host: Alright. Thank you very much. Our current governor has seemed herself as the “education governor,” each year proposing massive spending increases in education with her budget proposals. As governor, how would you approach education funding, raising quality standards, and potentially expanding school choice in the state?
Phillip Sarnecki: Um, so, I think it kind of goes without saying that our children are our future. And if we don’t get this right, Kansas doesn’t have much of a future. We have so many problems with our education system right now. Um, let me start here. One of the 1st things that I would do, we have less than a dozen charter schools in our state. And one of the reasons is they’re approved at the district level. So, essentially, the competition is approving the charter schools.
We need an independent board to approve charter schools, and we also need a way to scale the good charter schools that are doing really, really well. That’s the same kind of thing you would do in a business. You find a department or a division that’s doing well, and you’re gonna scale it, or you’re gonna find a company that’s doing well, and you’re gonna scale it.
On education choice, the Center for Education Reform ranks us 50th as a state in school choice, dead last. They gave us an F. CNBC ranked us 48 and gave us an F on our economy. So, here’s what the curve politicians have given us, a F on our economy, according to CNBC, we’re ranked 48, then school choice, where we’re ranked dead last, or ranked 50th, and we also have an F on school choice as well.
This is not a spending problem. We are 15th in spending. We are 40th in NAEP scores (National Assessment of Educational Progress) for education There are too many problems around the input, too many regulations. It’s another typical kind of government problem where we’re over-regulating the input. They’re not focusing enough on the output.
Host: Thank you very much.
Charlotte O’Hara: Well, education is near and dear to me. I do have a degree in education, and my whole family, my brother, was the head of a community college. My dad was on the school board, and were teachers. And the problem is, is that we have allowed the federal government to set what our standards are, and that’s through Common Core, and then now every Student Succeeds Act in bringing in social- emotional learning.
We have to cut those ties. We have to, we have to move the decisions of curriculum to the local level. This idea of high-level control does not work. Our children are absolutely being held hostage with curriculum that is absolutely interwoven with woke agenda.
I homeschooled. By the ’90s, I saw where our public schools were going, and I thought, if they lost me, they’re in real trouble. Because I love education. Education is, like, part of who I am, and we are not educating our kids. We are indoctrinating them.
Cut the ties with the federal government. Push it down to the local level. Close the state, home, state, Department of Education, because that’s 300 million of failed dollars spent.
Host: Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Mr. Coyler.
Jeff Colyer: So, I ended 50 years, 13 governors, had all been under Supreme Court orders in order on education. The Supreme Court was wrecking our budgets, and they were running our school system. Jeff Colyer is the one who ended that. And Laura Kelly, God love her, we actually funded the first four years of the Kelly administration on education. That was Jeff Colyer that did it.
But we had something else. We were requiring that that money, start going into teacher pay. We were starting to get outcomes out of this. We have forced that every child that’s a senior gets an ACT test. Well, you know what’s happened since then? They’ve hired 57% more administrators. They have not raised teacher pay. They have started to spend money on all sorts of woke ideology.
There are several school districts that are trying to transition children here in Kansas and not telling their parents. That is an abomination. That is just insane that parents can’t control this.
We need to make sure we have choice in our educational system. If your education is failing you, then you need to have another school. We need to make sure our kids have a classical education, one that focuses on reading, math and on real-world things that are in technology that are ahead of us. Kids need to be facile with AI and other technologies.
Host: Thank you very much.
Scott Schwab: Getting rid of Trump wanting, to get rid of the federal department of Education, yeah was a huge help. A huge help. It never needed to be created under the Carter administration.
The other portion of this is that you hear the argument, well, if we have school choice, it will ruin our public schools. Why? Well, they will choose to go private. But if your public schools are so good, why would they choose private? They wouldn’t. And so, they just don’t want competition.
And really, the best thing we can do from K through 12 is just get rid of the KNEA. We do now have to recognize the union on this school board level, and it used to be the administration that can fight, but now they lock arms to attack the state and take tax dollars, and they never get enough.
And then K through 12, mission creep is toxic. You should be K through 12. Now it’s a professional sports franchise. Now, it’s a soup kitchen. A mental health plan, and Health plan. They have gone too far, and we can’t afford the ever-expanding role of K through 12 on the public dime.
They need to be held accountable by competing with private schools, for tax dollars. And I think they’ll compete well, because they have got a lot of resources. But to say, no, that would destroy our school, I think it is a stretch. Just… let’s get rid of the KNEA, okay? School wars, just don’t recognize them as a union, and therefore, you don’t have to negotiate.
Host: Very good. Ty
Ty Masterson: All right, well, thank you. She certainly hasn’t been the education governor for every Kansas kid. At least Donald Trump gets it. That is how we got the working family tax cut, the tax credit. And we will, our governor, that’s left to the governor to authorize. She will not authorize it. We’re gonna have to use legislation to go around her and authorize that. So, she is not the education governor for everybody.
Every kid needs a choice. By the way, when you talk about school choice at the government level, the state level, you’re talking about for low income, ’cause rich people have choices. Go get a tutor, go to your private school. But we’re talking about kids. We have kids trapped by a zip code, that their only choice is a failing school. That is not acceptable. We have to address that at the Kansas level.
And I love that Trump’s getting rid of the Department of Education and bringing them down. We are redrawing our formula next year. I hate to be critical of my friends on the stage, but we still have a bill for 2018 that is mandating that we put the CPI increase in for K–12 every year regardless of outcomes. I spent $400 million in just the last two cycles. Our outputs are going down.
We do have a support in public education, ’cause then it will always be the main way kids are educated, but we could do that. I mean, it’s getting cell phones out of the public classrooms. We actually have a perverse incentive for teachers to become administrators to raise their retirement. You can’t blame them, financially wise, for what they do. The highest paid person in the building should be the teacher. So those that want, they’re producing the product, they have the ability. I don’t think they want to be, because they’re a good team.
So, we have to make this ship that is not going to be easy. We’ll need your help. Thank you very much.
Host: Joy, final word on this one.
Joy Eakins: Well, whenever someone starts talking about their record, just look at the data. Our kids have dropped to number 40th, while Mississippi’s gone from 50 generationally to four. Seventy‑five percent of our kids in eighth grade are functionally illiterate. That’s not an education governor. I will be an education governor.
Look, I put out an education plan in September. Nobody else has put a plan out with details, and it does three things. First, school choice. I’ll sign it in the first 90 days. We need leadership on this. We’ve had a lot of talk about it, but we haven’t had leadership to get it done.
The finance formula—you will spend this year in Kansas $9 billion dollars, all funds, on education. Nine billion dollars! And it is incentivizing administrative bloat and CPI increases and all of these other things because Jeff Colyer signed that law because he was more worried about settling a lawsuit than making sure our kids got the right education. It has to be said.
You’ve seen the increases. Have your kids gotten better? No, because we don’t incentivize outcomes. We don’t make sure that we are gonna get the outcomes we want. So, a new finance formula needs to make sure that outcomes get benefits, not failure.
And the third thing—we do need to invest in our classroom teachers. I love that they’ve come along with that, because I was the first one to say that in this race. I’ve said it for years on the Wichita school board. Classroom teachers in other states get real meaningful bonuses. Thank you.
Host: Thank you, response?
Jeff Colyer: Ya know, I settled that lawsuit so that we could start talking about how are we going to start to educate our kids. How are we going to make them better? We can get real meaningful education for our children. How are we going to make them better? So, we settled the lawsuit. We had to. We lost, once again.
I was the governor who said, “We are going to have outcomes in this.” We are going to expect our kids to start being able to read. My friend Tate Reeves, the Mississippi governor, I’ve known him a long time; we were lieutenant governors together. They started changing how they teach in school so that you have to have phonics, so that your kid can actually read. They went from 50th to number 8 or 9.
Kansas, we are down in the bottom. Only a third of Kansas third graders can read. Kids at eighth grade. If that happens, we are not going to allow your kids to be socially promoted to the next thing. We are not going to allow violence in our classrooms. We are not going to have DEI in our schools. We are going to make sure they get the world‑class education they deserve.
Host: Thank you. Okay, we are moving to the next question, and Charlotte, you’re back up. In the past few weeks, President Donald Trump has reclassified marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug, now allowing the research of marijuana for potential medical benefits. As of right now, Kansas is only one of two states nationwide that has yet to legalize marijuana for a medical or recreational purpose—Idaho being the other. As governor, would you support and advocate for the legalization of marijuana in some form?
Charlotte O’Hara: I go to Bible study every Tuesday afternoon with Ron Stiles. His son was a pothead, which then turned into schizophrenia. This is a very serious drug, and his family’s experience was not infrequent. We have to stand strong and say absolutely, we are not going to legalize marijuana.
Host: Alright, Jeff Colyer.
Jeff Colyer: Marijuana is not a drug that makes you better. I went through this with my brother dying, and worst way to die, and he had the worst nausea you could ever imagine. And we tried every drug. They tried marijuana, and all of that failed. There are no tests that have been done. There is no scientific literature. We should have the exact same literature for marijuana as we require for aspirin, for Tylenol, for anything else. It needs to be safe, and it needs to be effective. And we’ve got to have the data to do it.
I think the president actually made a wise choice so that we could actually prove what this situation is, and then let’s deal with it as it comes.
Host: All right, thank you very much. Scott, let’s go to you.
Scott Schwab: You know, my wife is a pharmacist. We talk about this all the time. First off, allowing it to be researched is the first thing. And if it passes FDA, thanks to Derek Schmidt, then it can be dispensed in Kansas, but it’s got to be approved by the FDA. Our previous attorney general did that already.
So, the problem is, if you do medicinal use as it is in its current form, or if you do recreational, a pharmacist will say, “You know, whether it’s hypertension medicine, if I’m taking hypertension medicine at Walgreens or Walmart, it’s the same strain. But with marijuana, you don’t know what the strength is. You don’t even know what’s in it.”
And so, the other issue we have is—one, I’ve never seen somebody smoke pot and suddenly get real smart. (laughter) Am I right? And there is not a rapid THC test. So, you can be driving stoned, higher than the Rocky Mountains, and there’s no way to test, and it’s dangerous on the roads.
And look at what is going on in Colorado. Production is down. Car wrecks are up. Child outcomes at schools, down. The reason why is they are stoned. Why would you want to say, “Yeah, that is a great idea”? Well, we can make money off of it. We will not make money off of it as a state, because we do not tax healthcare, nor should we start.
Host: Alright. Thank you very much.
Ty Masterson: Short answer is no; I don’t support it. I do support what the president did with Schedule 3 because it’s still illegal. But we do need the research, because it is pervasive in our nation. We’re only one of four states that don’t. We need the research to show, because it will demonstrate, that it is the ill effects, especially with the synthetic THC and what it is today, and what that’s doing to our kids. But it is damaging.
And so, I don’t support medical, because around this nation, as you’ve seen it, there’s no statistical difference between the states of medical and recreational, because once they do medical in the form that has been done around this country, you, in effect, have recreation.
There was an Ohio study that literally studied when they did recreational for the first four years, and then they authorized, what, medical that was recreational? There was no statistical difference. At 40, like, mid‑40%, of all their traffic fatalities were intoxicating levels of THC. I don’t want that in Kansas.
I know we have an issue here anyway. You have this access to CBD and with all these crazy stuff, like 708s, that are in the gas stations. We’ve got to get our handle on it. But I do not support legalization because, as was mentioned before, you can get legal forms that are FDA‑approved right now. Right? That’s been studied by a doctor. And so, we need research, but we do not need legalization.
Host: Thank you very much, Joy.
Joy Eakins: Oh, this will surprise everybody, I actually agree with them down there, so we agree on something. You know, the thing about marijuana is that where it’s been legalized, it costs four dollars of services for every dollar tax that they make. Because it creates all kinds of problems inside a culture, in a state, that then needs services to help people. They’ve talked about those well down there.
And so, no, I wouldn’t support it. I’ve watched families raise their children in states with this legalized marijuana of all different kinds of laws, and all of them had struggles, and it’s been difficult for them. And honestly, I don’t want my kids in high school thinking about marijuana and where to go score this weekend—they were already thinking probably about some other things. I want them to think about reading and math and getting their scores up and learning to read, so that we can actually compete as a state going forward. So, thanks.
Host: Thank you very much. Phil.
Phil Sarnecki: I heard a famous doctor say that if you want to dumb down a nation, then legalize marijuana. And, um, I did a little research on this, actually, because, uh, unlike a former president of ours who tried it and didn’t inhale, I’ve actually never tried it. And really, I’ve never been around it, but I did do a lot of research, and what I found was pretty interesting.
Back in the ’70s and ’80s, the THC content in marijuana was about 4%. Today, it’s about 20 to 30%, and a lot of the vaping that the kids are buying, or even the adults are buying, is 70 to 80% content. This is not your mom and dad’s marijuana, or yours when you were little, if you tried it.
We already have a drug problem in Kansas. It’s fentanyl. And marijuana is a gateway drug, and it’s just gonna lead to more and further problems. I look at the states around us. You can look at Oklahoma, look at Missouri, look at Colorado. I saw a state police officer in Missouri interview, and it kind of caught my attention, and they asked him, “If there’s one thing you could go back and change, what would it be?” And he said, “Not legalizing marijuana.”
It creates massive problems—hallucinations, schizophrenia, massive anxiety. Then we get people behind vehicles that are out driving. And I’m also very concerned with the 708 as well that’s getting marketed as candy to our children in gas stations and convenience stores. And we need to make sure that that doesn’t happen.
Host: Thank you. Alright. Former Governor Colyer, we are going to go to you with the next question. The Kansas Supreme Court has deemed abortion as a constitutional right in the state of Kansas. As governor, would you support the conservative platform defending the right to life, and how would you work with the legislature to protect lives of the unborn?
Jeff Colyer: I think this is one of the civil rights issues of our time. How do we defend innocent life? We have a Supreme Court that has found this right to abortion that is nowhere found in that Constitution. Now, the real effect of this is this: we have suddenly become the destination in the Midwest to come for an abortion. And it is growing so fast. It’s our fastest‑growing industry in the state of Kansas—without STAR bonds, by the way. But it’s the fastest‑growth thing, and at the current rate, if we continue, by 2030 we will have more abortions than live births in the state of Kansas. That is not who we are.
We are going to comply with the United States Supreme Court, which gave the states the right to decide how to do that. We will, and I have proven to you, with the legislature, we passed multiple bills. The most pro‑life experience in the country. And so, when I left office, we really were working on the culture of life. And they’re going to end up doing a lot of different things, but we need to support innocent life.
Host: Thank you very much.
Scott Schwab: Yes, I don’t like to talk about when kids die, it hurts. Um, but at what point does a human get constitutional legal protection? According to the Supreme Court, you don’t. That’s terrifying.
Kay O’Connor once said, “The best thing we can do, and actually could work, is start taxing abortions.” What we could do—and the court can’t say, “That’s unconstitutional.” And? It is frustrating that a court hates its legislature. And now we’re elected, which is why this makes them, if they don’t like the way the legislatures are elected—tough. It was the people’s choice, certified.
And they come back and say, “Well, I know more than you, ’cause I’m gonna just put something in the Constitution.” We can’t touch it? We can’t touch it! They are usurping not only the legislature’s authority, but the governor’s as well. That’s unholy. Our system was made of three equal branches. It is not anymore. The court has all the cards.
You want to spend money? You gotta get court approval. You want to cut spending? The court will slap you. I feel horrible that a young woman can be manipulated and have an abortion, and there’s no recourse. This is time we have to hold our courts accountable.
Host: Thank you. Ty.
Ty Masterson: One thing about being in the arenas, my record’s a mile long on life. I’ve been in a battle in life since right here in Wichita. You say you remember the Summer of Mercy? In the early ’90s, right? We had an abortion doctor that was performing third‑trimester abortions. Partial birth? Been in that battle with my family ever since, because that was right here at home.
And we did make great strides in this state through time that we were there until the Hode’s decision. And now we have to be as shrewd as a serpent and innocent as doves, because we have a court that’s told us everything is presumptively unconstitutional. So, we have shifted, and we’re going to support mothers, because that’s part of life too. We supported pregnant mothers. We provided child tax credits even during pregnancy. Child support during pregnancy. We continue to do everything we can to protect life until such time we can take steps forward. I’d appreciate all your help in that battle.
Host: Thank you very much. Joy.
Joy Eakins: Good. I’m pretty passionate about this issue. One of the things that makes me passionate is when I listen to the culture talk about the lies. They say things like, “Well, the only way a woman can have a career is to abort her child.” Well, I think I’ve disproven that, as have many of you ladies in the audience. Or that we don’t care for people who are having this issue—we don’t really care for them, we just care about them having a baby. But I’ve seen you step up and pay their utility bills and make sure they have what they need.
Or they’ll say things like, “Well, that baby’s gonna be born into a bad situation.” Well, that really bothers me because I was born into a bad situation. What if I wasn’t here? What would my family be like? What would my family’s life be like? My son, who’s able to be here, who’s about to be an Air Force pilot—he would not be here to serve and protect us. That’s a lie.
So, what I want to tell you about me is that I see through those lies, and I see the value of life, and I personally understand it. But also, I’ve taken such a stand that I’ve walked away from donors on this issue. I had a donor tell me, “Well, you think you’ll get voters with that?” I’m like, “I probably will lose votes for that.” And he said, “Well, I’m not gonna give you any money.” And I’ll just tell you that that person gave money to someone on the stage. I will never capitulate on this issue.
And it’s what I’m going to also mention—it concerns me that there are rumors out there in the federal government that we’re considering taking the Hyde of it and getting away from it.
Host: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Phil.
Phil Sarnecki: First of all, I am glad that all the candidates up here on the stage agree on this issue, ’cause it is one of the great travesties of our culture. And for those of you who like to read your Bible, Romans 13 tells us that the government has two responsibilities. Number one is to promote the common good. And number two is to restrain evil. And this is a classic example of restraining evil and doing everything that we can to restrain evil.
Heidi and I have been huge supporters of the pro‑life movement for decades. We’ve been huge donors to the pro‑life movement for decades. This is very near and dear to our hearts—protecting children, babies. And I would work, I will work, as your governor every day to reduce the number of abortions in the state of Kansas until we eventually get it to zero, God willing. Thank you.
Host: Thank you. Charlotte.
Charlotte O’Hara: I’m a mother of five and grandmother of seven. My youngest daughter is adopted and probably would have been in that category of a throwaway kid. She is the most beautiful 29‑year‑old woman you can imagine. I understand the value of life.
We had 19,811 abortions in 2024. Thirty‑five of those were children 10 to 14. Little girls. Oh, my God. Twenty‑eight of those were from out of state. Oh, dear Lord. On the abortionist paperwork, there is one section that says, “Do you see any mental, emotional, or physical abuse?” Not one of those 35 abortions on those young girls was reported. The year before, there were six out of 36.
We need to enforce our laws. Every abortion on a girl under 16 must be reported, because at the minimum, it’s statutory rape. We can put the abortion industry on notice that we are going to enforce our laws. And yes, our crisis pregnancy centers—they are a gift from God, and those women and men that work there are amazing. So yes, I will be a pro‑life governor.
Host: Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, the next couple of questions here. You guys first offer rock stars, because we went through all the questions with the slides. So we have some of the questions, but you will not see slides on these with some of the other current events. Scott, we’re going to start with you on this one.
And we’re gonna go to some of the current events, including the ICE protests of Minneapolis with the leadership, mayors, and governors fighting against the Trump administration to enforce laws. As governor, how would you work to enforce immigration laws in the state of Kansas? And what do we do to prevent that type of scenario here in Kansas?
Scott Schwab: Yeah, um, you de‑escalate first, but I don’t understand why you just tell the federal government, “I don’t want your help.” It’s their job to enforce immigration. And I’ve worked with CISA. I’ve worked with the FBI. I’ve worked with Homeland Security and election security, and the administration’s been great for us to work with—absolutely getting tools for the given and forever. Why would you just say no? “No, you can’t do your job, and we’re gonna protect criminals.” It makes no sense.
Yeah, it’s a sad situation in Minnesota. But they’re trying to throw it all on Trump’s feet. There are other players that had a hand in that. And the governor should have been working with the President. Every governor—I don’t care the brand of your party—you work with the President of the United States. Whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat, you work with them, because we’re Americans, and we’re supposed to work together. And so you partner with them. And I found the Feds have been a good partner for us.
Host: Thank you. Ty.
Ty Masterson: First, thank God for President Trump for closing off our border. There’s a travesty that was happening. In Kansas we had a reduction in fentanyl, sex trafficking—just from closing the front door and the back door. Right? I mean, this is so grateful.
So, I have been looking at what’s going on in Minneapolis. Thirty thousand people have been deported from Texas—you don’t hear about it. Less than 3,000 from Minneapolis, and you have shootings. It’s because they are not supporting law enforcement. It’s the opposite.
We have a bill that we’re working on—we thought we’d get this yesterday, probably get it till next week. It’s gonna actually empower law enforcement to allow safer interactions, like that with the woman that was blocking the car, blocking law enforcement—to be able to take a vehicle up there and shove it off to the side, not have to engage by hand. Those things that we can do—I want to prep for it, because I’m not having Minneapolis in Kansas. That is not happening.
We have got to support President Trump. And the way he’s taken out the drug cartels—it is benefiting us today without a single change in the law. Just shutting the door. And so, we’re gonna do everything we can to support law enforcement, but obviously, you need to engage in the safest way possible, and we’re gonna be in front of that before they get here. Thank you very much.
Host: Thank you. Joy.
Joy Eakins: Well, we agree again, Senator. That’s great. I’m thankful that President Trump closed the borders too, because if you look at what was happening to women and children going across those borders and the way they were being trafficked, it’s a travesty. We have borders for a reason.
And frankly, I have a lot of friends who have been trying to get their families here legally for decades, and all of those other people are jumping their line. But look, we’re a nation of laws, and we need to hold those laws up. And I’m really excited—or happy—that KBI signed an agreement with the federal government to work with them. I think the Kansas Highway Patrol could do the same.
But when you look at Minneapolis, what you see—if you’re a leader—what you know is you need to have enough heat in the room to make change, but not too much that it turns into what’s happening in Minneapolis. And so, I would commend President Trump on reaching out to the Minneapolis mayor and the Minnesota governor and attempting to bring the temperature down so that we can actually do real work, because there are some really terrible people here trying to hurt our citizens. You’ve seen the stories. And we need to be able to remove them so that our people can be safe and our children can be safe. Thank you.
Host: Thank you very much. Phil.
Phil Sarnecki: First of all, yes, thank God for President Trump. Thank God that he stepped out of the business world to run for president. That was wonderful that he did that. And I would work very closely with President Trump.
Keep in mind what you’re seeing in Minnesota is not a problem in all states. Texas was mentioned. Texas has dramatically more ICE agents there than what they do in Minnesota, and you don’t hear and see these problems because the governor, the state police, the legislature—they are working with the federal government. They are working with us, not against them, like is happening in Minnesota right now.
I also want to bring up—we had an issue in Kansas. We had a mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, who was not a citizen. He was mayor, he was not a citizen, and he voted in an election. And when I am your governor, we will clean up the voter rolls, and we will make sure that that does not happen in our state.
Host: Thank you. Charlotte.
Charlotte O’Hara: Okay, well, what’s happening in Minneapolis is absolutely connected with all of the fraud in the Somalia community. This is to redirect the attention from that fraud to now saying, “Oh, the ICE enforcement—that’s the problem.” No. The problem is that we have very, very, very dangerous people in the United States that need to be brought and exited from this nation.
My son‑in‑law is a deputy for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, and I’m here to tell you that our Democrat sheriff will not cooperate with ICE. We were in the process of signing the 287G with Sheriff Hayden. He was in that process, and it has been abandoned.
We had a boots‑on‑the‑ground organization meeting for anti‑ICE tactics at the Nottingham, by the Green Clubhouse, on January the 7th. It’s here. They take any incident, and they will blow it up, and they will do everything they can to escalate. We have to stand by our law enforcement community. Stand strong. Stand strong.
Host: Jeff? Go ahead.
Jeff Colyer: Thank you very much. Yeah. So, I’m a plastic surgeon. I do reconstructive surgery. My whole practice is—if you get shot in the hand or get shot in the face, I’m your guy. And I cover three hospitals in Kansas City. And it’s unbelievable the number of illegal aliens that I have to take care of. I’ve never been paid for it, but we’re gonna treat them like humans.
This is a real problem. It affects every hospital. It affects every family. It affects every program. We know that there is fraud in a lot of our programs. There’s a billion dollars of fraud, as Charlotte has pointed out. We have to do something about that. We’ve got to reduce that.
President Trump has made a tremendous step by sealing the border. Nobody’s coming across. That’s fantastic. We had to close the door. But now we’ve got to deal with this situation here. There are true criminal illegal aliens that threaten our families, and we need to make sure they go.
In Kansas, we have sanctuary cities, and we have sanctuary sheriffs, and they are going to cooperate with ICE. The United States Supreme Court—when President Obama brought this up before the U.S. Supreme Court—said states can’t run this. It is the federal government. We need to make sure that we back the blue and that we make sure Kansas is the best.
Host: Thank you. We have one question left before we have our closing remarks. For the last question, we’re gonna start with you, Ty, going down the line, and it’s gonna be on the topic of energy. As Kansas has now become one of the first micro‑nuclear plants that was built in Parsons, Kansas, it has also been the hotspot for a lot of alternative energies throughout the years, with wind farms. As governor, do you support the idea of continued alternative energy like wind and solar in the state, and how would you prepare for the future energy demands in Kansas?
Ty Masterson: Well, that’s a good question. Energy’s a big, big topic. You know, I’m with Donald Trump—all of the above, right? And they’d be treated fairly. Ultimately, nuclear. I’m excited for the research in nuclear because ultimately we are going to need nuclear power – particularly within the race we have for AI – we can’t afford to lose that. We can’t cede that to China or really anywhere else on the planet. And we need that energy here.
So, I support all of the above. It does need to be treated fairly. I am not for the incentives—for the wind and solar over every other form. We need to treat that all equally. We do. So we need all of the above coming into this state, because between AI and just the natural demand, we have a tremendous amount of energy to come in, and to grow, for Kansas to grow. We need the energy. And so, I do support—I support nuclear, I support it all. But we need to treat it all fairly and bring as much as we can here to support growth in this state.
Host: Thank you very much. Joy?
Joy Eakins: Well, as it is, this woman—I always think innovation is great, and giving entrepreneurs an opportunity to innovate is a wonderful thing, but they should be responsible about it. We have a lot of rural communities that are very upset about what’s happening in their communities with some of the wind farms and the solar farms and the noise that they’re creating and the agricultural land that they’re pulling out. And we need to make sure that we are responsible about that, because Kansas feeds the world.
And, you know, I do agree—we should not be giving out special treatment to any business. And so, when I think about deals like what was made for Panasonic—they’re gonna get cut‑rate energy deals. That was probably part of the big quiet deal they all negotiated, and the rest of us are gonna get stuck with the bill for that. All of our businesses, all of our homes—we’re the ones that are gonna get stuck with that bill.
Because this is what happens—we say we don’t want special treatment for energy, but there are energy groups that have given a lot of money to people on this stage, and those groups—they’re beholden to those groups, and so they make these deals for things like electricity that create problems for us. They’re gonna do the same thing with data centers.
Data centers—if you look at Arizona and you talk to people in Arizona—they’re gonna tell you data centers don’t bring in a lot of new employees, and they use a lot of natural resources like water and electricity. I’m not saying data centers are a bad thing—I use data centers in my business—but I don’t think the government should be underwriting a data center. I think that the data center should make sense on its own books. Thanks.
Host: Thank you. Phil.
Phil Sarnecki: Can I ask one of the candidates a question? Can we do that?
Host: Sure.
Phil Sarnecki: Okay. ‘Cause Ty said he was against the wind turbines, but I’m pretty sure he voted yes for a 10‑year tax abatement for the wind turbines, I believe in about 2015. Is that not correct?
Host: So, 45 seconds to respond to that.
Ty Masterson: Those who don’t remember—but if it was 2015, the turbines came in under Brownback, and I probably did vote for whatever the Republicans were doing, because we did need the industry. But on that point, it’s about the jobs, right? We need jobs in Kansas, careers in Kansas. It’s just—it’s run its time. There should not be incentive for any other. Wind, solar—anything—should not have the incentive over anything else. All that technology is mature, and we need all forms of energy.
Phil Sarnecki: Well, I would be voting no if I had the chance. I wouldn’t give you 10‑year tax abatements to wind turbines. And I would also be voting no on giving 20‑year tax abatements to data centers. I would also make sure the data centers are providing their own energy. They can come in and do that, and some of the other states have done that as well.
And what we need to do is we need to create an attractive economy with low tax rates and low regulations so that businesses want to come to Kansas. And without question, for the last 30 years, that’s what I have done—building businesses and creating jobs—and we are gonna do that all over the state of Kansas. And then we’re not gonna have to give all these tax abatements to the wind turbines, to the data centers, etc.
Nebraska just did something really interesting. They were doing carbon capture—it is their Trailblazer pipeline. I don’t know if anybody’s seen this, but it is a phenomenal deal that they just did. It was their Washington, D.C. delegation, their governor, their legislature, their ranchers, their farmers—all coming together for sustainable aviation fuel. That is our neighbor right to the north, and we need to stop getting left behind like this. We need bold innovation, leadership to make it happen.
Host: Thank you. Charlotte.
Charlotte O’Hara: In 1999, our Republican governor signed a 100% property tax exemption for all alternative energy. And we have been subsidizing the wind and solar industry for far too long. Absolutely no tax exemptions. Now they are on a 10‑year, absolutely none.
And on the AI data center, our Republican‑controlled legislature passed, I believe it was in 2024 or 2025, that AI data centers do not have to pay sales tax on their construction materials. They should not have any corporate welfare.They should, um, provide their own energy. We cannot afford it. We have a manufacturing company that demands constant and reliable energy. And when you have the AI data centers sucking all the energy up and you have brownouts, well, our business is gonna suffer because it just doesn’t work. So, absolutely, the AI data centers can pay for themselves, and the idea that we wouldn’t even consider corporate welfare for that industry, in particular—in any industry—that we know, we know if Kansas is no longer the high, the high tax point of the prairie, that these companies will come here. You can’t find them to come. You can’t do it.
Host: Thank you. Jeff.
Jeff Colyer: Kansas is the eighth‑largest oil and gas state. It’s the cornerstone of our kind. And we need to make sure that we are producing fossil fuels, and we’re producing that energy, and we’ve got to continue that process, because it’s jobs—particularly Southwest Kansas and across the state. But going on with that, we are in all‑of‑the‑above energy, but no special gives to people.
Now, for those who have never been in this job, in order to do this, you’ve got to go through the KCC. We need to change how the KCC functions. That is the agency that runs this. We need to have our own different rate structure. So, you know, companies that come in that are data centers—they need to have their own rate structure, not fit in under something else, because they’re sucking up so much energy. They need to be able to bring their own.
And so, when you’re governor, and you come in, and you have that experience, you don’t have to know where the bathroom is. You know where it is in the Capitol, and you also know what belongs in each one. But oh, I’m sorry, hello, we’ve got strong economy, and we need to make sure that we’re all‑of‑the‑above, working with Donald Trump on this, and no special giveaways.
Host: Thank you, Scott.
Scott Schwab: Next to human resource, energy is one of the most important resources we’re gonna have. And so, utilizing new technologies is huge for Kansas, ’cause it’s gonna make it more affordable, ’cause our power bills are not going down. But it’s not just the data centers—it’s manufacturing as being a higher and higher cost in the state of Kansas because of power.
And if we want to increase opportunities—several communities, whether it’s Southwest Kansas or Northwest Kansas, Southeast Kansas, central Kansas, where I’m from—it’s gonna mean we have to make it sustainable and affordable. And this is a new opportunity to do that.
But right now, we have a chance with unjoin being on the I‑35, and I set the corridor to bring back manufacturing to rural communities. But it has to be affordable power and affordable energy. And if we can use every resource that’s available, then let’s go, because it’s not just that you’re powering your house, but trying to give those cool opportunities for kids growing up in small towns, that they can stay there and have a future in that town.
And manufacturing is gonna be huge for it, and it’s gotta be sustainable and affordable by having energy sources that can provide it. It’s also huge for small towns and hospitals. Hospitals need ongoing, consistent power. If that small town loses their hospital, you’ll lose the small town, ’cause nobody’s going to bring business to a town that doesn’t have a hospital. And it’s all based on sustainable energy sources.
Host: Thank you, thank you very much. All right, we’re ready for closing remarks, which are two minutes long, and we’re going to prove the neighborhood to go back to. Let’s go to candidate number one and go down the line here—Charlotte.
Charlotte O’Hara: Sure. Well, thank you so much. Uh, yes, my family, as I stated, has been in Kansas since 1869. And family farmers—I was raised on a family farm. In fact, the first house that I lived in until I was 5 years old, we didn’t have indoor plumbing. We heated with a wood stove, milked cows by hand, and I had that rural experience.
I graduated from KU. I have been the 3rd District chairwoman. I served in the Kansas House. I’m gonna tell you my experience of serving on the Johnson County Commission during COVID. We took $235 million dollars and just frittered it away. It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone.
I understand how bloated this government is at the local level and at the state level. I have the experience as a businesswoman, as a general contractor. Now we have a small manufacturing company with my two sons. This state can be successful, but we have to get our taxes under control, and we have to get our schools functioning. They’re not. They’re just not. What are we doing?
You have got to elect a governor who’s not afraid to come out and say, “This is the problem. This is how we’re going to fix it.” We’re going to cut expenses. We’re going to give the opportunities to the local school districts to step up and provide those opportunities for our children. We’re not going to be tied to the federal government and be required to have all this longitudinal testing.
Host: Thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Colyer: Yeah. I have a lot of friends up here on stage, and I think there’s actually some really great ideas. We Republicans can transform this state. And tonight, I actually have a lot of hope after hearing this debate.
The job of governor is a tough job. You’re dealing with $26 billion, 22,000 employees, and a GDP of over $100 billion—a complexity there. But it really is about serving Kansans every single day. Yeah, the real question is, who will deliver on this?
President Trump was number 45 and 47. I would be numbers 47 and 49. Now, to show you who can do the job, let’s look at a little bit of history. As governor, there were more Kansas workers than ever before in the history of the state. We made sure that we had a right to life. The culture of life was on the rise. We were increasing our budget—or we were increasing our improvements in our budget—and I left an $800 million surplus to Laura Kelly.
We can change things. We can do it. We’ve done it. Now, what are we gonna do as a state? What we’re going to do is we’re going to grow our economy, put more money in your pocket. We’re gonna make sure that your education is about education, not indoctrination. We’ll eliminate fraud for people. We’re gonna make sure that we back the blue, that we protect our communities. And it’s gonna be about common sense—bringing that back to Kansas.
In Kansas, there are a lot of challenges, and we cannot wait. Who is gonna deliver? That is going to be the question. A lot of promises are made by politicians. We deliver. So, I’m gonna ask you for your help—that we are going to take back Kansas, we’re gonna make this the beating heart of America once again, and I am Jeff Colyer, Governor. Thank you. Colyer. And we are going to win for you.
Host: Thank you, Scott.
Scott Schwab: I want to remind you—modernize, revitalize, and fix. It doesn’t matter how much you want to cut taxes if we can’t make them affordable. We’ve cut taxes in the future, but we haven’t reduced spending. We did reduce spending because we fund outdated systems. We need to make it more affordable.
Our small towns are getting smaller. And when people go home, they know it. They see it as putting bigger burden—and putting more burden—on our metropolitan areas. We need to make a focus not just about energy, but also workforce development in those small towns, so that when that kid graduates from high school, he has an opportunity to stay home.
And we have to fix your appraisal process. I don’t want to lay out a tax plan on property taxes specifically, and it’s free market, and it holds locals accountable. We cannot have another real estate bubble in the state of Kansas. It’ll hurt our schools. It will hurt our towns. It will hurt all our communities—our ability to defend ourselves. So—modernize, revitalize, fix. If you want to know why you should vote for Scott Schwab, those are three things that we’ll do.
Host: Thank you very much. Ty.
Ty Masterson: Thank you for coming out on Friday night to learn. Special thank you to my bride of 32 years for hanging out with me that long. She’s been my sounding board and lately my driver. That’s kind of fun. Thank you—love you, babe.
I hope what you’ve seen tonight is an effective fighter, a man in the arena that’s doing the time. The most capable of defeating the Democrats—that is who the enemy is. Donald Trump is a battle‑tested, proven leader. And he delivers. I’m a battle‑tested, proven leader, and you’ve seen it deliver.
We have monster issues to tackle in the next few years. With property tax and education—they’ve been third rails. That takes proven leadership. We can pretend we’re Donald Trump, but there’s no one on the stage that is Donald Trump. There is no other Donald Trump, quite frankly. There’s not even another Ronald Reagan. Those guys come around once in a generation. And he’s here. We’ve got to work with him.
All you can do in that line is tell you what I think I can do. I hope I can do. I know a guy. I’ve demonstrated it. And I’ve been called the MAGA candidate to beat by the Kansas City Star. They really didn’t mean it as a compliment. I’ve become brutally effective by the Kansas Reflector—also didn’t mean it as a compliment. But that’s what I will be—brutally effective in what we do for you.
Donald Trump is a battle‑tested, proven leader, and he is delivering for America. I am a battle‑tested, proven leader, and with your help—join me, stand with me. I need your support and your vote. Kansas will experience its piece of American greatness. God bless you.
Host: Thank you. And Joy.
Joy Eakins: Sorry, I heard you say that, but I was still sitting here thinking about—is the standard for governor that we know where the bathroom is in the Capitol? Because I think a lot of us might.
But seriously—tonight, as we close, we’re at a crossroads. We can select a career politician who will continue to steward our decline. We’ll watch our children fall further behind. We’ll see our taxes keep going up, and we’ll see our friends and family leave this place we love. Or we could choose a Kansas comeback.
Look, I’m running for governor because I love Kansas. And I believe in the spirit and the grit of our people. But the Kansas comeback has never been about Joy Eakins. It’s about you and your children and your grandchildren, and what kind of state they will inherit. It’s about building a state where every family has a future, an opportunity, and a reason to stay.
If you give me the honor of your vote, I will fight every day to open the doors of opportunity. Look, I know making a change takes a little courage. And I’m so thankful for the many, many Kansans who have already joined the Kansas comeback. I hope you’ll join us for a Kansas comeback. Thank you, and God bless.
Host: Phil.
Phil Sarnecki: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you—thank you for coming out. You have heard a lot of plans this evening. You’ve heard a lot of promises this evening. And quite frankly, you’ve heard a lot of excuses this evening.
I would like to remind you all that the candidates that I’m running against have over 100 years in political office between them. And I have a question for you: What has it got you?
Listen—if you like your property taxes and your income taxes where they are, then I am probably not your candidate. And if you like businesses and jobs and good Kansans leaving the state, then I am probably not your candidate. And if you like losing the governor’s race to Democrats, then I am definitely not your candidate.
I mentioned to you that I grew up—my father was a janitor, and we grew up in a very blue‑collar family, a very small 950‑square‑foot home. And I remember one time, as a young child—I was very young, probably seven or eight years old—and I walked into the kitchen, and my mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and she had bills spread out all over. And she had tears coming down her face because she didn’t know what bill she was going to pay.
And I can promise you—as your governor—that memory will drive every decision I make as governor on your behalf and on behalf of the people of the state of Kansas. If you are tired of losing, if you are tired of politics as usual, if you are tired of career politicians, then let’s send some business sense to Topeka. Let’s send some common sense to Topeka. Thank you. It’s time to start winning again—join me. Thank you. I’d love to have your vote.
Host: Here we go. Thank you. Thank you very much.