By Victoria Kline

Karen Crnkovich emits a warm smile, she speaks from the heart with a clear and steady voice, creating an atmosphere of trust and understanding.

She is running for Third District Representative, the seat that is presently held by Democrat Sharice Davids, who is currently serving her third term.

Her website nails down and elicits a quick reference to her qualities and background. For example, “For the last thirteen years, Karen has owned and operated a heating, cooling, ventilation, and plumbing business in the Kansas City metro area. In 2022, Karen’s company was recognized as an Ingram’s Magazine and Inc. 5000 fast-growing company. In 2023, the Kansas City Chamber named it one of the city’s Top 10 Small Businesses. Karen has worked tirelessly to grow her business. She has lived the daily grind of struggling to make payroll, navigating supply chain shortages, and managing manpower shortages. Like other business owners, Karen put everything on the line to chase the American Dream and she succeeded, but not without struggle. She experienced first-hand how confusing, complicated, and downright frustrating government laws and regulations are. Nearly half of all Americans are employed by a small business, yet our government does everything in its power to put up barriers and obstacles to success.”

And those last lines are what motivated Karen Crnkovich toward the halls of Congress. When reading about her involvement in charities and success in small business, it is evident she likes to give back to the community. It made sense that a woman that built a business where regulators, value switches, filters, and chemical coolants would drive the question, probably few of us even knew to ask, “How many Federal Agencies regulate our lives?”

She threw out the number over 400 and I internally thought, “Really? That seems a little over the top.”

Yet allow me to explain a few things about these regulatory agencies (About 440 headings that does not include the subheadings) this can best be described as a walk through the Willy Wonka Factory.

•There is a twice-yearly publican called The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.[1] The agenda compiles regulatory plans and actions into a federal pipeline. The agenda failed to launch in 2012 under Obama and again in 2017 under Trump, yet if everyone remembers, President Trump wanted two regulations stricken before a new one could be brought into play under Executive Order 13771, and it was rescinded by Biden his first day in office. [2]
•The Administrative Congress lists 115 agencies in the appendix of the Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies. [3] A 2017, article by Forbes on this issue states, “There is no authoritative list of government agencies.”[4]
•There is not a definitive list of how many agencies exist. We don’t know how many contractors work for the government. [4]
•President Trump signed Executive Order 13781 “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch.” How do you fix the Executive Branch if the various agencies fight against such an E.O. and they dominate the media to report on it. [5]

Let me provide one example on this massively underrepresented problem in our government, Karen says, “In January 2023, the Department of Energy enacted new energy efficiency standards for Residential Air Conditioners. In January 2025, the EPA will phase in a new refrigerant (R454B) and current refrigerant (R410A) will be phased out. This has created an engineering and manufacturing quagmire. Basically, anyone who buys a new air conditioner right now, will suddenly pay much higher prices on the parts and refrigerant in less than 2 years. We saw this when R22 which just completed its phase out in 2020 went from $25/lb. to over $150/lb. or more. In this case, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA don’t coordinate their regulations and it costs the consumers dearly, not to mention creates huge supply chain issues.”

And Karen has reached out with emails, letter writing, telephone calls, and Legislators and it appears to fall on deaf ears.

In fact, that leads one to the present representative Sharice Davis. Another motivator for Karen is that whoever sets Sharice up for her photo ops, they deserve a Nobel prize. She explains, “The NFIB (The National Federation of Independent Business) is the number one group that advocates for education and growth of small businesses. They rate legislators on their performance with small businesses in their state. They rate Representative Davids at zero. I as a small business owner am appalled, she holds the position she does and is rated like this.” [6]

What this does tell us is that Sharice appears to be getting credit where credit is due to someone else. And the published news is doing little to follow up to see if she does what she promised or if she’s taking credit for other people’s work.

Additionally, one of Karen’s other insights into the work she wishes to accomplish is to make Legal Immigration more streamlined and easier. People have been waiting on a list for up to twenty years and there is no need for such a delay. However, a little investigation does reveal that many immigrants do not apply for years and for several reasons, one being reading and writing English. Here are a few things we know about becoming a Legal Citizen that may need attention.

• The applicant must pass the Homeland Security check, and this involves being fingerprinted and agreeing to a background check.
• The background check can be difficult if they come from a less than organized country.
• It is about 500 to 700 to apply to begin the process. If money is tight that may not be easy to do.
• There is a reading and competency test, and one must answer at least 6 out of 10 questions about how our government works.
• Finally, caseload and staffing are one of the key issues to moving things along.
  
  Perhaps if Karen can shut down a few agencies that are sucking our money into a black hole, they can move these people over to Homeland Security and get the caseload personnel up and running.
  
  Being a historian, I noted in her bio that she is part of the Daughter’s of the American Revolution– Her back tracking through her Father’s lineage brought her to Private John Preston, who served out of Vermont. The State of Vermont was a significant participant in the American Revolution. It declared Independence separately from the original 13 colonies but was not recognized by the Continental Congress. Vermonters fought several battles, such as Fort Ticonderoga, Hubbardton, and Bennington, where they help defeat a British force and turn the war in favor of the New Americans. [7]
  
  Since we spoke about heritage, she shared that her father was one who saw the big picture and lead out on projects. Her mother was skilled at putting pieces together and finishing up. She ends the way she began with a warm smile and a cool reflection back to family, “I am blessed to have both of their talents. It’s why I’ve been successful.”
  
  Well, it never hurts to take to Washington, a few Daughter’s of the American Revolution standing at your back…good luck Karen.

1. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12118
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13771
3. https://www.acus.gov/projects/sourcebook-united-states-executive-agencies-secondedition
4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/waynecrews/2017/07/05/how-many-federal-agencies-existwe-
   cant-drain-the-swamp-until-we-know/?sh=415bb141aa28
5. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-13781-comprehensiveplan-
   for-reorganizing-the-executive-branch
6. https://www.nfib.com
7. https://www.britannica.com/place/Vermont/Revolution-and-statehood