U.S. Senate Election in Kansas

 

Advance and mail voting for mid-term elections begins October 17, so it’s time to consider the candidates and plan to vote for those we want to help shape our future. The last election was two years ago, so we can ask at least three questions: (1) Am I better off now than I was two years ago? (2) Is the United States as respected now as it was then? (3) Is the world safer and our global environment healthier than it was two years ago? 

A premier race in Kansas is for U. S. Senator. The incumbent is first-term Senator Roger Marshall, an experienced obstetrician/gynecologist from Great Bend; the challenger is Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, the nation’s largest United Methodist church.

In the Senate, Marshall has voted for Mr. Trump’s policies 98 percent of the time and was one of only seven Senators who refused to certify the votes of two key states in the 2020 presidential election. The McPherson Sentinel editorial board wrote that he “should be ashamed” of trying to overturn the election by believing false claims of voter fraud. Weeks earlier, he had called for an electoral commission “to investigate the integrity of the ballot;” four months later, he voted against a commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol attack. 

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marshall promoted conspiracy theories about an exaggerated number of deaths, leading Facebook to remove his posts for violating its rule against “harmful misinformation.” Marshall has long campaigned to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and opposes expanding Medicaid in Kansas, once saying that some people “just don’t want health care.”  He voted for $4 billion in Medicaid cuts in Kansas over the next decade.

He also denies scientific findings about climate change, saying, “I’m not sure that there is even climate change.” He supported Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Marshall also supports Trump’s tariffs and voted against a resolution to stop the Iran war unless Congress authorizes it. 

In March 2025, Marshall was widely criticized for a town hall he held out west in Oakley. To a standing-room-only crowd, he asked for written questions from which he would choose those to answer. That didn’t go over well, so voters began questioning him aloud. He called them rude, and when a local man asked why he treated veterans badly, Marshall left, earning the nickname “Roger the Dodger.” His campaign site is kansansformarshall.com.

Adam Hamilton has written 30 books, been named a Distinguished Evangelist and United Methodist Person of the Year, and preached during the 2013 Presidential Inauguration celebrations. Obama appointed him to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 

His campaign emphasizes an “Affordability Agenda” with eight categories: protect families from rising energy bills, protect the security seniors have earned, make housing affordable, lower health care costs, support agriculture for producers and consumers, end the chaos and corruption in Washington, strengthen consumer protections and support small businesses, and stand with Kansas workers.

To accomplish these goals, Hamilton wants “to end self-destructive tariffs and unnecessary foreign wars,” “require data centers to pay their fair share of electricity costs,” require competitive bidding for government projects, “expand Medicare to cover vision and dental” and extend Medicare’s negotiated drug pricing to private insurance, and reverse Medicare cuts and invest in rural  hospitals.  Hamilton also wants the Senate to pass the long-overdo farm bill and reform the guest worker program to give farmers and ranchers a stable legal workforce. 

Hamilton’s robust plan to end corruption in Washington would require Congress members to place “all individual stocks, bonds, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and investment assets” into a blind trust or sell them. He advocates a constitutional amendment establishing term limits for members of Congress and the Supreme Court. He also wants to end the dark money from billionaires and special interests flooding our elections and “drowning out the voices of normal voters” and restore independent Inspectors General.

Strengthening workers’ right to organize, protecting workers from wage theft such as unpaid overtime, and prohibiting AI-only employment decisions are key parts of Hamilton’s Affordability Agenda. His campaign site is hamiltonforkansas.com.

 

    

                   

       Get Out of Town

 My Wife the English Teacher and I got out of town recently for a week in Colorado and New Mexico. We had a good time, learned a lot, and reached the conclusion that government officials, especially federal, need to get out of town and see for themselves what climate change is doing to our world. 

After driving to Colorado nearly every summer for 30 years, we quit in 2018 after three episodes of hail damage made more common by climate change. This year, we flew to Denver, took a fuel-efficient commuter train to Union Station’s excellent hotel, and walked to the nearby Rockies stadium to watch the Royals lose. 

In the morning, we boarded a fuel-efficient Amtrak for the comfortable ride to Glenwood Springs through some of America’s most spectacular mountain scenery. The high country was abnormally hot and snowpack was 27 percent of normal. Snow matters because the Colorado River is a major water source for seven states including Arizona, Nevada, and California. The Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs are at the lowest levels since they were dammed and filled in the mid-20th century. 

We took a rental car 370 miles south to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was my first time driving a hybrid, which drove like a traditional car but with an impressive 55 miles per gallon, not as good as an EV, but double most cars. There were 12 active wildfires in Colorado that had burned 200.000+ acres and nearly a thousand buildings. Smoke was in the air nearly everywhere. We passed a highway department sign saying, “Smoky skies. Do not call 911.” 

On the bright side, we saw a large solar farm (pictured: farm on a Massachusetts landfill) and numerous wind turbines that were new since we last passed that way. We also saw two small turbines that powered a hotel and possibly nearby shops. Arriving in Santa Fe, we were surprised at the lack of the usual crowd of tourists. Apparently, high gas prices and other rising expenses are keeping people home.

News reports showed large parts of Spokane, Washington, the state’s second-largest city, burning, with 67,000 residents evacuated and more than 800 homes destroyed. Arson is suspected, but bone-dry conditions and high winds quickly spread the flames. Fire was also threatening Reno, Nevada. Climate change may not start a fire, but it creates the conditions for rapid spread. 

The June-July 2026 average temperature in the continental U.S. was the highest since reliable records began. In North Carolina, beachfront homes are being destroyed or moved to higher ground because of rising sea levels due to ice melting near the poles. Overseas, Europe is having its fifth heat wave with temperatures nearing 110 F, widespread drought, and huge fires in France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Europe has long led the transition to sustainable energy sources, now joined by China. 

China produced half as much electricity as the U.S. in 2005; it now produces twice as much and at lower cost. It installed more solar power in one year, 2023, than the U.S. has ever installed. Chinese car company  BYD now makes more EVs than Tesla, and China makes at least 70 percent of all EVs, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells. 

In mid-July, Mr. Trump complained to reporters about smoke from Canadian fires, saying, “We gotta stop the fires up there. I never remember this happening over the last four or five years they’ve started to take place.” He spoke over the noise of an idling jet, but his limited intellect didn’t make the connection between the engines emitting CO₂ and the climate change he still calls “a hoax.” Trump promotes fossil fuels, which historian Timothy Snyder has called “superpower suicide.”