By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The crowd was raucous as usual for the debate at the Kansas State Fair on Saturday, but the candidates did little in the way of policy pronouncing. The closest thing to news to come out of the Saturday event was Gov. Laura Kelly's assertion that she would create a cabinet-level position for early childhood education and child care.
"I have every intention, as we go forward into my second term to elevate the issue of child care and early childhood education by creating a cabinet-level position to focus on those issues," Kelly said.
Schmidt, for his part, praised the legislature for passing child care tax credits and called Kelly's goal red tape.
"She went straight to where she often does, look how much money they've spent," Schmidt said. "They expanded grants. She's going to create a new Cabinet-level secretary, more bureaucracy. The impediment that I hear from child care providers is that there is too much red tape already."
Other than that one brief policy piece, there was a lot of dancing around the issues and waging proxy fights, Schmidt with President Biden and Kelly, though less so, with Sam Brownback.
The two did agree that the Kansas voters spoke in August on the issue of abortion and Gov. Kelly said she would support the retention of the six Kansas Supreme Court justices on the ballot in November.
Schmidt said he would not retain all of the judges, though he was not specific on which ones he believes should go, but he said that decision should also be left to the voters.
The two candidates agreed that special education in the state is not funded to the statutory level, but they both also said that Congress is supposed to be sending more money to Kansas than they are and that the unfunded mandate from that level is the main problem in that regard.