Melissa: Thanks for being with us on The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Last Tuesday, voters in Kansas soundly rejected a proposal to amend the state's constitution. The amendment would've said there's no right to abortion in the state.

Speaker 2: It's a huge victory for Kansas, for women, for reproductive rights in America post-Roe.

Melissa: Democrat State Representative Lindsay Vaughn talking with the local ABC affiliate on election night.

Lindsay: It just feels surreal. We worked really hard for this moment and it's incredible to be here and to have that margin of victory. I think it shows that democracy and what's right still wins in Kansas and in America.

Melissa: For many, this outcome was surprising. Kansas is one of the most solidly Republican states in the union. Having chosen the Republican candidate in all, but one presidential election since 1940 and that was LBJ. It's been a minute, but data from the Kansas Secretary of State's Office shows that more people voted in the abortion referendum than in any primary election in state history and the margin of victory was substantial. 59% voted against amending the constitution to ban abortion and rural voters, not just city folks were part of the winning coalition. On the surface, they might be tempting to say.

Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz: I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Melissa: For those who know Kansas more intimately, the roots of this outcome are deeply planted in the history and politics of the state.

Thomas: My name is Thomas Frank. I'm the author of many books, including The People, No.

Melissa: Historian and journalist, Thomas Frank, grew up in Mission Hills, a suburb of Kansas City. The title of his best-known book asks the question.

Thomas: What's the Matter with Kansas? It's a study of the culture wars that in my home state of Kansas, which for decades now has been a culture war battleground.

Melissa: First, published 20 years ago, the book wonders.

Thomas: How is that possible? How can you enlist ordinary people for a politics that has done such incredible harm to the economic interests of ordinary people? How do you pull that off? The answer was the culture wars.

Melissa: All right. Let's slow down just a bit because here is where it gets tricky. For some, it might be seductively simple to imagine the people of Kansas as good-hearted, but uninformed. Easily let us stray from their true economic interest by big, bad party elites.

Thomas: One of the themes of What's the Matter with Kansas? is that the state is both radical and typical at the same time. It was a little bit ahead of the-- we always think of the red states as being benighted, backward, nostalgic, but in some ways, Kansas was always ahead of the rest of America. The argument that I made in the book is that in fact, what was happening in Kansas in the 1990s that I wrote about is going to happen everywhere else in America.

Melissa: But this analysis is not so much that. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz: I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Melissa: It might more accurate to say we are all in Kansas now. But even this reading fails to capture the more complex political history of the sunflower state considering how the state is voted in presidential elections. Yes, the trend is reddest of the red, but remember Republicans once signals something quite different.

Thomas: Kansas was founded by a militant abolitionist who went there in the 1850s to block the advance of slavery by force of arms. They armed themselves and fought a border war with people from Missouri. Missouri was a slave state and Kansas is the home of John Brown, the famous abolitionist who tried to spark a civil war. In fact, in some ways succeeded in sparking a civil war. Kansas is one of the only places in America where I think the only place where John Brown is regarded as an unproblematic hero. Kansas in the early days, in the 19th century, was filled with radicals.

Pete Seeger: [singing John Brown's Body]

John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave

John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave

John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave

But his soul goes marching on

Melissa: The state's abolitionist founding is just one part of the story of Kansas radicalism.

Thomas: The word populism was actually invented in the State of Kansas. Some guys were trying to come up with a name for this new third party that had sprung up in Kansas in the year 1890, and had basically overthrown the Republican Party as the dominant force in the state. The name they came up with was Populist, the Populist Party, and they were a radical left-wing party.

Melissa: In the presidential election of 1892, voters in Kansas chose the People's Party candidate, James Weaver. Even though Weaver would fail a contemporary litmus test of progressive values, the People's Party had a bold agenda for the time. At the heart of the state's Populist politics were the women of Kansas.

Thomas: The Populist Party was the first major political party in America to support women's suffrage, and Kansas, in fact, not only did they support it, they were the only political party of their era that had women leaders and in that was very pronounced in Kansas. It was the fate of the Populist Party was very tied up with this woman named Mary Elizabeth Lease, who used to go around the state speaking to farmers. Her advice to them was to raise less corn and more hell.

Melissa: Born in Pennsylvania, Mary Elizabeth Lease and her husband settled in Wichita in the 1870s. She watched as hardworking families struggled with little help from their elected leaders. A gifted orator, Lease became a champion of labor and of the rights of women.

Frances McDormand: Our laws are the output of a system which close rascals in robes and honesty in rags, the parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.

Melissa: That's academy award winner, Frances McDormand, delivering a dramatic reading of a speech, delivered by Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890.

Frances McDormand: We were told two years ago to go to work and raise a big crop. That was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted. The rains fell, the sun shown, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to, and what came of it? 8¢ corn, 10¢ oats, 2¢ beef, and no price at all for butter and eggs. That's what came of it. We still stand by our homes. We will not pay our debts to the loan shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.

Melissa: This is a reminder that Kansas has a deep political legacy of women's leadership and fierce independence. It's a legacy Thomas Frank believes too many contemporary observers, maybe even the Republican Party itself failed to understand.

Thomas: Before Roe v Wade states were legalizing abortion on their own before there was a National Supreme Court decision, Kansas was one of the states that had done that because, like I say, the historic identity of Kansas is about strong women. That's the frontier tradition, that's the populous tradition. That's who we are.

Melissa: Acknowledging this history, shouldn't lead endless to ignore recent decades, decades where Kansas has been ground zero in the movement to end abortion.

Thomas: There was a huge operation rescue descended on the City of Wichita, Kansas in 1991. They had this thing they called the Summer of Mercy. Protestors showed up from all over America and did these protests in Wichita, Kansas, and that launched the right wing in the state.

Melissa: Kansas is where Dr. George Tiller, one of only a few doctors in the nation who performed abortions in late pregnancy first, whether decades of protests and violence directed at his clinic, his home, and even himself. Kansas is where, in 2009, Dr. George Tiller was murdered while attending church. Thomas Frank believes that even as the anti-abortion movement gained momentum, the state's moderate, fiscally conservative Republican leaders knew that abortion rights were supported by a majority of voters.

Thomas: You have this anti-abortion movement that's building in Kansas. The moderate controlling faction of the Republican Party was able to embrace it and let it happen because they knew that, thanks to Roe v Wade, there would never be any consequences for it, or there would be consequences, but they would be small. They wouldn't cost the Republican Party at the polls. If you understand the history of all of the conflicts between the factions of the Republican Party and how they tried to balance it over the years, it's not that startling. I think you're going to see this happen all over the country.

Melissa: Frank reminded us that these political possibilities are visible, not only in the 2022 referendum outcome, but also in the 2020 presidential choices of Kansas voters while Donald Trump won the state.

Thomas: Joe Biden won every single precinct in my old neighborhood. The reason this is shocking is because these people are-- this is the ruling class of the State of Kansas. These were the people that used to be in love with-- they loved Bob Dole. They were the classic moderate Republicans country club, Republicans, if you will, and they've flipped sides. They've become Democrats, which is just absolutely astonishing.

Melissa: These potentially telling shifts at Kansas politics are happening not only with voters but also among elected officials. I sat down with Kansas State Representative Stephanie Clayton.

Representative Clayton: My district covers parts of the Kansas City area and I serve as the House Minority Whip.

Melissa: Motivated by a deep commitment to fiscal discipline, Representative Clayton initially served in the State House as a Republican. She's now a member of the Democratic Party.

Representative Clayton: Compared to the rest of Kansas, my district would be more of a moderate suburban type of district. Whereas the rest of Kansas, like many Midwestern states, it's two urban centers or really three because you have the Kansas City area that has Wyandotte County and Johnson County, and then you have the Wichita area in Sedgwick County and Topeka in Shawnee County. The rest of it is fairly rural, but as we saw from Tuesday's results, it really is not a monolith.

Melissa: You served for six years in the Kansas State Legislature as a Republican, how would you describe your politics at that time?

Representative Clayton: I think my politics at the time were exactly the same as they are now, very socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. Old school moderate is the way that I would describe my politics. I think that a lot of us have found that the parties have shifted around us while our belief systems and the belief systems of our constituencies remain the same.

Melissa: Was abortion important to your overall political stance at that time?

Representative Clayton: Yes, it was. Most of my mentors were pro-choice Republicans. In fact, in this suburban Kansas City area, we had a great deal of pro-choice Republican women who serve. That was normal. Again, I think it's more of that old-school Republican, not the government's right to make my decisions. I think that is the ideal that caused the failing of that attempted constitutional amendment last Tuesday more than anything else.

Melissa: What do you think changed between 2020 and what just happened in Kansas?

Representative Clayton: Well, let's see, the ballot measure never made it to the ballot in 2020. There was an attempt to get it on there, but it was the exact same writing. It just never got on there in 2020 because the legislators in the house, there were enough of us to vote no. What happened is a repercussion to that vote is that we lost some Democrats who represented more traditionally conservative areas and we lost several of our moderate Republicans.

There was bipartisan opposition to it getting on the ballot in 2020 and the powers that B took those people out and got a much more conservative legislature put into place to put that on in 2021.

Melissa: When you were talking about losing some folks, folks who maybe occupied that middle was that loss primarily to redistricting. In other words, were districts drawn so that it was less favorable for some of these Democrats in more conservative areas or for example, pro-choice Republicans.

Representative Clayton: That would not be due to redistricting. Now, I would say definitely our congressional redistricting maps are laughably and horrifically gerrymandered, but our House and State Senate maps really aren't that bad. It's overall a shift within the parties where there is no room for anyone who isn't completely obedient unless you are full on Trump and supportive of school vouchers and other far right-wing policies such as that. Actively destroying public education, actively destroying anyone's personal and private rights going more from conservatism to authoritarianism. That's what's happening to the Republican Party and office holders in Kansas.

Melissa: Let's take a quick pause. We'll have more on what's going on in Kansas, right after the break. We've been spending some time in Kansas this hour. Last week, Kansans overwhelmingly voted no on a ballot measure that would've amended the state's constitution to say there's no right to an abortion. This got some political analysts outside the state by surprise, but people in the state say it makes sense once you look at the political ideology of many Kansas voters.

I've been talking with representative Stephanie Representative Clayton, House Minority Whip in the Kansas State Legislature. She told me about the strategy that democratic leaders and abortion rights advocates in Kansas took to win this vote.

Representative Clayton: It is Kansas. You can't necessarily sit there and talk about things and with no offense to any listeners in super coastal liberal terms. We used Republican and conservative language, the name of the group that opposed the amendment. The vote-no group was called Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, which if you hear it for the first time, a lot of people would be confused and say, "Oh my gosh, that sounds like a libertarian or almost tea party group."

But honestly, what this bill would've done is that it would have altered Kansas' constitution to set it up so that individuals who could become pregnant were second-class citizens who did not have the same rights to bodily autonomy as those who could not become pregnant. Ultimately, when you look at it, it really is a constitutional argument and it comes down to those old school almost tea party founding father's discussions when it comes to our rights. That message absolutely resonated.

Remember, Kansas is still a very, very red state percentage-wise as far as registration is concerned. In order to get success in that area, we had to meet conservatives where they were and discuss this in conservative terms as to why this was bad legislation.

Melissa: It feels to me like such an important insight in terms of coalition-building strategy.

Representative Clayton: Well, I do feel like it's important as well. Obviously, as a relatively new Democrat, I had a lot of colleagues welcome me with open arms because I had always been voting with them anyway as a Republican, but there is still a group that does not like the fact that I am there because I'm not a cradle Democrat, so to speak. I think that if there is one lesson for Democrats nationwide is that we look at this and we come to it from a term of, dare I say, big tent and open arms and understanding that we have to meet the voters where they are.

I think one of the other things too, is that we have to make sure that a lot of Republicans are feeling no small amount of shame about the way that their party is behaving because this is not the Republican Party that they saw when they were younger. When we look at that, we don't want to sit there and nag Republicans, and tell them that they're terrible people, "Oh, you're a horrible people. Vote with us." That's not going to work.

We have to meet people where they are and have them understand that there are still good opportunities for policies that they believe in and that they just happen to be democratic policies now.

Melissa: What kind of resistance did you encounter around this framing making it more about privacy and less about termination?

Representative Clayton: Well, I think there is some resistance with people saying, well, you should be saying the word abortion and why is this an issue? Again, because I am a House Minority Whip, I look at things from a very pragmatic standpoint. How do I get the votes? When we are doing this both inside the legislature, how do I get my colleagues to vote with me and outside the legislature, how do I get a policy to either pass or fail as was the case with this? Again, you have to come to people where they are and make them comfortable.

It isn't about what I want them to believe. It's about getting to the good policy. That should always be the goal. I think that it does make some people uncomfortable or frankly, it is irritating. That those efforts have to be made, that you have to come at something through the lens of freedom as opposed to the lens of women's health or a right to abortion. Almost using those euphemisms.

Women's healthcare, we all know what that means when politicians use that term, but the thing is that ultimately, when it comes down to it, I would say, or do just about anything to get to the good policy that helps people. We might have come to it from a more conservative standpoint, but Kansas won big. I think we did win big because we used that language and that lens.

Melissa: Are there lessons from Kansas or is this about each state developing its own strategy?

Representative Clayton: Well, I think each state has its own unique identity. We can say that you think about Kansas' border state, Nebraska, which just decided to not call special session because they didn't have the votes to ban abortion. That's always a very good sign. Did Nebraska decide, did they end up not getting the votes in their legislature because of what Kansas did? That remains to be seen, but we're not exactly the same as say Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Iowa. Definitely, not the same as Missouri, which is more of a southern state than Kansas is.

I think that ultimately, when we look at this type of communication, we think about what is the identity of our citizens, how do they think, and how do they like to be spoken to. Ultimately, what I have thought about more than anything this past week and watching this major victory on Tuesday night is that this is, by and large, about respect, respecting other Kansans to make the best decisions that they can, knowing that I, as a legislator, cannot possibly know what people and families are going through in regards to this type of healthcare.

I think above all when you're looking at this in different states, how do other states apply the lessons of Kansas to their own states, it's understanding their identity and paying respect to their constituents because the last thing that people any American, I think, wants, which is part of the American identity is we don't like being told what to do. We don't like being told that someone else knows better than we do. We don't like being shamed into doing something or into not doing something. I think that again comes right now to respect.

Melissa: Representative Stephanie Clayton is the House Minority Whip in Kansas' State Legislature and represents part of the Kansas City area. Representative Clayton, thank you for your time.

Representative Clayton: Thank you so much for having me.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.