There are several issues facing the country, and especially Kansas, Anne Parelkar said Thursday.
But addressing hot-button topics like health care, immigration or public education is made infinitely more difficult because of the vast sums of money injected into the body politic, she said.
Parelkar, who is seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate, spoke Thursday in front of an audience of 12 at the Allen County Blue Dot Club in Iola.
“Part of my platform, in fact, my biggest personal issues are about winning institutional reform,” Parelkar said. “We need to get the big money out of our government.”
Parelkar is an Overland Park attorney, and is one of eight challengers — and one of seven Democrats — seeking to unseat Sen. Roger Marshall in the November mid-term elections.
The Democratic primary will be held in August.
Parelkar shared a bit of her introduction to politics.
The wife of a Mumbai, India immigrant, Parelkar said she frequently wrote to federal lawmakers about immigration issues after Donald Trump was first elected to the presidency in 2016.
Some were responsive, even cordial, she said. “They’re happy to argue with you,” she said.
But Parelkar said Kansas’s congressional delegation was much less responsive.
“Ours don’t answer very much, and even if they do, you don’t get much from them.”
Parelkar then drove from Overland Park to Oakley in March 2025 when she heard Marshall was going to appear at a town hall.
Marshall left the town hall 20 minutes early, she recounted, denying her and others in the audience an opportunity to ask questions.
“I had told him that day that I wanted his job, and I was kind of just trolling him,” Parelkar said.
She considered kick-starting a recall effort, but quickly deduced that would be for naught.
So she decided to do the next best thing: run for his seat.
