TOPEKA — For Michael Poppa, this year has been “a punch in the gut.”
Poppa tries “to engage and educate and empower voters” through his work as the executive director of the Mainstream Coalition, a nonprofit focused on creating a more responsive government.
Democracy, he says, is failing in Kansas.
The latest indicator: 55 of the state’s 125 House seats are already decided because only one candidate filed for the seat before last week’s deadline. Another 10 races only have a primary contest, which means voters won’t have a choice in more than half of the House seats on the November ballot.
Earlier this year, the Mainstream Coalition tried to fight new political maps drawn by the GOP-dominated Legislature to reinforce Republicans’ power, without regard for public input in the redistricting process. That effort was defeated when the Kansas Supreme Court decided in May that the state constitution offers no protections against political and racial gerrymandering.
