Southwest Kansas is the only region in the state without a four-year university, so it’s critical that we continue to fund K-12 education and look to provide further higher education opportunities closer to home that will keep these graduates in our communities. Policies such as Medicaid expansion would protect rural hospitals from shuttering and provide funding for crucial mental health care. Lastly, if this region is to survive long-term, the Legislature must work to preserve the Ogallala Aquifer for future generations and prevent its depletion or risk condemning southwest Kansas to a future of scarcity and desertification.

Compared to the regressive culture wars that have dominated the Legislature the past few years, these issues are an existential threat to young folks and yet, all elected officials can do is attack transgender children and pass policies that continue to make our state more unappealing to young people.

The author is dead-on with this. It never ceases to amaze me how people vote in these state legislators who actively work against the future of the state.