From the fidelity Bank Foundation studio.

PBS Kansas presents the 2026 Republican gubernatorial primary debate.

Good evening, and welcome to this 2026 Republican primary gubernatorial debate presented by PBS Kansas and the Wichita Eagle.

I'm your moderator, Jemelle Holoperik.

Tonight, we are hearing from three candidates seeking their party's nomination for governor.

While all eligible Republican candidates were invited to participate, Ty Masterson, Phillip Zanetti, Vicky Schmidt and Scott Schwab all declined our invitation.

Joining us now on stage tonight are those who have accepted former Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O'Hara from Overland Park, former legislative candidate Nicholas Reinecke of Inman and Wichita business owner Stacy Rogers of Wichita.

Welcome to all of you.

Now, before we get going, we want to talk about the ground rules for tonight.

Our candidates are not allowed to refer to outside notes or digital devices while on stage.

Each has been provided a notepad and a pen to jot down thoughts during the debate.

Each candidate will have one minute for an opening statement, one minute to answer each question, and one minute for a closing statement.

If a candidate is directly mentioned by an opponent, they will be granted a 32nd rebuttal.

And to keep us fair and on time.

Our staff timer will ring a bell when a candidate's one minute is up.

Joining me tonight to ask the questions are two veteran journalist Dion Lefler from the Wichita Eagle and Matthew Kelly from the Kansas City Star.

Now, let's begin with the opening statements before going on the air.

The candidates drew straws to see who would go first.

And Mr.

Reiner Kerr will be going first with his.

So we'll start with you, Mr.

Reiner.

Kirk.

Thank you.

Matt.

This election is about a simple question.

Do Kansans want big government or limited government?

My name is Nick Reineke, and I've spent my life serving Kansans as an EMT, firefighter, police officer, certified nursing, and for the last 18 years, manager of the Inman Harvest Cafe with Katie, my wife and running mate, where we have, raised our children amongst members of the greatest generation who help to teach us about faith, family, neighborliness and responsibility.

We are running because we are tired of being overtaxed, over overregulated and ignored by politicians who forget that our rights come from God and not government.

As governor, I will defend life, Liberty State's rights, and the Kansas Republican Party platform.

I also will fight to schedule cannabis and enhance penalties for, for methamphetamine and fentanyl possession.

Taking back Kansas?

Hardly.

I intend to give Kansas back to the you.

The people Nick Reineke or Kansas underdog.

I appreciate your vote on August 4th.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Miss O'Hara.

Thank you.

Charlotte O'Hara.

My great grandfather came to Kansas in 1869.

He was looking for where he should settle to be a good home for his family and his grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren.

That was in Linn County.

I was raised on our farm, very nearby in Bourbon County.

And, I am the only candidate that actually was raised on a farm.

So there I learned hard work, perseverance, grit.

And those are the.

Those are the qualities I will bring to the governor's office.

I have served on the in the Kansas House in 2011 and 2012 and then on the Johnson County Commission 2021 to 2025.

I graduated from Ku.

I have a degree in education.

Then I became a general contractor.

Never tell a country girl she can't do something.

And I currently own a manufacturing company with my two sons.

Anna-lysa.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Miss Rogers.

Your turn.

Thank you.

I'm Stacey Rogers, and as the what's been called the hardest working candidate in this race, I have traveled this entire state, almost all 105 counties.

I'll finish up next week, town by town, talking with people just like you.

And what I've heard over and over is we're not being served.

We're not being worked for.

Nobody's listening to us.

We don't matter.

And we don't like the options given to us to vote for.

But there's never another option to choose.

And so that is why I decided to run, to give people another option.

I am a lifelong Kansan.

I am a multi-generational Kansan, in fact.

And my my family roots come from southeast Kansas farmers and and northern Kansas business owners.

And I'm a business owner myself.

I'm also a mom.

I have three wonderful boys.

Well, men now, and they live, all of them live here in Kansas as well.

And I'm very thankful to have them close to home and choosing to grow their life here as well.

So thank you very much, all three of you.

Now this concludes the opening statements.

And now it's time for questions again.

Candidates get one minute to answer.

And the first question is coming from Matthew Kelly.

Matthew, do you believe the state of Kansas to be in a stable financial position?

Why or why not?

Do I believe that Kansas is in a in a good financial position?

No.

I mean, we have we're we're running deficits.

We are overspending.

We don't seem to care whether we're taxing people out of their homes.

And absolutely, we our financial position is a mess.

We need to cut the size of government.

We need to get our budget in in hand.

And we need to understand that the people that we serve, they don't have an endless, fountain of money.

And that we need to understand that every dollar, every dollar that we spend, we must be fiscally responsible.

Mrs.

Rogers.

Yes.

No.

We are not in a stable financial position in this state.

We have made the state has made very poor choices, for a long time.

Regarding the massive overuse of star bonds as a as a economic development tool.

Over inflating our budget, our there's just been instance after instance where there are wasteful things happening and we're, we're left to just say, are we going to take that or are we going to do something about it?

And when you when you look at, I'll use one very specific instance in our budget this last year, there was an article that came out and our speaker of the House said it went over to Laura Kelly.

And, well, Laura, I expect you to line item veto the fluff out of that budget.

And I thought, man, the legislature really wanted to have their hands on that budget and they didn't do the removal of the fluff.

So that is what we need to address for sure.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Reiner.

It is my intention to get us back to a pre-COVID budget.

We are definitely not in a good position financially.

Unfortunately, that's going to take some hard cuts to our spending.

We can cut taxes all day long, but until we cut spending, nothing is going to change.

I want to look at the current behavioral health system and how to minimize diagnostic and flourish inflation and the growth of pharmaceutical, prescriptions that are just flying off the shelves that sometimes taxpayers are paying for in Medicaid.

I want to eliminate Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse.

I want to keep on with, looking at ways that we can, work for the taxpayer in the Snap area, but just in a generalized, position.

We need to cut spending a lot.

It's going to hurt, but it's necessary to toe the line for the Kansas taxpayer.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I think Matthew has a follow up for you to to drill a bit deeper on that.

If state spending needs to be reduced.

What specific departments and programs or services should be targeted?

I'm going to definitely look at, the Kansas Department of Children and Families and K dads and, and do a deep dive on what they are spending money on.

We have at risk funding that's not being, utilized appropriately.

And, the waste, fraud and abuse that's in Medicaid, obviously, that's going to be a big thing.

I think we have Steven Anderson, he's in charge of that department and enhancing his ability to take care of the waste, fraud and abuse so we can go on and on.

But that that's a good start, at least.

Thank you.

You know this.

We cannot just nibble around the edges on on this issue.

We have to really look at what we need to be focusing on.

And one of the number one things that we need to be focusing on is education.

And we are spending $300 million a year on the state Department of Education.

That is paper shuffler, 300 million a year.

And that's only salaries that should that should be closed down.

We should stop taking federal money for education.

We should push all of the curriculum down to the local level and allow the local communities to decide what they want their schools to look like.

And at that point, they will know the best way to spend the dollars.

And we need we have to get the dollars to to the specific programs.

Another example is that we're spending $50 million a year for Greenbush to develop curriculum, and obviously it's not working.

It's absolutely an abysmal failure.

We have to stop that for those failures.

Mr.

Rogers, your turn.

Yes.

Well, the long answer is all of them need to be looked at.

You point in any direction in the state, and the system is broken.

And there's clearly some, some issues going on in every department.

So, I do agree about education.

There's a huge, we have a 40% of that entire education budget.

Best as I can come up with a number, there's it's difficult to get those numbers.

Is spent in administration and not ever even reaching teacher student.

And so there's some different areas to be looking at, especially with education.

But every single area is going to be looked at.

I have lots of questions about where money is being allocated in this state.

We've never addressed it.

The address, the fraud that happened in 2020 with the unemployment, system we've addressed, where things kind of went, to people they shouldn't have, but we didn't actually address the actual fraud happening.

And so, it'll be surgical as we look at the different areas of the state, the different departments and what needs to be, addressed within those departments.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

And we want to move on to our next question.

And this is from Dion Lefler.

Yes.

Thank you.

As a Republican candidate, what is your view of the job performance of President Trump, during this, current term?

Okay.

And, Miss Rogers, we'll start with you this time.

My job, his job performance during this term.

Yes.

Okay.

There are always going to be things that we disagree or agree with when it comes to the president of the United States.

And while, I do believe most of the things that he has done is correct, and there have been a few things that I've disagreed with, one of the things that I've actually agreed with is when he moved, the marijuana scheduling from a schedule one to a schedule three, as I worked in pharmacy for 15 years, and that was actually the safest thing he could have done, to protect and to allow for research and development to occur.

Thank you, Mr.

Ryan.

Occur.

I've been a Trump supporter since day one.

I would invite him to come talk to me about some things because I would say that there may be some issues.

I'm totally against any Marxist ideology that puts government in the place of God and family and the principles of means of production and distribution.

So I would invite him to come talk to me about those things if he felt so compelled to do so.

But I do support President Trump and, and the things that he has done constitutionally to, be a good president for the United States of America.

Those.

O'Hara.

Thank you.

There are there are many things that I agree with him on, his handling of illegal immigration.

I mean, the the, millions of people that came over during the Biden administration was absolutely disastrous for our, our country.

I do have questions about, the Iran war.

We are carrying this on.

It seems like the we need to get this finished.

And I know that, how he's backing away from Israel concerns me a little bit.

I also do not agree with him on his strong support of data centers.

I think that, when you have executive orders from the federal government really pushing this down to the states, that's a problem.

Data centers have to stand on their own.

We cannot be giving them tax incentives.

And, it is it is an issue that we have to be looking at, and very, very carefully.

I, I believe we need a moratorium at this point.

Mister Rogers, I started.

This is for the follow up question.

Oh.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

It's okay.

Yes.

I just, from the discussion here, following up, is there, is there something that the president has done this term that you think was a mistake, that you don't agree with?

And start with me.

So I, I do think that when, any support of the data centers that are that is going on right now is completely in the wrong direction.

We definitely do need a moratorium.

If they are I, I heard that maybe there was some talk of moving them and and classifying classifying them as military, protected.

And I have some deep concerns over that.

So those are conversations that I would like to have with him on what the mode of motivation is for that.

I have been a huge, hugely against data centers and energy projects being done, not from the side of, of, landowners, but from the side of predatory companies.

And that's what we've seen over and over across our state.

Thank you.

I, I think, you know, the Constitution allows the federal government very few and defined powers.

Everything else is left to the states and to the people.

So I did not like the fact that he said states don't get artificial intelligence legislation.

And and as governor, I would look at that.

I, issue very hard and very rapidly.

Well, again, the data center issue is, is very large.

I was in El Dorado last night talking to the city commission.

They call it the city commission there instead of the city council.

And I explained how, the data centers and this erosion of our tax base because of tax incentives.

And I think that that is a big difference that I have with President Trump is that I don't support.

I don't support all of these tax incentives.

We need the free market.

And so that is that is a point that I would have great disagreements with him on.

Okay.

And now to Matthew Kelly for the next question.

One of the biggest pocketbook issues in Kansas right now is rising property taxes.

What, if anything, would you plan to do about this as governor?

And we will start with you, Mr.

Ryan.

Occur when it comes to property taxes, there's two things that I'd like to do.

Obviously, we want to take care of seniors and the vulnerable.

Give them some sort of, you know, breaks on the property taxes and anything else that I can do.

When I get into office to, to lessen the spending.

So the property taxes can hopefully come down if the people want caps or assessment caps or anything like that, you know, we can look at that.

But the other thing is, citizens of Kansas need to be engaged in their local governments.

They need to go to the board meetings.

They need to go to the council meetings.

You need to go to the school board meetings, get involved, run for precinct committee people, and make sure that you're holding your local government accountable so that they're not spending all your tax.

Larceny.

Basically illegal larceny.

Taking your money and, taxing you out of your home.

So we both have responsibilities there, and together we can do that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Well, the property tax mess has, that has come from the fact that we passed two constitutional amendments in 1986.

One was reclassification and equalization, which brought us annual reappraisal.

And the other was economic development, which opened wide the doors for giving companies, especially large companies, tax incentives.

And what this has done is that it has shifted the, burden of property taxes on to the residential, sector.

Way more than the corporate and, commercial sector.

And 1989 and Johnson County, 47% of property taxes was collected from residential.

That number now is 70%.

It's a great shift, and we absolutely have to stop the tax incentives because they have, shredded our base.

And my plan is to abolish property taxes.

Ms.. Rogers?

Yes.

Well, when, as I've traveled across the state, one of the things that I've heard is people feel penalized for taking care of their property.

They do not feel like they own their property.

They intentionally do not take care of their property in order to hopefully not have their taxes rise.

And yet they still do every time.

In fact, I was sent an email today with somebody some of these taxes that increased by another 20%.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

And I have looked at this across the state.

My lieutenant is actually a county commissioner out of Leavenworth and has spent 40 years in the local government area as mayor, as has several different things and has a great understanding of this.

This is actually a collapsing system.

It is not sustainable in its current form.

And so, yes, we are going to have to look at ways to fund the local governments differently going forward to decrease that burden on the people.

For those of you who believe we should preserve some form of property tax system, I'd like to ask, do you believe that the base valuation for property taxes should be the current value of the property as appraised by the county appraiser?

Or should it be based on the most recent sale of the property, as in some other states, most famously California with prop 13?

Okay, so my position is, is that we need to do what Senator Michael Murphy, proposed and SB 488, and that is to abolish property taxes, because you can you can try to fix the system, but because of the erosion of our tax base, the premise of economic development is that it is to broaden the tax base and to lower taxes for everyone.

We've done this for 40 years.

It doesn't work.

I example, in 2018, my two small industrial buildings say increase in value 61% in one year.

It's ridiculous.

In the meantime, we're giving all of these huge tax incentives.

The chief's $6 billion with interest, Panasonic, $1 billion.

And when I was on the county commission, we actually gave a Chinese communist, company Cinzano, an 88% property tax abatement.

I was the only no vote.

They were they were only paying 12%.

And that building is still empty.

That's.

Yes.

So again, SB, SB 488 is is good.

I think it will take a multi-layered approach.

The to answer your question.

Well, the system probably cannot be fixed, and that's part of the problem.

But if I were to base it off something, basing it off of what?

The property last sold for does make sense.

We're taxing people on maybe, property value, and we've seen that rise in the market and that lowering of the market and now houses that were bought just a few years ago at a much higher rate are now being sold at a much lower, lower amount.

And yet they paid property tax on those, on those higher amounts.

So but no, that is one of the reasons why it's not a working system anymore as well.

So Mr.

Ryan a. I love to get property tax down.

And I think there's arguments for both both sides of that that story, you know, whether the state says and the local supposed to do or, you know, have have to come up with something to, to override the state, which is hard.

But the point is, we want to work with the legislature to find the most constitutionally conservative solution to the best of the people.

That's that's a very simple, simple thing.

And if we're going to air, we're going to on liberty and local control.

Period.

And our next question now is from Diane.

Thank you.

I would like to stay on this, topic of, economic development, for a moment.

It's not just property tax, as you probably know.

There's a wide range of, of state and local economic development incentives, that have been approved by the legislature.

And, have been employed in recent years.

In the name of attracting and retaining businesses in Kansas.

And do you think that the underlying strategy pays off of of providing incentives?

And, Miss Rogers, we'll start with you.

Yes.

No, it does not pay off.

Again, going back to Star Bonds, they have been incredibly overused in the state.

We have 17 of them active now with three more on the way.

I just found out about about another one the other day.

And that means that about between 65 and 75% of our entire state population now lives within five miles of a star bond district.

So the the rhetoric of if you don't live near one, it doesn't affect you is completely false.

And of course, star bonds were kind of brought to the forefront of conversation with the Chief Steel.

They've been around for a long time, and historically they have been shown to simply shift sales tax revenue, not create new.

And in fact, the Commerce Department wasn't even tracking, new sales tax revenue from out of state until 2022.

So an independent company came in and looked at three of the well, they looked at all 14 star bonds that were active back in 2018, 2019.

And found that only three were performing.

And it would still take us decades to recoup that sales tax revenue loss from just those three.

Mister Rent-A-Car.

I'm a free market guy.

I'm not a fan of long term subsidies.

I think the people should be able to run capitalism as they see fit, and hopefully they would do it in a virtuous way.

So it's not crony capitalism.

We just have to go back to the Constitution and only compromise when it's actually needed.

My wife and I run, cafe in central Kansas, and we use real ingredients for real people.

Real butter.

It costs us a lot to use real ingredients.

But you know what?

We know that we're serving them good food instead of trash just because we want to have profit.

So again, it takes both the citizens and the leaders of Kansas to get these things done.

But no, I'm not a fan of, star bonds and the like.

You.

Well, have you gone out on the Commerce Department and counted the number of programs that we have, for, tax incentives?

There's 101.

I counted them.

We have on the local level.

We have kids.

Kids.

I RBI's tip, tax increment.

Finance district says that's on the property tax side on sales tax side.

And then we have income tax credits and peak and Pep.

And then you have all of these studies from the post legislative audit that goes well that didn't work.

No one cares because this is just the train that's going down the track.

And this is all comes back to the state chamber because they support this and they run parallel, campaigns for many Republicans.

But it's interesting because the Democrats also join in on this.

And we're in it's tax incentives.

It's Republicans and the Democrats.

Doesn't work.

Need to stop it.

Just have a follow up here.

I this this is fascinating.

I just want to ask, with the specific economic development tools that have been given to local government, which of those would you like to see expanded?

And if there are any that you think work, that.

Well, if there are any that you think work that should be expanded or should they just all be eliminated?

We'll start with you, Mr.

Rent-A-Car.

Again, this goes back to local control, just to say specifics on, well, you should cut this one or enhance this one.

We we could talk about that all day long.

But as long as the local government has control of what if a county commission wants to put incentives for businesses or whatever, then that should be allowed.

But at the state level, we need to focus on, a good budget and allowing liberty and freedom for the people and allowing the people to run the markets as they see fit.

All of the tax incentives come from the state legislature.

They have given the authority to the local government.

It doesn't work.

It's a false narrative.

We have tried this for 40 years.

It does not work.

And as as time went on, the the train, just it it just got faster and faster going down the tracks.

And I mean, $6 billion, $6 billion with interest that we're giving to the Kansas City Chiefs.

That's obscene.

And now we're going to own the stadium.

Then we're going to be we're going to be responsible for all the upkeep they give us.

They give us $7 million a year in rent, but it all goes back to the Chiefs for maintenance.

It is a bad deal these tax incentives.

It like I said, it's a false narrative.

We just need to get back to the free market.

Lower the cost of government, make downsize the size of government and, fix our education system so that people want to come to Kansas.

Thank you, Mister Rogers.

Yes.

So a lot of these could go away.

A lot of them, especially star bonds.

They should have been sunset in this last legislative session.

They were, of course, quietly re-upped again right at the end.

And, you know, to to talk a little bit more about that.

An economist the other day, actually, did the math on that and shows that we will be $1 billion in the hole at the end of the 30 years on the chief's deal, in addition to all of the renovations that will probably need to be done at that time, which will probably be in the billions as well.

And that falls directly on the taxpayers of the state is an absolute failure.

And, you know, when we look at how we support small and medium sized businesses in the state versus large corporations, that is where this is being abused the most, giving those incentives to these huge corporations while we're letting mom and pop mom and pop downtown, small town die is not the way that we should be heading.

Now, over to you, Matthew.

Since it's been invoked, the Chiefs deal, it's about as bipartisan as legislation gets in in Topeka.

But drilling down, do you think Kansas got a good deal bringing the Chiefs to Wind County?

Do the upsides.

The civic pride, the bragging rights, outweigh the downside.

And the public subsidy.

Oh, it's to me that's too.

You know.

We were had.

I mean, I'm a businesswoman.

And when I looked at this deal, I just went, oh my gosh, the the Chiefs just absolutely played us.

This is ridiculous.

And and for this to be such a secret deal and all of these nondisclosure agreements, if you want public money, there is no non-disclosure agreements.

It is out in the open.

And and we're seeing the same thing with the data centers.

Oh, you know, we have to have these nondisclosure agreements.

But we were taken to the cleaners and it's a bad deal.

Yeah.

So you said bipartisan.

But the reality of it is that that deal was made outside of the legislative session by a just a few people in our legislature.

And it was, quite frankly, a gross abuse of power because the, the, role of that particular group of people is to, research and take information back to the legislative session.

It is also to keep a rogue governor in check in, and it is also to make emergency budgetary decisions outside of the legislative session.

Now, none of those actually fit the chief steal, except for they created a deadline imaginary emergency deadline of December 31st, conveniently outside of the legislative session.

And have that passed?

Had that entire deal gone to the full legislature legislature, it would have never passed in in that form.

Mister Reiner, chief.

Still, it was a bright and shiny object that provided instant gratification to those who allowed it versus thinking about the long game, us and our posterity.

And the only good thing it does, which I'm not a fan of, is it enhances the opera apparatus for state owned gambling, which the state shouldn't be involved in, in my opinion either.

Thank you.

And now we have our next question from Diane.

Yes.

I want to return to, data centers for a moment.

This obviously is a hugely significant issue in Kansas, and the data centers represent a large investment of capital, but they seem to generate relatively few jobs.

And, I just.

Are these a net benefit or a net detriment to our state?

And Miss Rogers will start with you.

A net detriment to the state in its current form.

And, you know, I've been called into almost every single, data center project in the state, and there's a vast number of somewhere around 30 of them at this point.

And various various groups, whether, you know, some of our cities and counties are putting in moratoriums, that's fantastic.

Some are going full steam ahead and to the dismay of the people that live there and are not being listened to.

But the reality of it is these are predatory companies taking advantage of not updated zoning.

We are finding out now that they are threatening lawsuits because they fit within those current zoning laws, threatening lawsuits to those cities and counties backing them into a corner against the will of the people.

No private company should ever be able to back our cities and counties into a corner, and go against the will of the people if they do not want something in their area.

And so, yeah, we need to put protections in for that against these companies at the state level to help protect our cities and counties in their fight with them.

Mr.. Radical, I don't necessarily see it as a net detriment versus net benefit.

I do not think that there should be incentives, but I don't think there should be bans.

Again, this goes back to the local control.

If the local control people want to have data centers in their county, but I guess they have data centers in their county.

How do we define data centers?

Does it that there's one room and, Main Street office, or is it a big 7000 acre deal?

So I'm going to not be in the counties business when it comes to that.

Unless there's frank, flagrant violations of keeping Kansas safe and, you know, public safety like that and constitutional application.

Well, isn't it interesting that all of a sudden there's this huge gold rush of data centers coming into the state of Kansas?

Why?

Why is this happening now?

Well, it's because in 2025, our state legislature, our super Republican majority passed SB 98, which gives data centers a 20 year sales tax exemption.

If that sales tax exemption wasn't on the books, we wouldn't be seeing these data centers stampeding into Kansas.

We have absolutely been sold down the river on this.

And when I was in the El Dorado last night, I said to the city commissioners, I said, I know you're concerned about being sued, and these data centers have an endless amount of money.

And so that's a real problem, I said.

So what you need to do is just put a moratorium on all your tax incentives.

Tell them, no, nobody's getting any until this ridiculous fool's gold, agenda is goes away.

I mean, it's this is a mess.

It's a mess.

But we have the, you know, obviously, the legislature has taken the lead in providing those tax breaks that you talked about.

But there's a question that I'd like to ask here is, is what specific additional restrictions, do you think should be placed on data centers at the state level?

So that, we can have consistency across the, across the state when it comes to these projects?

Mr.

Reiner, the only thing I'll say about that, because I do agree that if we are going to if the legislature does what it wants and we have restrictions on them, let's make sure that we have the water issue taken care of.

Beyond that, I still go back to to my position that it's a local control and I'll deal with whatever I have to deal with.

It's on my desk that the legislature brings to me.

This isn't local control, because the state gives the locals the authority to put these tax incentives in place.

And at the state level, we have the 20 year, sales tax exemption, number one roll repeal, SB 98, repeal it and get it off the books.

And then our water is one of the biggest issues in Kansas.

Especially in western Kansas.

And, and the fact of the matter that Garden City is considering a data center is that's that's wild.

Now, I know that they can they can air cool their, the, the computers, but that is very noisy.

And again then we get into the nondisclosure agreements because the big companies don't want anyone to know what kind of cooling system that they're going to put in place.

Absolutely no tax incentives.

Not at the state level, not at the local level.

We need to let the free market work.

And if there wasn't feeding the trough, these data centers wouldn't be here.

Yes.

So again.

Yeah.

Tax.

The tax incentives need to go away.

The guardrails that need to be put in place at the state level would deter the majority of these.

And it's it would be because they would not be able to fit into those, those regulations of how to protect our water, of how to protect our land.

We are an agricultural state, and they keep trying to put these things on and on.

Hundreds of acres in our agricultural land.

I have a big problem with that.

The state should be involved in what is happening with our water.

We do have a problem with our water.

And, we're just.

That's standing silently by and allowing these, these behemoth, data centers to come in with absolutely no oversight whatsoever.

I want to see third party environmental studies done that show that exact piece of land and the impact it's going to have, how it's going to impact the land around it, and how it's going to affect the water in the community.

We have not been given the truth from a lot of these centers about how they're going to utilize those things.

Okay.

Matthew, over to you.

Kansas is current K-12 school finance formula is set to expire on July 1st, 2027.

Its early outline will be one of the first things that lands on the next governor's desk.

So what specific provisions must that formula include or exclude for you to sign it?

Well, again, I'm not going to be nibbling around the edges on education.

I have a degree in education.

I homeschool my children, and educating our children is not rocket science.

But it it does require the local communities to have the control of their schools.

So again, close the state Department of Education.

That is $300 million down the drain.

Stop paying non-government organizations, like Greenbush, $50 million for curriculum that doesn't work.

And push stop taking the federal funds and then push all of the curriculum decisions down to the local level.

I mean, this is going to be a huge sea change.

And I was talking to a superintendent out in, western Kansas.

And when I told him my plan, I mean, he looked at me like, oh, my gosh, we'd have to we'd have to we'd have to have the responsibility.

Yes.

The local districts need to have the responsibility.

Miss Rogers.

Yes.

One of the things that I've, spoken about as I visited different schools across the state is consolidation of superintendents.

This would actually I'll give Dickinson County as an example.

You have Abilene sitting there and you have four other school districts.

By combining, superintendents over those school districts, schools don't close.

We have, the same rivalries and identities for those schools.

But we have one superintendent over multiple school districts, and that would say Dickinson County alone, over $400,000 a year and have a similar impact across the state.

So that's that's one way to actually reallocate money towards good teacher retention and student outcomes.

And I think that's what we need to be looking at.

I would like to look at the At-Risk Funding System.

Obviously there is what the legislative post audit report there.

There's lots of issues that we can take on there.

I will cut anything that doesn't get down to the student and helps them to read, write and do arithmetic better.

I suppose it might be, a fantasy to for us to go back to one room schoolhouses with all the people, in the same grade and, and, prayer and biblical principles.

But, I will fight for, the local control, as I've said plenty of times before.

I thank you very much.

According to a recent analysis, 68 rural hospitals in Kansas are at risk of closure, the highest number in the nation.

And what ideas do you have for ensuring access to health care across the entire state?

And should Medicaid expansion be part of that solution?

Mr.

Rogers?

Yes.

Well, I have visited with many hospitals as I've traveled around the state as well, and they have differing opinions.

So I was in, in one county, and, and they said, please expand Medicaid.

And I said, how many Medicaid patients do you see?

Oh, just a few.

I said, okay, well, that's why you would like it expanded.

When I went directly over the county line and talked with another county hospital and said, what do you think about Medicaid expansion, expansion?

They said, please do not do that to us.

And I said, well, how many Medicaid patients patients do you see?

About 80%.

It would close rural hospitals that see, larger numbers of Medicaid patients, even faster by expanding it.

What needs to happen is reform of that system.

Instead.

The reimbursement rates to the providers is not where it should be.

Pennies on the dollar is not adequate in order to keep those those facilities open.

So that is what needs to be addr Definitely reimbursement rates.

I am not for Medicaid expansion, and I will do everything I can in my power as governor to help rural hospitals.

The thing that we need to concentrate on is mitigating the need for health care, eating right, food, exercise and all those principles of making America healthy again that we've been talking about for the last couple of years.

We're going to have some struggles.

We're going to have some issues, but that doesn't mean that we just automatically balloon government and expand Medicaid.

That's not the right answer.

I agree.

That Medicaid expansion is not not the answer.

In Ohio, when they did when they expanded Medicaid, it it busted the budget.

I mean, it really people say, oh, it's free money.

It's free money.

No, no no, no.

It actually expands the state budget that that takes that.

As I was talking to, people in the medical industry, they said one of the biggest problems is the reimbursement of the insurance companies.

Not only is it pennies on the dollar, for Medicaid, but it is the reimbursement of insurance, private insurance.

And so that that's a that's a huge problem.

So we need to look at that.

And, yes, we need to we need to focus in on what makes you healthy.

All of these medications that we take I mean, it's it it's a Band-Aid approach.

And we need to focus on exercise, eating right and getting sleep.

Matthew, over to you.

Kansas farmers are struggling with tariffs and cuts in U.S.

foreign aid, destabilizing traditional markets for Kansas crops.

The war with Iran, has raised fuel and especially fertilizer prices.

And drought conditions have all sort of, resulted in some of the worst of the poor crop yields and quality on record.

As governor, what programs, legislation would you propose to help farmers, struggling through these times?

Mr.. Anoka, this one's kind of easy for me.

I would schedule cannabis and allow plant liberty to the farmers, producers and the individual.

I don't think government should tell you what kind of plant you should be able to plant, especially if it has no nutritional value, regardless of whatever uses people can use it for.

I will always ask, what would the founders say?

And it's just ridiculous that people can't grow cannabis and be allowed for, whatever purposes they want.

It grows.

Well, it doesn't create a need.

A lot of pesticides and herbicides or anything like that.

It's all over Kansas, and I just, I'm flabbergasted.

Why?

We have not unleash that potential for farmers and individuals who.

Oh, well, I will disagree on this with my colleague here.

Because Colorado, they thought this was the answer to their budget issues that were going to legalize marijuana, and it's going to be grown all over, and it's going to we're going to collect all this tax money.

Well, that's again been a false narrative.

And the issues that come with, marijuana use is it's it's extremely troubling, especially with the level of THC that is now in marijuana.

And with it has, it has, psychiatric issues, especially with young men, in between 18 and 25.

And I wouldn't do that.

But so I raised our farm.

I watched my dad decide what he was going to plant and whatnot because of federal regulations.

And I'll talk about that a little bit more as we go forward.

Okay.

And because she spoke about you specifically, you'll get 30s.

Mr.. Right.

Occur to rebuttal.

What we know is that crime is down in Kansas.

And I believe one of the reasons that is the case is we've had cannabis dispensary rise operating in the sunshine in Kansas for the last four years.

Now we feed our children Adderall without a second guess, and then we wonder why we have a methamphetamine problem.

We feed dementia patients antipsychotic medications, but we wonder why we have spending on all this stuff.

So you can make fun of Colorado.

You can make fun of whatever.

But the principles still remain.

Government should not tell people what they can plant, especially cannabis.

Miss Rogers, now back to you.

So I, I've spoken with, quite a few farmers across the state as well as I've traveled.

And one of the big issues for them that they are very concerned about is the move of, moving their property to market value, versus the land they use.

Value that it is currently.

And so, as governor, I will make sure that it does not get moved to that market value.

That would be devastating to a lot of farmers in our state.

Speaking specifically on the, the marijuana question, the governor can't legalize it in this state.

It has to go through the legislature.

So, running on that is is a bit disingenuous because you cannot do it.

But I will say that, and that is because it will never make it through the Senate with the current Senate president that's sitting there.

So I will.

Tell you that you, Diane, let's talk about elections.

And I want to I want to ask you, are our Kansas elections free and fair?

We've seen the legislature, tighten voter roll oversight.

They eliminated grace period for late arriving mail ballots, and are proposing a constitutional amendment, prohibiting, non-citizens from voting, despite, the fact that it's a very small number of those cases have ever surfaced moving forward, do you think Kansas should prioritize additional election security or work on expanding access to eligible voters?

Miss O'Hara, we start with.

Oh.

Thank you.

Well, I think that we should go back to paper ballots, hand-count them, and then there's no question about.

Are the machines, flipping votes because it does happen.

It does happen.

And Election Day should be election day.

And, having, to have proof of identification when voting.

I mean, you have to have proof of identification, get on a plane to open a bank account.

So to to vote.

Absolutely.

And I, absolutely support, President Trump on the Safe act.

So I just think that and on the Mail-In ballots, it should only be absentee ballots for servicemen and women, public, safety workers, etc.

people that's on vacation and other few other, other, categories.

But, no, I think we need to go back to the the paper ballots and hand counted, Miss Rogers.

Yeah.

So, I was looking at our population growth over, oh, since 1986, how much we've grown in this state, and it's only 550,000 people.

And so, an argument the other day online was we can't go back to, to hand counting ballots, ballots because we couldn't do it.

Well, when I was growing up, I remember we had results on election night and they were hand counted, and that's why I went back and looked, well, how many people, how many more people do we have here today?

Is this really something we can't do?

And I just have a hard time thinking that we can't hand count 550,000 more ballots than we did in 1986.

So I think any protections that we can put in place to make sure that elections are fair and, and reduce the amount of any amount of fraud, I think any is too much, when it comes to our elections and showing your ID, that should just be a no brainer.

You have to show it for for so many other things.

Showing it to vote should not be something that is is fought in any way.

Mr.. Right group, one of the most awesome experiences I had was counting ballots at the first district, meeting that we had a few years ago, and it was very relationship building and everything, and I agree, I think we should go back to paper ballots, have engaged citizens who are willing to do the work and, and do it that way.

So that's that's all me elections deal.

Now, I would like to say one thing because it was kind of brought up earlier, that the governor can't legalize marijuana or do you schedule a cannabis?

But what the governor can do is be a cheerleader for the people when it comes to their constitutional and natural God given rights.

Now that's the end of the question.

So now we will go to the closing statements and we will start with you, Miss Rogers.

Okay.

Well, again, I'm Stacey Rogers and, you know, I wrap up traveling all of the counties next week, and it has been a fantastic journey, through this beautiful state that we have.

We have amazing people and they are worth fighting for.

They are worth working for.

And we need to have a governor that wants to serve the people, not special interests, not groups.

You know, I've taken absolutely no PAC money, no special interest money, and no large out-of-state donations into my campaign on purpose because I want to be beholden to the people of this state only, you know, I was a business owner.

I am a business owner.

And, I want did not come into this because I wanted some career path.

I wanted to, this was a stepping stone to something else.

I saw a need that needed.

We needed someone that wanted that would serve this state truthfully, honestly, with integrity.

And, I said, you know what?

I can do that people of this state have not been listened to for a long time, and I want to give them that option to have their voice heard.

Again, this election is about a simple question do Kansans want big government or do they want limited government as governor, I am the constitutionally conservative candidate.

My name is Nick Ryan.

Ticker Kansas underdog.com.

That's WW UW dot Kansas underdog.com.

And I would appreciate your vote on August 4th.

Thank you.

God bless you.

Now that concludes our Republican gubernatorial debate.

Oh I'm sorry I can't miss you.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Your turn.

I'm so.

Well, you know, the state chamber forgot about me too.

I'm sorry about that.

Yes.

Charlotte O'Hara.

My family's been here since 1869.

I am a mother of five.

Grandmother of seven.

I have two dogs and one horse.

I am a businesswoman.

I have political experience.

I know how to stand up to the big boys.

I know how to say no.

And I will bring transparency.

I will bring service to the people.

I will make sure that these, special interest groups that are getting that incredible deal.

So that has created a two tier tax system.

The well-connected pay one level taxes, and then the rest of us, we pay a lot higher level.

And that is just inexcusable.

It doesn't work.

I will work to abolish property tax as a tax, the taxing of unrealized gains.

Are you kidding me?

Just because our property is worth more, it doesn't mean that we have more money to send to the government.

So I would be very honored to earn your vote on August 4th.

Charlotte O'Hara O'Hara for kansas.com.

Thank you.

All three of you appreciate it.

That concludes our Republican gubernatorial primary debate.

Our thanks to the three Republicans who agreed to participate, as we said, Charlotte O'Hara, Nicholas Ryan, Occu and Stacy Rogers.

And to the Wichita Eagle and our panelists, Dion Lefler and Matthew Kelly.

Thank you both for being here.

We appreciate it.

Next week at this time, we'll bring you the Democratic gubernatorial primary debate.

Until then, I'm Jamal Herrick.

Thank you for watching PBS Kansas and have a great night.