I hope this newsletter finds you enjoying your summer! It’s moving quickly and before we know it, the kids will be back in school again. Summer always flies by much too quickly for my taste!

It's been a hot political summer, and I wanted to update you on some issues affecting Kansas, and what my priorities will be heading into the next session.

In this newsletter I will hit on the following topics:

1. Bulging Budget Issues
2. My To-Do List
3. Audit Shows Schools Fail to Make the Grade
4. Off Session Action: Election Integrity, Foreign Land Grabs and Campaign Ethics
5. Climate Derangement Syndrome

I hope you find it informative, and thank you for reading!

This year, Kansas will have a record setting budget of $23.8 billion dollars with a nearly $4 billion surplus residing in a combination of the rainy-day fund and unencumbered funds. With that much extra money available to your state government, it seemed prudent to provide tax cuts.

Our proposed tax cuts in last session's bills, SB169 and SB8, totaled around $500 million or only about 2% of the entire state budget. Those two bills would have provided tax relief for everyone in the state, but fell two votes short of a veto-proof majority. And, of course, the Governor vetoed them both.

Meanwhile, inflation is eating away at the value of your currency, your savings, and your incomes.  Government spending fuels inflation and distorts the supply/demand curve which causes misallocation of resources in our economy. You know how to spend your own money better than the government does, so tax cuts to individuals and businesses will be used much more efficiently throughout the economy than any government devised economic development program.

I believe that government must live within its means. I get really frustrated when I hear an elected official using inflation as an argument to justify increased government spending. True, the government still has a budget to deal with when inflation is high, but… so does everyone else! And, unlike government… the average citizen does not have the power to increase their pay on a whim whenever inflation rises! Elected officials, and those in a position to influence government spending and budgets, should always keep in mind that they are spending other people’s money, and make all budget decisions based on that fact.

There are a number of outstanding issues that need addressing in 2024 and it takes a lot of time and effort to figure out what items are possible to accomplish in the next year. The legislative session ended on April 28^th and preparation for the 2024 session began almost immediately.

In my opinion, the list of priorities for 2024 (in no particular order) needs to include:

• Addressing out-of-control increases in property taxes that are running people out of their homes, and businesses out of Kansas

• Giving Kansans tax cuts and establishing a lower overall single rate tax to provide relief for all Kansans

• Fighting the unconstitutional State Supreme Court control over abortion and education, and restoring the legislative powers they seized through judicial fiat

• Judicial reform for appointing Supreme Court justices

• Reigning in unproductive and costly economic development programs that produce no results and cost taxpayers bundles

• Improving our failing education system, including getting rid of “woke” curriculum, as well as pornography in public libraries

• Energy policy changes that address increasing electrical rates, reliability, and transmission costs

• Advocating for rural Kansans facing a proliferation of industrial wind and solar projects

• Continuing the fight against ESG fascism

• Stopping child mutilation in Kansas

• Preventing foreign adversaries from snatching up land in Kansas and establishing outposts near our military bases

• Election integrity issues

• Reducing state spending and improving/reforming the state budget process to make it easier to control

This is by no means a comprehensive list of things we need to focus on. I am sure I accidentally left something out. These are just some of the items I believe need action during the 2024 session. It is a lot, and it takes a team effort to get it done.



One thing is for certain. Something needs to be done about the education system in Kansas.

A recent Legislative Post Audit report on At-Risk Funding for Kansas students showed a deterioration in student performance in spite of increases in funding. Please take time to read this eye-popping report.

None of the schools that were audited met the statutory compliance requirements, and the number of students who are failing or under-performing continues to grow. Interestingly, graduation rates have held steady which means that we are graduating more students who are incapable of meeting the required academic standards.

Why are we throwing good money after bad to improve a system that is clearly failing? In my opinion, the current structure of using at risk funding strategies to improve student outcome is a method to incentivize failure instead of achievement.

The State Supreme court Gannon rulings have hamstrung the legislature and made it impossible to do anything but throw money at the problem instead of looking at the root causes of the problem. Not the least of which is that schools are focusing on Critical Race Theory, DEI, and teaching gender identity instead of math, reading, English, and science.

How can we expect students to become productive and proficient if we spend precious time training them to become political activists instead of giving them the tools to think critically?

This is a huge problem and it won’t get better until our society regains some sanity.



One way to help prepare for the next legislative session is to identify areas where extra study is needed. That is accomplished through interim committee studies which each legislator may request. Not all ideas are approved, due to time and budget, but the most important are prioritized and allotted committee time, research staff, and revisor assistance.

The Legislative Coordinating Council approved 13 special committees to study everything from energy to taxes. I requested 5 studies and 4 of them were approved. I will serve on three of those committees, and act as chairman on two:

Chairman of the Special Committee on Elections

This committee will focus on ways to continue to improve election integrity. A recent report released by Legislative Post Audit found a number of areas in Kansas elections that need to be addressed, including inadequate security practices in some of the counties audited, and a lack of written policies in all 15 counties audited. They also could not verify training practices for election workers. Click here for Part One of the audit report, and here for Part Two.

Although Kansas performs better than many states on election integrity there is still more work to do. For example:

• Remote ballot drop-boxes create an opportunity for ballot harvesting. That fact is irrefutable and has been a big problem in other states. We must prevent it here.

• Remove the 3-day grace period so that every voter has the same time frame in which to vote.

• Voter rolls need to be continuously updated to prevent identity theft from playing in elections. Currently there is a deficiency in that area.

• Illegal voter registration schemes must be stopped.

• We know that attempts to affect the outcome of elections are made every time we go to the polls… using all means available. Kansans must have confidence that their legal vote counts and will not be undermined through fraud.

These are just a few of the topics we intend to research and study.

For those who may be skeptical of these efforts, think of it this way: When the KC Chiefs won the Superbowl, do you think they felt they could never improve? Did they not evaluate their roster and coaches to see if there was room for improvement so that they could continue to be winners in subsequent years? Did they not make trades and coaching changes even after a Superbowl win?

The same goes here. If we stop reviewing voter integrity advances we have achieved so far, won’t we be vulnerable in future elections? It’s irresponsible not to look at all areas and find ways to improve.

Chairman of the Special Committee on Foreign Adversary Investments and Land Purchases

China is a threat to U.S. security. You all probably remember the land purchase controversy in North Dakota where a Chinese company bought land near Minot Air Force Base. Or the Chinese spy balloons that floated across the United States and directly over parts of Kansas.

Kansas land is being purchased by a number of foreign nationals for various purposes. Not all are nefarious, but how do we know? Within the past year, China and Russia formed an economic alliance and other countries have signed on. The list is fluid and changing. Identifying bad foreign actors is difficult, if not impossible. Many of them register in Delaware and create shell companies to hide company ownership. In Oklahoma, most of the black-market marijuana growers are shell companies owned by foreign bad actors.

Is this happening in Kansas? How do we protect ourselves and our land? How do we ensure the integrity of our military bases? What legislation is necessary to help keep Kansas land available to our residents…instead of foreign companies pricing it beyond the reach of citizens? There are myriad questions that need to be considered.

This should be a very interesting committee, and I look forward to the experts we are lining up to testify. We did have several bills in the 2023 session to prevent the land grab. SB283 was one, but there were some amendments that needed to go on this bill before it was ready for “prime time.”

It is my hope that we can refine our approach to these issues and pass a good bill in 2024.

Vice Chairman on Governmental Ethics Reform and Campaign Finance Law 

There are many ethics and campaign finance laws that have not been updated for many years. This includes limits how much money can be contributed to candidates. It also includes looking at the restrictions campaign managers and candidates fall under now, and whether or not these rules are logical and workable.

There are also some changes that need to be made to investigating allegations of fraud or illegal activities surrounding campaigns.

We need to ensure a level playing field for all candidates by making sure the rules apply to everyone equally.

This, too, should be an interesting committee to watch.

How the media portrays climate change

Temperatures as experienced by humans

I have 3 children and 11 grandchildren, and I worry very much about their future...not because of climate change, but rather, I fear of the tyranny that is being implemented in the name of climate change.

John Kerry's recent proclamation that we need to focus on reducing emissions in the agriculture sector is the most recent authoritarian approach to control of everything good in America. Do we really want to reduce this country's ability to feed our citizens? The truth is that two generations of Americans have now been so completely immersed in climate change scare tactics that they fear climate change more than they do communism... and that is not a recipe that secures their liberty.

What the radical progressives have cultivated is what I would call "climate derangement syndrome", and it is based on fear and emotion... and obscures the truth. And this summer it has been firing on all cylinders.

News flash: It gets hot in the summer! But you’d never know that listening to the daily breathless hyperbole from the media and climate alarmists this summer!

They are using every hot day as proof of anthropogenic climate change. A record high here, or a heat wave there is apparently justification enough to make you need to give up your gas-powered vehicle, or stop eating meat. Never mind that nothing about this summer is particularly unusual. “Extreme” is the new catch phrase for those who want you to believe it’s hotter than it ever has been, and we are about to spontaneously combust at any moment!

Of course, the term “climate change” is quite convenient as it covers a broad spectrum of situations. If temperatures are really cold… climate change. If it rains too much… climate change. If it rains too little… climate change. But that doesn’t make sense because the entire climate change scheme is predicated upon the hypothesis that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere traps more heat and causes changes in the climate. So, the term climate change really means global warming.

So, using the scientific method, it should be getting hotter and hotter each summer if their hypothesis is to withstand scrutiny, which is why the media and the so-called climate scientists have to use each hot moment of the summer to present false flag arguments to make you believe they are correct. However, there are volumes of science and real data that completely undermine their climate change "data". If you use the scientific method, and your hypothesis is disproven…you must discard it. Period. Yet, they never do.

Our education system has been indoctrinating our youth to believe this climate change nonsense from the first moments they walked into a classroom. After students spend over 13 years in classrooms (16,000 hours) learning not to question the ideology being inculcated by instructors who have no understanding of our climate or atmosphere, human induced climate change becomes ingrained in their minds as accepted truth. It’s difficult for anyone to overcome that kind of brainwashing. Our kids are not armed with facts or a true sense of the scientific method for a reason… it keeps them from doing their own critical thinking.

Climate change is all about feelings instead of facts. Fear motivates, and the climate change narrative is based completely on the fear that humans have irreparably changed the planet. Anyone who truly believes in human induced climate change would genuinely want to help. However, real climate science demonstrates that humans cannot change the climate. Man can change his 'environment' on a limited scale, but environment and 'climate' are not the same thing. The two terms are being conflated to confuse and confound. Climate alarmists know that, and use it to their advantage in their propaganda.

The media hypes the heat every day, and the tortured reports on local and national news suffer from a deficit of truth that is astonishing. The only thing extreme about this summer is the reporting on the summer weather. The media are willing but unwitting accomplices in the destruction of our economy and our freedoms. There is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO), Covering Climate Now, dedicated to helping journalists hype their reporting on climate change and all the major media companies are partners! 

The two graphs above show how off-base the argument for reducing CO2 emissions really is. The first graph shows how the climate is portrayed by the media (magnified), and the second graph shows the actual temperature in human experience.

The bottom line is this: We need to reject these tyrannical man-made-climate-change-based policies driving ESG, wind and solar, the EPA, etc., or we will all be serfs sooner, rather than later. It’s your job, home, finances, and freedom at stake.

Stay cool and enjoy the rest of your summer!

As always, feel free to contact me via email: mike.thompson@senate.ks.gov

And remember to follow me on my Senate Facebook page for occasional updates: https://www.facebook.com/mikethompsonforkansas

It is an honor and privilege to serve as your Senator.

Mike Thompson

Senator Mike Thompson

Kansas 10th District