This is not the new year greeting I had planned to send. The email you were supposed to read reflected on the past year, celebrated our collective resilience despite the tremendous challenges we faced in 2020, and spoke of the boundless possibilities each new year brings. It laid out what’s at stake for Kansas in 2021, and included a request of you to take action with Mainstream to counter the harmful policies planned by extremist leadership this session.

The Mainstream Coalition is dedicated to creating a more representative and responsive government by empowering informed participation and meaningful action in the political process. One way we seek to achieve this is through public policy advocacy. While Mainstream supports a number of standing positions, this platform is intended to articulate our specific policy goals on anticipated issues in the 2021 legislative session.

This past Monday, the Kansas Legislature chose their leadership teams for the upcoming Legislative Session. Each party broke into caucus and voted, with the Republicans in the majority, they selected the leaders who will set the agenda for the term, and drive much of what gets debated and voted on. The 2020 election saw very conservative individuals oust some centrists at the state level, and this bodes poorly for the priorities shared by most Kansans.

We have been looking over the results from Tuesday's election as it regards the Kansas Legislature. There are a few good stories, but most of the news in Kansas is not great.

We knew it would be a long night. We knew uncertainty would fill the days following the election. So, while we wait for the final counts in the presidential election and other key national races, we must keep up hope.

The Mainstream Coalition was founded over 25 years ago to protect the separation of church and state. It was founded by Republicans and Democrats, and to this day still has both on its Board of Directors. We have always been a nonpartisan organization. It does not matter to us what party anyone belongs to, still, today.

In an email on Friday, Ruth Glover, Executive Director of the Kansas Human Rights Commissions, stated that in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Commission will "begin accepting complaints based on 'sex' discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations wherein allegations include discrimination based on LGBTQ and all derivatives of 'sex'."

This week, some of the more extreme conservative politicians in Northeast Kansas banded together to push their profits-over-public-safety agenda using children as human shields. Have you seen the hashtag #letthemplay being bandied about? Here's the story.

The election last night didn’t exactly go as planned. Extremist conservatives dealt some pretty deep blows in key Kansas races (recap below). And the outcomes seem to signal another four years of an ultra-conservative stronghold in the Kansas Legislature – not to mention another term of inept “leadership” in the White House. With a slurry of Koch-backed candidates and dark money pouring into the 2020 Kansas elections, it may seem like an uphill battle for November.

We woke up this morning to the President of the United States declaring in a tweet that the 2020 General Election should be delayed. We can all agree that the 2016 election has had ground-shaking consequences. But every election does, even the smallest municipal post can have far-reaching effects on the members of that community.