You know this is an important upcoming election on November 6th. We've pointed that one or two times! A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how important the race for Governor is. Today, we want to impress upon you the importance of the races for the Statehouse in Topeka.

For more than a hundred years, Labor Day has been a national holiday. Started by workers, it has celebrated, not just work, but the rights of workers to dignity, representation, and freedom. But in the last decade, we've seen the rise of "corporate rights," of "right to work" movements, and a shocking concentration of the country's wealth among a few investment barons. Worker rights are being challenged in the courts, and yet, just last month, our neighbors in Missouri rejected a right to work proposal that would have further curtailed the ability of workers to organize for their rights.

This is the MainStream Coalition's twenty-fifth anniversary year. Few people expected the small group founded by six dedicated individuals in 1993 to still be around a quarter century later, but few also expected there would still be a need. Yet we find ourselves today, still working to educate and inform, to get voters engaged to advocate for their families, their schools, and their communities.

The stage is set. The election on November 6th (or earlier, if you vote early!) will be one of the most consequential in Kansas' history. After eight years of fighting for education, health care, civil rights, and basic human dignity, we are on the cusp of an enormous opportunity to return Kansas to it's roots as a centrist, caring, thoughtful state where people look out for each other and care about their neighbors. We're talking, of course, about the race for Governor of Kansas.

The primary elections of 2018 are behind us, and we're still waiting on some of the results (see: Colyer/Kobach), but we thought we'd take a look at what we do know. First, turnout was tremendous, historic, and complicated. Second, this was a wave election, just as predicted. But it was a wave on both ends.

Today's note is short and simple, because we have a task for you: do more than vote.

This week we have invited Stand Up Blue Valley to give us an update on the critical races going on in their neighborhoods. Grass roots organizations like SUBV, Education First Shawnee Mission, the Olathe Public Education Network, and Game on For Kansas Schools are making all the difference in contested races in Johnson County, connecting voters and issues to legislators and candidates. We value Stand Up Blue Valley as a strong partner in our effort to get more Kansans engaged to fight for quality public education.

You may have heard that Republican State Senator Barbara Bollier endorsed a Democrat in the 2018 election. Her calm, reasoned decision, based on putting values over loyalty to a party apparatus, has placed her square in the crosshairs of the ultra-conservatives in the Kansas Republican Party. She has been removed from any leadership positions in the Kansas Senate, and targeted for a primary contest in 2020.

We had occasion to be reminded of Harry Truman this weekend, as an American President was meeting with allies and others in Europe. Truman (who was from Missouri, admittedly) is famed for being a regular guy, but one who understood the role global institutions play in keeping our world safe. In the wake of the devastation of World War II, he oversaw the creation of NATO and the United Nations, both of which have come under fire from the current administration.

With the holiday and the late ruling, it's now been two weeks since the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that school funding was acceptable for this school year, but still inadequate in the long run, and gave the Legislature until next year to make the final changes needed. It was an important moment, but given the pressures of an election year, it's pretty far in the rear view mirror now. We wanted to bring it back, and in concert with another momentous event, point out once again the dramatic importance of this election.