Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is volleying fresh criticism at posts made by the state GOP after Politico exposed leaders of the Kansas Young Republicans exchanging racist and homophobic messages.
The Kansas GOP immediately condemned the messages, which included slurs for Black and gay people and referenced praising Hitler. The Kansas Young Republicans became inactive on Tuesday.
Kelly said she appreciated Republican leaders’ response to the messages. However, she added, “their words ring hollow when some of them repeatedly post content on social media that directly contradicts their statements condemning racism.”
In early October, the official Kansas Republican Party Facebook page shared a photo of Kelly that had been edited with a sombrero and mustache. The party also posted an animation of Laura Howard, secretary of the Department for Children and Families, with a Lucha Libre mask worn in Mexican wrestling.
The memes reference a standoff between the federal government and DCF, which operates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Kansas. Due to privacy concerns, Howard has refused to fulfill a special request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sensitive data about Kansas SNAP users.
Republican lawmakers say the USDA needs additional data to detect food assistance fraud, particularly by immigrants living in the U.S. without full legal status.
“Laura Kelly refuses to turn over SNAP data to the feds because she doesn’t want the feds to know exactly how much money in food stamps Kansas is giving to illegal aliens,” the state Republican Party wrote in its caption on Facebook.
In her statement on Wednesday, Kelly tied social media posts by the Kansas GOP to the leaked comments by former Kansas Young Republicans leaders Alex Dwyer and William Hendrix.
“I would encourage those leaders in the Republican Party to reflect on their own language and behavior to determine if they have provided license to younger followers to engage in such overtly racist dialogue,” she said.
Kansas GOP Executive Director Rob Fillion responded to Kelly’s statement in an email to the Kansas News Service.
"Her party calls everything racist and sexist, desensitizing people to those terms and making it almost impossible to be believed when racism and sexism actually occur,” he said.
Fillion pointed to offensive comments that a Democratic candidate in another state made in 2022.
Zane Irwin reports on politics, campaigns and elections for the Kansas News Service. You can email him at zaneirwin@kcur.org.
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