Douglas County commissioners have penned a letter to the four congresspeople who represent the county, asking them to “prevent a single branch of government from becoming too powerful.”
Commission Chair Patrick Kelly and Vice Chair Shannon Reid worked together to draft the letter and sought feedback from the other three commissioners during their Wednesday meeting.
The brief letter is drafted for U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall and Reps. Tracey Mann and Derek Schmidt, all of whom represent parts or all of Douglas County at the federal level. The letter emphasizes concerns about recent executive orders and how they will impact the county’s roughly 120,000 residents in adverse ways.
“We ask you, our federally-elected representative, to provide the essential legislative checks and balances that only you and your peers have the elected authority to do,” the draft letter states.
“… We implore you to engage with your congressional colleagues in addition to the executive branch, to consider and limit the negative repercussions of these hasty and unsympathetic actions.”
Jerry Moran 
Roger Marshall
Tracey Mann
Derek SchmidtThe letter references the terminations of about 35 staff members and faculty at Haskell Indian Nations University based solely on the employees’ status as probationary employees, meaning they did not yet have civil protections. The sudden firings caused havoc for those who lost their jobs, the students they had to leave behind and more.
“These terminations have a particularly profound local impact on the already small team dedicated to providing Native American students their right to a higher education, a right guaranteed to every one of those students by the federal government,” the letter states.
The letter says the commissioners anticipate an increased demand for physical and mental health care across the community as a result of recent executive actions.
“We anticipate a need to retrain our workforce and provide increased social service support for all those who will be impacted,” they wrote. “Sweeping employment losses will escalate housing insecurity. Contract cancellations will create business closures. Grant erasure will end some organizations. Will Douglas County and our municipal partners be expected to resolve all this disarray created by our federal partners?”
Commissioners ask the congresspeople to allow county residents “the courtesy of deliberation regarding their livelihood” if the goal is to identify inefficiencies and wasteful spending.
“You have the power to convene tough conversations and resources you can bring to bear as the U.S. Constitution authorizes you to do,” commissioners wrote. “Rather than tacit complacency, we ask you to intercede on behalf of Douglas County and all of our residents.”
Commissioners also refer to the oaths of office that elected officials take, to serve the democratic country and all of the people who constitute that country.
“We hope you will show the fortitude to deflect personal threats and political loyalties in order to defend our shared democracy,” they wrote. “We must work together for the peoples’ right to true American self-governance.”
The commissioners want to add more to the letter about the impacts of federal actions on local farmers. District 3 Commissioner Karen Willey also requested possibly making specific mentions of impacts of federal grant funding cuts on KU research and the KU Innovation Park, which Moran has previously championed.
“I appreciate the empathy that actually comes through in the language that you both used,” District 5 Commissioner Erica Anderson told her colleagues. “… You request that they come back to the table and that they do their due diligence to stand up for our community — and that they not only just stand up for Haskell, but they stand up for everyone else that has been impacted by the sweeping actions that this administration has chosen to take, whether they have realized their actions or not.”
The commissioners will review the draft again, in hopes of sending the letter off within the next couple of weeks.
See the full draft letter at this link. See how to contact federal legislators at this link.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Latest Lawrence news:
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
