ALEC influence. Tariff policies. Mail-in ballots. Trump on the road. Social media bans.

By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief

TOPEKA — Upon launching his campaign for governor, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson touted his work cutting state taxes, improving election security and getting “woke ideology off our college campuses.”

But his policy wins aren’t fully his own, a Kansas Reflector investigation found. The foundation of his achievements was built with the help of a conservative nonprofit funded by a network of donors interested in fueling a right-wing agenda across the country.

Each of those wins can be traced back to model legislation authored by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which found a champion in Masterson, who serves on the group’s board of directors and acted as its legislative chair in 2024.

TOPEKA — Kansas metal fabrication business executive Zac Surritt says tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump sliced into the company’s global demand and lowered margins, while transportation costs soared and the cost of living for employees escalated.

Surritt, part of the third generation of family leadership at R&S Maintenance in Meriden, took the opportunity Friday at the Great Overland Station in North Topeka to directly ask U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican seeking reelection against Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, to justify tariffs that forced his business to delay plans to expand the company.

TOPEKA — A federal appeals court for the second time reversed a prohibition on a Kansas law that bars organizations from prepopulating applications for mail-in ballots before the applications are sent to voters.

A three-judge panel for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that a lower court didn’t strike down the law based on its justifications, text or legislative history.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a flurry of travel on deck in the final frantic weeks leading up to the end of the midterm elections, in which the GOP is vying to maintain its control of both the U.S. House and Senate.

In conversation about his new book with Kansas Reflector editor-in-chief Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector opinion editor Clay Wirestone explores his writing process, explains his voice as an opinion writer and offers insight into the evolution of opinion writing in Kansas and beyond.

By Ari Lightman

The question is, are these bans the solution to the mental health problems young people are facing? I research digital media and marketing and measure the impact of new technologies, and I’m skeptical about whether prohibiting access to these platforms will actually improve young people’s mental health.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Fourteenth Amendment, states must provide lawyers to criminal defendants who cannot afford one. But throughout many other states, the rosters of public defenders have been shrinking at an alarming rate, often leaving defendants in jail for days, weeks or months without access to an attorney.

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