Kansas Governor Laura Kelly confronted for not condemning acts of terrorism

Three weeks ago, I covered the Kansas legislature receiving a mysterious white powder. We now have an update to that story.

To catch everyone up, over 100 Kansas legislators and Attorney General Kris Kobach have received cryptic letters with a suspicious white powder. The letters seem to target mainly Republicans and the return addresses are from churches located in areas like Topeka and Kansas City. It has been reported that one name that’s been used as a sender is Jahaira Balenciaga, a transgender woman and activist who was murdered in her Massachusetts home in 2021. Originally, the Kansas Bureau of Investigations (KBI) was leading the case, but they announced on Tuesday, June 20, that the FBI would lead the investigation as the case has expanded outside of Kansas.

Both Republicans and Democrats have spoken out condemning the terrorism. However, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has been silent on this issue that has targeted Republicans. However, during a State Finance Council meeting held on Friday, July 7, Gov. Kelly was confronted on her silence, which can be viewed on the below video:

The issue of the white powder was brought up during the meeting due to the “request of the Office of the State Fire Marshal to increase expenditures from the emergency response fund for incident responses to the white powder threat emergencies.”

Gov. Kelly went to move to executive session, which would have closed the discussion to the public.

Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins (R—Wichita) asked Gov. Kelly why they needed to go into executive session for the issue, to which Gov. Kelly answered that it is because they’re “discussing security measures.” It was then Hawkins asked, “Do we need to discuss security measures or are we just discussing paying for the cost of what happened?”

Gov. Kelly said they could limit the discussion to that, to which Hawkins replied, “I think it’s pretty much common knowledge of what happened and so it’s not like—we don’t even really need to discuss that part of it. We just need to discuss how much we need to allocate to their budget to pay for that.”

Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Republican representing House District 109 and Senate President Ty Masterson (R—Andover) agreed that executive session was not necessary for the discussion, thus they continued the discussion in regular session on public record.

Fire Marshall Doug Jorgensen spoke on the need for the increase in the expenditure cap.

“We have an emergency response fund that we sort of keep an approved limit of about $500,000 in for any disaster responses, both in state and out of state,” Jorgensen explained. “And then we have nine Hazmat teams across the state. We have MoUs (Memorandum of understandings) with local departments around the state that provide the manpower and then we provide equipment and training for those teams.”

Jorgensen went on to say that eight of the nine Hazmat teams have been active in the recent event and the bill for those teams is estimated to be around $170,000 as of that week. However, they are limited to $25,000 on what they can spend out of the emergency response fund per incident without Finance Council approval. Due to this, Jorgenson was at the State Finance Council meeting to get approval for the $170,000 to cover the cost of the event.

The approval for the one-time event was granted by Sen. President Masterson and seconded by Speaker Hawkins. The motion passed unanimously.

Gov. Kelly went to conclude the meeting, stating she needed a motion to adjourn. It was then that Speaker Hawkins asked to speak.

Hawkins openly thanked Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes for condemning the act, stating that he appreciated what she did and that he wished he would have heard from Gov. Kelly about the issue as well.

“I appreciate that Mr. Speaker,” Gov. Kelly said. “You can rest assured that there is no way in the world that I would approve or condone this kind of action. I am waiting for the KBI and the FBI to complete their investigation so we know all the facts of the case and then I will be issuing a formal statement.”

Speaker Hawkins thanked Gov. Kelly for her statement and motioned to adjourn the meeting.

After the meeting, Speaker Hawkins released a statement saying that Gov. Kelly has offered “excuses, not leadership.”

“It has now been three weeks since elected officials began receiving envelopes full of white powder and terroristic threats,” Hawkins said in the statement. “While officials of both political parties have condemned these acts, the Governor has remained silent. Today the Governor was finally publicly confronted on the issue and offered the excuse she was waiting to hear from the KBI to make a statement regarding the threatening letters.”

Hawkins continued, “Releasing details of an active investigation and condemning terroristic acts are two totally different types of statements. It’s utterly ridiculous to think that the KBI would oppose a public condemnation of an act of terror. This is about leading the state in an emergency situation. Three weeks after the letters first arrived and the only thing the Governor is leading the way on is excuses.”

The investigation is still ongoing.

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