Rally at Kansas State Capitol brings Texas supporters together
A crowd of more than 40 people gathered on the south side of the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka on Tuesday, February 6, for a rally in support of a new resolution being introduced by Rep. Pat Proctor (R-Leavenworth). The rally, which started at 10 a.m., allowed people who stand with Texas to hear from Kansas Legislators and other citizens who support Texas.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has been in a fight with the federal government over boarder control. A total of 25 governors across the country have signed a letter in support of Texas. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly was not one of the governors to declare support for Texas.
Rep. Rebecca Schmoe (R-Ottawa) asked Rep. Carrie Barth (R-Baldwin City) to join her in front of the crowd to speak.
“Last session Representative Barth and I were able to run a human smuggling bill,” Rep. Schmoe said. “It passed in both the House as well as the Senate. Eventually, when it got to the Governor’s desk, she vetoed it. She apparently didn’t think this smuggling of humans was a problem. Unfortunately, we have seen that echo with her not standing with Gov. Abbott.”
Rep. Schmoe went on to say the bill has gone on to save the lives of people who have been smuggled and that whether it is across Kansas or the Texas-Mexico border, they are “children of God” just like everyone else and they need to be shown dignity and respect and to be saved from the horrors of human trafficking.
Rep. Barth sits on one of the human trafficking committees and gave a brief overview of what it’s like to help individuals who have been victims of human trafficking.
“We had one of the biggest human trafficking busts in the state of Kansas this past year,” Rep. Barth said. “The amount of people that we believe were tied to this is close to 3 or 400 individuals. We initially had 67 victims that we believed we could have saved. We’re now at about 11. And it’s really sad because these folks just kind of disappear and it’s really not okay. There’s allegedly believed to be cartel involved in this. So, these are issues here in Kansas and this is not just a Western Kansas issue, this is an everywhere, all over Kansas issue. It’s a Texas border issue. It’s a United States issue.”
Many other civilians, veterans, and concerned citizens were able to provide their own words for the situation before Rep. Proctor, who had been in a committee meeting, showed to speak.
“This is clearly an invasion,” Rep. Proctor said. “2.5 million last year. 2.2 million the year before that. 100,000 people dead from fentanyl overdose in this country. Those are really big numbers and so I’m going to talk about those numbers on the floor, but what I’m going to talk to you about is two people.”
Rep. Proctor spoke about an underage girl who was saved by Kansas Highway Patrol from being trafficked thanks to the human smuggling bill Rep. Schmoe and Rep. Barth spoke about. The other person Rep. Proctor spoke about was 15-year-old Nicholas “Cruz” Burris whose friends watched him die on facetime after he took what he thought was Percocet, only for it to be a lethal dose of fentanyl.
“Texas is being forced to do something because our President refuses to execute his responsibilities—his constitutional responsibilities to secure the state,” Rep. Proctor continued. “Today, as a body of your representatives, as your servant leaders, we are going to say with one loud voice that Kansas stands with Texas.”
Following Rep. Proctor, Rep. Patrick Penn (R-Wichita) spoke.
Rep. Penn started off speaking about his familial history in Texas where he also retired from the Army.
“What we are defending—our Constitution, our way of life—it is so important,” Rep. Penn said. “It is so integral to us as the freest nation on the face of the planet. If we fail, if we fall, where else do people go? …Everyone looks to America, and I bring that up for a specific point.”
Rep. Penn gave the analogy of locking your own house to secure your home as a way to speak about the need to secure the border.
“You’re not opposed to immigration,” Rep. Penn said. “You’re not opposed to inviting people over to the house. You’re not opposed to looking through the door and finding out, ‘Okay, you rang the doorbell, I want to let you in.’ We got that dang gone security system at the White House except for whoever brought cocaine in there. So, all I’m saying is, if you have this same set up at your house, how dare you not have that on our nation.”
Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) eventually came out to speak as well. On January 30, Kobach joined a coalition of AGs demanding the Biden Administration to enforce border laws.
“You probably know 25 governors stood with Texas and said we’ll provide national guard resources,” Kobach said. “Unfortunately, the Kansas governor did not. However, the Kansas Attorney General, we have signed a letter siding with Texas on all of these issues. We’re providing legal support. We wrote an amicus brief… defending Texas’s use of barriers both on the water and on the shore along the Rio Grande. They have absolutely the right to do this. They have a constitutional right to do this based in Article I, Section 10 and Article IV, Section 4. They are defending themselves from an invasion. That is a term that the framers of the Constitution used that absolutely applies to this situation.”
Kobach went on to say that this is an issue that Texas has been battling for a long time and that in 2023 Texas filed a lawsuit that Kansas was “happy to join” regarding immigration parole, along with numerous other lawsuits, some of which Kansas is leading the charge on.
Kobach finished his speech criticizing the recent immigration bill supported by Mitch McConnell that he said would only shut down the border after so many thousands of immigrants were crossing in a given day.
After a long discussion in the House Chamber Proceedings, HR 6035 was adopted by the Committee of the Whole.
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Ian Brannan
Ian Brannan is an independent journalist who founded The Kansas Constitutional in April 2022. His work focuses on issues including abortion, Convention of States, drug policy, education, government, LGBT issues, media, and more.
