​What We Stand For
A more in-depth look at what Common Sense means to us:
Education
Nobody disagrees on the importance of education, but many disagree on the economics of it. It is our firm belief that anyone living in Kansas and paying their fair share of taxes should have access to quality schools and well qualified, well-paid teachers.
Under current Kansas school funding allocation guidelines, the basic idea is that a school receives funding from the government based on how many students are enrolled in that school. Its pretty simple to conclude that schools with more students need more money. It is also pretty simple to conclude that the existence of private schools is, in principle, a direct threat to the funding (and thus quality) of public schools.
What's more problematic is when the rich and powerful alumni of private schools co-opt a political party to promote their private schools as a matter of "Freedom of Parents to Choose the Best Education for Their Children." Using this flowery motto, private school advocates have successfully enacted laws that give state tax money directly to private schools in the form of vouchers and provide tax credits to parents whose children aren't enrolled in public schools.
This is undeniably a direct attack on public education for the benefit of affluent people and at the expense of the greater community. It further exacerbates the problem of lowered funding from lower enrollment, and it degrades the quality of adults that Kansas can raise. If one "choice" comes at the direct expense and sabotage of another choice, then it isn't a choice at all. It is manipulation and fraud.
We believe that no private education institution should receive a single dollar of taxpayer money. If the premise of private education is that it is an alternative to public education paid directly thru tuition and alumni donation, then that is what they should be. Further, because the quality of local schools directly influences local property values, because education quality is one of the primary determinants of success in adulthood, and because it is just Common Sense, funding for public schools should be the highest budgetary priority for the state of Kansas and should - at every opportunity - be increased.
Criminal Justice
The criminal justice system in Kansas underfunded, overburdened, outdated, and vulnerable to corruption that has already taken root. Firstly, whether Washington is willing to acknowledge it or not, the War on Drugs has failed.
Criminalizing drugs instead of treating addiction and substance abuse as a medical matter has failed and led to historically and internationally high incarceration rates for every American state compared to any other country in the world.
Militarizing our police from community guardians to domestic infantry fighting this War on Drugs has failed, and led to police being hired and trained to work in a culture and mindset of "us versus them," treating the communities they serve like occupied territories, where anyone not wearing a badge is a possible threat to the occupying force. What's worse, when these new shock troopers face lawsuits for their abuse and harsh treatment of the public, they use taxpayer money to settle cases. Kansas City recently paid out $2.3 million to the family of an Overland Park teen shot by police. The cost of police malpractice is far more expensive than the cost of adequately training police.
Privatization of our prison system is perhaps one of the more insidious criminal justice problems because of its lack of visibility in public discourse, but it too has failed. In principle, the private prison industry should not exist. No one should ever profit from the conviction and imprisonment of another. It is morally reprehensible and wrong. But of course, the private prison industry is a massive, nationwide economic menace that cashes in on every prison sentence. These Corporations actively lobby for longer sentences, higher minimum sentences, and the criminalization of as many things as possible. Under privatization, prison conditions have drastically worsened compared to other first world countries, and accountability has been weakened because such matters are no longer in the hands of local authorities. Even the famous Leavenworth Detention Center has been pawned off by the government to be owned and operated by a private corporation.
In short, it is laughably cruel to call somewhere "The Land of The Free" if it has more people locked up than anywhere else in the world.
Griswold's administration would actively pursue decriminalization and reparations for the families and individuals affected by the war on drugs and would seek legalization, regulation, and taxation of a new marijuana industry right here in the agricultural powerhouse of Kansas. Other Legal states have seen massive tax revenue increases from marijuana farms and dispensaries, as well as ensuring safer, standardized strains of marijuana.
Marijuana is unfairly targeted by drug companies and private prison companies to remain highly illegal so that its medicinal potential remains wasted and its consumption leads to people behind (corporate owned) bars.
Griswold's administration would also support a de-militarization of Kansas police departments. Longer training periods and a greater focus on the "social worker in a uniform" role that modern police take in most first-world countries would significantly uproot much of the damage done to Law Enforcement's collective reputation by the War on Drugs. No police department would be permitted to purchase surplus tanks or other heavy weaponry.
To increase trust and respect in the relationship between police departments and their communities, and to increase accountability in police departments and their officers, Griswold's administration would also push for professional liability insurance - similar to malpractice insurance for medical professionals, to be a requirement for all Kansas law enforcement officers. Kansas taxpayers will not pay massive settlements for the mistakes of their law enforcement officers to remain unresolved.
Griswold himself is the son of a KCPD police officer, but he is not brainwashed by "Blue Lives" propaganda. As mayor of Lawrence, he is also in charge of a police department in a college town where the drinking age is 21, so criminal justice is both a personal issue and one that Griswold has a lot of experience.
Energy and Agriculture
Kansas could be a regional leader in agriculture and energy production, but thanks to leaders in Topeka being ignorant either because they are paid to be or because they personally choose to be, Kansas agriculture output stagnates while our energy production lags behind.
Oil corporations and the Koch Brothers want to maintain high administrative barriers to entry for wind and solar farms so that the potential for Kansas to have the cheapest and most modern energy infrastructure is unrealized. Meanwhile, these incumbent energy corporations enjoy massive corporate subsidies of taxpayer money while keeping Kansas electric bills high.
Agriculture corporations like Monsanto and John Deere are legislatively and economically strangling Kansas farmers and encouraging corporate (foreign) consolidation of Kansas farmland.
The stifling of the economic power of Kansas and its people must come to an end.
Griswold's administration would support drastically expediting the approval process for Kansas wind and solar farms, and would actively seek to end all corporate subsidies to energy producing companies.
If our government doesn't take direct action to ensure the survival of as much of our species as possible, there likely won't even be any history books to discuss all the things we didn't do to prepare ourselves. However, the massive regulatory policies of the Sunflower Party would enrich outside corporations and punish Kansans more than they would help maintain our environment. To Mayor Griswold, it doesn't matter if Climate Change is human-made or not.
Healthcare
Roughly half a million Americans file for bankruptcy due to medical expenses every year, even people who already have insurance. People are driving themselves to the ER to avoid ambulance bills and mailing in prescriptions from Canada. What's going on is clearly screwed up. The bottom line of our stance is this: we acknowledge that strong, immediate action is required to address this fundamental problem, but current solutions don't work. Obamacare is a band-aid on a gunshot wound and Medicare, as it is now, is just a government-flavored version of what already exists in the market that's also only available to very specific subsets of the population. A competitive, free market is the solutions to most problems, but like any other competition, free markets need a robust and capable referee and a playing field that is level and accessible to all players.
What Griswold's administration would propose is enacting policies that guarantee two things -
First: no Kansan with health insurance has ANY out of pocket costs. If you're insured, then you're protected. Period.
No co-pays, no deductibles, no nothing. Coverage limits and fine-print cop outs on payments from corporations are anti-consumer and unfair.
The second guarantee is that health insurance is something that anyone should be able to afford. If health insurance companies can't compete with price controls set based upon Kansas costs of living and minimum annual incomes for heads of households, then some of them will deservedly go out of business, and better companies will take their place.
Besides insurance corporations, the other anti-competitive villain keeping healthcare unaffordable is drug corporations. No, where else in the modern world are drug companies allowed to market their drugs on TV, radio, or any other medium to the general public. Medicine is between the doctor and the patient, and that should be the case here in Kansas. A Griswold administration will also judicially crackdown on drug companies paying-off doctors to over-prescribe drugs to their patients. These drug companies caused the over-diagnosis of ADHD drugs in the early 2000s, and more recently they deliberately created the opioid crisis. Doctors are experts and don't need to be inundated with marketing and bribery from drug companies.
In a competitive, fair, and sensible environment like this, Kansans won’t be uninsured anymore, they won't be struggling with medical bills anymore, and they won't be paying more than everywhere else in the world for comparable healthcare quality. Some ideological hard-liners in the Free State party might want to slander these policies as anti-business governmental overreach, but voters in Kansas know a rigged game when they see one, and Griswold's administration would seek to make things more fair, more competitive, and more affordable within the healthcare industry.