Katy for Kansas
July 3, 2026 · Newsletter
250 Years Later, We Can Still Choose a Better Path
Sometimes thinking about all of the challenges facing American democracy can feel overwhelming. It’s not just one problem to solve. It’s a whole litany—the growing gap between rich and poor, the rising cost of healthcare, the influence of money in politics, attacks on voting rights, attempts to rewrite our history, assaults on civil rights protections, the erosion of public trust, corruption, growing national debt, wars abroad, the spread of disinformation, and the relentless polarization that seems to touch every corner of our lives. It seems like, every day, there is another fire to put out.
And yet, our leaders are nowhere to be found. We look around for the adults in the room—hungry for the qualities I admired growing up: integrity, honesty, humility, patience, and wisdom. Someone—anyone—willing to stand up, tell the truth, and do the right thing. Someone to stop the insanity. Someone to protect us. But alas, that type of leadership seems to be out of fashion these days.
As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, though, it’s worth remembering that this isn’t the first time America has faced dire circumstances. The men who gathered to found this nation lived through British rule, deep political divisions, military occupation, and economic exploitation. They disagreed with one another—sometimes fiercely—but they chose a better path. They chose a path of collaboration and compromise. They chose reason over passion. And they created an enduring constitutional republic built on a system of checks and balances because they understood that no one person should hold all the power.
Two hundred and fifty years later, that experiment in democracy is still standing. Is it bruised and battered? Absolutely. But it is still standing. And that means we still have a choice. We, too, can choose a better path.
Yet, that path will require all of us to step outside our echo chambers and start thinking for ourselves again. It will require us to judge leaders by their character, values, judgment, and experience—not simply by whether they have an “R” or a “D” next to their name. It will require us to talk to one another again—in our neighborhoods, our churches, our schools, and around our dinner tables, not just through social media feeds designed to keep us angry and divided.
Those conversations won’t be easy. Rebuilding trust never is. But the things that matter most rarely come easily. The good news is that it isn’t too late. Our institutions have been tested, but they have not failed. The future of this republic is not predetermined. It depends on the choices we make today—especially the leaders we choose and the standards we demand of them.
We need leaders who call us to be our better selves. Leaders who remind us that patriotism isn’t about defeating one another; it’s about caring for one another. Leaders who understand that our communities are stronger when we remember that we’re all in this together. And leaders who actually want to govern.
Love him or hate him, President Trump has followed through on his promise to remake Washington. He has taken a wrecking ball to the federal bureaucracy and reshaped politics as we once knew it. Now, we need to send leaders to Washington who are willing to do the hard work of picking up the pieces—not to restore what once was, but to reform it and build something better. We cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube and we shouldn’t want to. Now is the time to build something better to withstand the next 250 years.
It’s time to get money out of politics. Since jumping into this campaign, I have seen firsthand just how broken our politics are. Special interest groups and corporate donors have ground our government to a halt. That is why my priority on day one would be to push for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates and allowed dark money to pour into our elections. It is also time to ban stock trading among members of Congress, no exceptions. Lawmakers are inherently privy to all sorts of information that the general public does not have and they shouldn’t be able to profit from it.
It’s time to reshape our healthcare system to ensure universal coverage. I would work to reinstitute the Affordable Care Act subsidies right away, not as a permanent solution, but as a stopgap to address the larger problems. The Supreme Court undermined the ACA when it did away with the mandate for coverage and Republicans in Congress have been whittling away at the law and its intended purpose ever since. It’s time to stop trying to score political points and actually fix broken systems for the American people. Healthcare is one such system. Let’s pursue a public option, make prescription drugs more affordable, and make sure that our rural hospitals don’t just survive, but thrive.
It’s time to restore voting rights to all Americans and ensure fair representation in each and every election. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been effectively gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court and many Americans are left without fair representation as a result. We must end the partisan gerrymandering race to the bottom by enacting legislation to require independent commissions draw the maps, and we must reinstitute some form of preclearance process for districts that have historically discriminated against certain segments of the population.
It’s time to balance the budget. It’s been almost 30 years since Congress actually passed all twelve appropriations bills in the manner in which it was envisioned. If you want to know how our federal government got so bloated to begin with, that’s part of it. It’s time for Congress to go through each appropriations bill line by line and evaluate whether expenditures are necessary or not. If they’re not, it’s time to adjust accordingly. No more omnibus bills, minibus bills, or continuing resolutions that are impossible for constituents to read through and decipher. Congress, do your damn job.
It’s time to do away with the Trump tariffs and open global markets again. Our Kansas farmers have just been through one of the hardest years on record for the agricultural industry, and it’s largely because this president took their markets away. It’s time for Congress to reclaim its power to levy taxes and end these tariffs before they wreak further havoc on Kansas farmers, Kansas consumers, and global markets.
It’s time to stop the privatization of core government services, like the US Post Office, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The authors of Project 2025 made it clear that privatization was their goal, but government is not a business and you cannot run it like one. These agencies were created to make the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars to provide critical services. Let’s get back to good government again.
It’s time to protect the environment for future generations. Climate change is real and it’s here, and we are getting left behind on the global stage by failing to invest in renewable energy with all deliberate speed. I have spent over a decade in the oil and gas industry, and I understand that we will not transition away from fossil fuels overnight, but to ignore their environmental effects is to doom our children. Congress needs to stabilize the renewable energy sector so that it can continue to expand and advance, no matter who is in the White House. The stops and starts that happen each time the Presidency changes hands is bad for business and worse for the environment. We need an energy policy for the next century, so that our kids have a future on this planet.
It’s time to put guardrails on big tech. Full stop. Congress should be championing legislation to protect users’ privacy online—especially our kids’—so that tech companies can’t endlessly mine our data online and use it for their own ends. We should be regulating artificial intelligence before it steals an entire generation’s ability to think critically on their own. Congress should take the lead on ensuring that data center development proceeds strategically and cautiously, with local constituent input given the credence it deserves.
It’s time to stand up for the Rule of Law and hold any and every one violating it accountable. People are hungry for federal lawmakers to take back their power of oversight and hold administration officials accountable for the rampant corruption we’ve seen in the past year and a half. My dad used to say “If you don’t have the Rule of Law, you don’t have anything.” Right now, we are dangerously close to the latter. I remember a time in the not-so-distant past when Americans could agree on one thing: No one is above the law. We need to get back to that premise, and ensure that we send leaders to Washington with the backbone to enforce it.
It’s time to lead with soft power again. All of this garbage about changing the Department of Defense to the Department to War is ridiculous political theater. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars and it certainly won’t make us any safer. We need to believe in diplomacy again. Congress needs to ensure that the Department of State is adequately staffed to carry out its mission effectively and that we have the wherewithal across federal agencies to respond to humanitarian disasters.
The list goes on—there are so many issues to tackle, and I don’t pretend it will be easy. But just like our founding fathers 250 years ago, we are facing what feels like a revolutionary moment. And I have hope that the people of America will rise to the challenge. Because, after all, the greatest strength of our country has never been any one leader, political party, or institution. It has always been our people.
Despite every challenge, every disagreement, and every hardship, our republic endures because generation after generation of Americans has chosen to preserve it. It is up to us once again to choose a better path.