In the News
In this time of uncertainty, Johnson and Miami County residents deserve leadership from their elected representatives regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. But Molly’s constituents have heard little from her on this critical issue, aside from a photo op where she handed out sack lunches one day a week at a local car dealership.
Governor Kelly declared a state of emergency for Kansas. What about families who not only lost their jobs but also health insurance due to the pandemic? And what about families that are now facing COVID without healthcare?
Molly’s website and Facebook page provided no COVID resources or information until May 2020, seven weeks after the World Health Organization called COVID a pandemic.
Kansas foster care system funding
“What’s insulting to me — not so much that it’s insulting to the legislative process, although there is that insult — but that it’s insulting to the foster kids,” Baumgardner said in July 2020. What Baumgardner neglected to say was that she voted YES on HS Sub for SB 161, the 2016-17 adjusted budget bill that continues to borrow and sweep, without addressing the underlying revenue shortfall and associated tax policy, effectively starving the Department of Children and Families (DCF) of funding for foster kids and families. Fortunately, Gov. Kelly vetoed this bill keeping the best pieces as an Executive Order..
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About two hundred people attended a town hall event April 2017 in Olathe, where they questioned nine Republican lawmakers about their positions on Medicaid expansion and school financing. Many held placards expressing support for more Medicaid funding. All of the lawmakers present - including Molly Baumgardner - were opposed to expanding Medicaid and agreed with Gov. Sam Brownback’s decision to veto an expansion bill passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature.
Fast forward to 2020, Ms Baumgardner now claims she ‘worked’ with Denning to expand Medicaid, even as she failed to support it. She only changed her position after Becca Peck challenged her for this senate seat. Ms. Baumgardner knows you support expanding Medicaid!
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Molly Baumgardner appealed to House lawmakers for support of a bill requiring production of annual academic report cards on each of the state’s foster children. An admirable gesture, yet, where’s the funding for the kids? Where is their access to healthcare? Child welfare advocates are worried....The kids need more than a report card.
The Kansas City Star reported September 2017 that foster children slept on office floors over 100 times “over the past year”. Ms. Baumgardner claimed in a KC Star Editorial Board interview that she just learned of the issue summer of 2020. Since she’s says she’s an advocate for foster children, where has she been for the last three years?
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Ms. Baumgardner says she’s been working for Highway 68 improvements ever since she became a senator. But she said nothing as Sam Brownback raided the ‘Bank of KDOT’ for years to make up for his disastrous tax giveaway… ”Withdrawals from the so-called Bank of KDOT escalated under former Gov. Sam Brownback, with more than $2 billion swept away since 2011.”
Baumgardner never opposed by voice nor vote ANY of Brownback’s $3 billion raids on KDOT. Now she’s trying to take credit for funding K-68, something she has most definitely NOT done over the last 6 years. Her words don’t reflect her willingness to allow infrastructure and public safety funding to languish.
In Feb 2019, Molly Baumgardner pressed colleagues to support her proposal for child welfare reform. What she failed to mention is that her plan mandated only 4 months for KS DCF to implement very substantial changes…without providing additional funding.
In spite of her recent ‘creative’ campaign claims, Ms. Baumgardner consistently opposed Medicaid Expansion. How many Kansas families could have benefited, been spared the tragedy of loss, had she not been such a vocal opponent of insurance for those less fortunate than she? The legislation failed by ONE vote - Ms. Baumgardner's.
In Dec 2019, Democratic Senator Tom Holland and Republican Senator Molly Baumgardner co-sponsored the Kristi L. Bennett Mental Health Parity Act. Kristi died after multiple mental health facilities refused her insurance. However, Baumgardner sided with insurance industry lobbyists and voted against the bill in committee, effectively killing it. Sen. Holland, however and his fellow committee Democrats voted for it. Baumgardner put a grieving Bennett family through this legislative charade.
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In stark contrast to her ‘principled-person’ rhetoric, Molly Baumgardner has voted again and again AGAINST fairness and justice. This spring she derailed Gov. Kelly’s nomination of Carl Folsom, a decent and respected public-defense attorney to the Kansas Court of Appeals in August 2020.
“This cannot be dismissed as mere politics,” said Melody Brannon, who leads the federal public defender’s office in Kansas and is Folsom’s boss. “It is much deeper and more harmful. Public defenders represent clients who are poor and often people of color. To denigrate our clients and Carl’s work while protests against systemic racism saturate our communities is particularly reprehensible. Our responsibility as public defenders is to call out police and prosecutorial abuses in defense of our clients of color” Ms. Baumgardner did not want Carol Folsom calling out these abuses on the bench, so she trashed the nomination of this non-partisan public servant.
Check out these references regarding Molly’s support of the 2012 Brownback tax disaster - then check out her Report Card (next page)
https://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/kansas-lawmaker-seeks-to-prevent-state-from-borrowing-kdot-funds/article_bd7c3dd9-684a-5082-947d-b804e5638035.html
https://www.courthousenews.com/brownbacks-schools-plan-fails-to-impress-kansas/
https://www.courthousenews.com/kansas-still-starving-schools-money-supreme-court-says/
https://www.courthousenews.com/kansas-school-funding-woes-drag-into-summer/
https://www.kcur.org/health/2015-02-17/flat-spending-proposed-for-kansas-hospitals-that-treat-disabled-and-mentally-ill
https://www.kcur.org/news/2017-04-02/kansas-lawmakers-at-olathe-town-hall-meeting-draw-boos-over-unwillingness-to-expand-medicaid
https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/nov/02/kansas-tax-collections-11m-short-expectations-octo/
https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=24844712