Three women in Kansas legislature ditch the GOP in one week

The Republican Party’s problem with women is getting worse, and some Republican women have finally had enough. Three GOP women lawmakers in Kansas, two state senators and one state representative, have ditched the Republican Party entirely in the span of just a week.

Each of these women has her own reasons, but their departures share a common theme: Today’s Republican Party has moved so far to the right that it is no longer recognizable to most decent Americans.

The first to abandon the party was state Sen. Barbara Bollier, who is leaving the GOP after four decades as a Republican. She’s leaving in part because of Trump’s vulgarity towards women. She told the Washington Post that after leaving the GOP, “now I can sleep better — it was a huge moral thing.”

When Bollier made her announcement, Republican state Rep. Stephanie said she was “happy for and proud of my friend and mentor.”

A week later, Clayton announced she, too, was leaving the Republican Party.

“I can’t put my name on a party that is actively seek to destroy public education,” the newly-minted Democrat said. “It’s affecting my children. It’s affecting my neighbors’ children. The abandoning of the support of public education is something I couldn’t stand for.”

And now state Sen. Dinah Sykes is the latest to join Bollier and Clayton in ditching the party of Trump.

Sykes said she wants to focus on solutions to problems her constituents face in their everyday life. “Increasingly, I see the Republican party focusing on issues and approaches that divide our country,” Sykes said. “I do not agree with that approach.”

Kansas probably isn’t turning blue anytime soon. It’s true that in 2018, the normally deep-red state rejected fringe conspiracy theorist and Trump loyalist Kris Kobach’s bid for governor, electing Democrat Laura Kelly instead. However, Democrats did not gain any seats in either chamber of the GOP-dominated Kansas legislature in the November midterms.

Still, December’s defections send a powerful signal to Republicans at the state and national level.

And it’s not just happening in Kansas. In California, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court ditched the Republican party after the U.S. Senate’s embarrassing confirmation hearing of alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh.

These women are joining other women across the country in rejecting the politics of division and misogyny embodied by today’s Trump-led Republican party.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.