Author’s note: In order to offer a balanced look at both candidates, an article on incumbent state senator (R-KS) and adjunct professor Tim Owens will follow in a future issue of the Campus Ledger.
Greg Smith is a man who has spent much of his life in public service. He has served in the Navy, as a police officer, an educator, and with the help of his family, founded the Kelsey Smith Foundation.
Elected in 2010, Smith currently serves as representative of District 22 in the Kans. House. Recently he decided to run for the state senate seat in District 8 against incumbent Tim Owens.
“I’m running for the senate because I am disappointed in the lack of leadership that the senate has shown recently,” Smith said. “We passed a lot of really good initiatives in the House this last session that would have been good for all of Kansas, but a lot of them sat in the senate and just died over there because they wouldn’t act on them.”
Smith said he wants to “jump start” things in the senate with several specific issues in mind. As a current teacher at Shawnee Mission West High School, education is a big priority for him.
“Right now the school finance system we have in Kansas is broken, it’s not working right and it’s costing us a lot of money,” Smith said.
Smith wants to see more money go straight to the classrooms to help students. He also intends to help reform the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System (KPERS), which he said is at least $8 billion underfunded.
His third biggest issue is the state’s budget. The only state in the Midwest with taxes higher than Kans. is Neb.
“We want to make sure government is as small as it can be, spending is as small as it can be, and hopefully we can get some money back to the people so their tax burden isn’t as bad as it has been,” Smith said.
Smith’s background of public service includes 10 years in the Navy. He then served as a police officer in South Carolina, and later moved back to work at the Kansas City, Mo. police office. He ended his law enforcement career working as an officer here at the college.
After that, Smith taught social studies at each of the Shawnee Mission high schools. He and many of his family members have graduated from or taught at Shawnee Mission West.
Smith was inspired to become active in politics by the memory of his daughter, Kelsey Smith, for whom he and his wife founded the Kelsey Smith Foundation. The goal of the foundation is to educate communities about prevention and youth safety.
“The whole reason I’m in politics is because of Kelsey, it really is,” Smith said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the fact that my wife and I worked so hard to get the Kelsey Smith Act passed in Kansas and since then we’ve gotten it passed in other states.”
This is how Smith learned how to pass a bill through committees and pass legislation. He and his wife agreed to stay involved in the process to continue helping people. The Kelsey Smith Act (Kelsey’s Law), in summary, provides law enforcement a way to quickly track the location of a person’s cellular device in cases of kidnapping or other endangerment. It is now enacted in five states and under consideration in others, including on a national level.
Smith’s biggest support comes from his wife, Missey, who takes care of the “day-to-day” aspects of the campaign to free up Greg’s time for public engagements. She handles campaign materials and research on his opponent, such as voting records and donors. She also continues to work toward passing Kelsey’s Law in other states.
“I am focusing on researching legislators from other states to see who would be most likely to pass a law like this,” Missey said.
Student Alex Abramovitz is also a big supporter of Smith’s campaign.
“I started talking to Greg and it wasn’t long before he started mentioning ideas such as limited government and also the fact that he believed strongly in the Constitution and that he was a social studies teacher teaching history,” Abramovitz said. “One of the things that he wanted people to know was that the Constitution limits the powers of the federal government and gives more power to the states, which is something that I really strongly agreed with.”
While conservative issues are a big part of Greg’s message, he doesn’t aim to be the next Ronald Reagan.
“I’m not there to make a name for myself, I don’t care if people know who I am, I’m not there to get rich,” Greg said. “I just want to do things that help the state and help people have a better life.”
Contact Mackenzie Clark, managing editor, at mclark68@jccc.edu.