In Store Event with Ed Flentje and Michael Smith

H. Edward Flentje is a professor emeritus at Wichita State University and formerly was director and professor in the Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs at the university. He earlier served with U.S. Sen. James Pearson and Kansas Govs. Robert Bennett and Mike Hayden and later in assignments as interim city manager for the City of Wichita and as interim president of Emporia State University.

Michael A. Smith is a Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University. He has authored or co-authored five books, the most recent of which is Reform and Reaction: The Arc of Modern Kansas Politics (co-edited with H. Edward Flentje, Kansas 2024). He has other academic publications as well, and also writes newspaper columns carried throughout Kansas as part of the Insight Kansas group. Michael appears occasionally on television and radio in Kansas and western Missouri to discuss state and national politics. He has been an expert witness in four court cases, including Bednasek v Kobach, decided together with Fish v Kobach by the federal district court for Kansas in 2018. Michael teaches courses in American politics, state and local government, and political philosophy.

Originating under the leadership of the late Burdett Loomis, Reform and Reaction tells the complex story of recent Kansas politics, beginning in the 1960s and concluding with the reversal of Governor Sam Brownback's red-state policies in the 2016 and 2018 elections. The Kansas that emerged from the reapportionment decisions and the overhaul of state government in the 1960s and 1970s was one that found itself in a push-and-pull, reform-and-reaction pattern the authors refer to as the arc of Kansas politics.

Reform-minded and policy-oriented politicians who tended toward a moderate, bipartisan approach pushed to modernize the state to better serve the needs of its citizens, following the maxim of Governor Robert Docking: "austere but adequate." Because this approach avoided or rejected the narrow conservative interests of culture warriors, reformist administrations were followed by reactionary administrations that advanced a right-wing agenda. Brownback thus brought the era of "austere but adequate" to an abrupt end when he won the governorship in 2010. When voters became tired of this approach, a new set of reform politicians were elected--and so the arc continues.

The only book tracing changes in Kansas government since the 1960s, including the loss of moderates in both parties, the Brownback era, and its aftermath, Reform and Reaction is the last book by the celebrated political scientist Burdett Loomis, who conceived the idea for the book and authored one of its chapters before his passing.

Reform and Reaction not only illuminates the political history of Kansas but also sheds light on what may be in store for the future of the Sunflower State.

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