By TONY GUERRERO
Hays Post
Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, was in Hays Monday campaigning for governor in 2026.
Holscher stopped by the Eagle Media Center for an interview with Hays Post.
Holscher recounted a story of her 12-year-old daughter spotting her teacher working a weekend shift at Target during the “Brownback experiment.”
"I explained to her that we were in the midst of the 'Brownback crisis' and that her teacher probably wasn't making enough money to pay her bills. My daughter looked at me and said, 'You go fix that,'" Holscher said.
Holscher describes herself as a public school product and said fully funding general and special education remains one of her top priorities.
"We put a lot of demands on our school and teachers with pretty high expectations," Holscher said. "But the fact of the matter is, we often do not provide the funding for those expectations."
Holscher said that although general education has been adequately funded in recent years, with room for improvement, special education still falls short, forcing districts to shift money and limiting the best curriculum schools can offer.
SEE RELATED STORY: Hays USD 489 proposes mill levy increase; sees special ed costs rise
She also pointed to her own advocacy efforts, noting that she marched to protest school underfunding before joining the Legislature and later earned a substitute teaching license after the COVID-19 pandemic to help cover staffing shortages.
Affordability and housing
Another priority for Holscher is making Kansas more affordable, which she said depends on improving access to housing, child care, health care and education.
On housing, Holscher said Kansas faces a statewide crisis in urban and rural areas. She said even newly built apartments remain out of reach for many residents.
"My team and I are looking at what's working in other states and putting together plans in that regard. If people can't pay their bills or afford housing, that's going to hurt our economy," she said.
Water
Holscher said water preservation has been a concern since her youth, recalling that her first high school speech and debate topic focused on the looming depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer.
"My first year in the Legislature, I was actually assigned to the water committee. We put together a great plan to address water issues that was under Brownback, and it didn't get funded. Here we are still trying to figure out what to do," she said.
After speaking with farmers and agricultural experts, she highlights possibly shifting to low-water-use crops and upgrading irrigation equipment as possible steps.
Holscher said she was not familiar with the R9 Ranch project in any real depth.
Health care and mental health
Holscher said affordable, accessible health care is central to her affordability agenda and criticized the privatization of the KanCare program.
"That essentially inserted a middleman into the process that now takes millions of dollars. That's money that's going to an entity versus actually helping our people in terms of health care," Holscher said.
Holscher said federal policies have also strained the health care system, and about 26 hospitals statewide are at risk of closing. She said expanding Medicaid would help keep those hospitals open and reduce long-term emergency and transport costs, especially in rural Kansas.
"A lot of times, I hear legislators from the rural areas who say, 'Well, people choose to live here. They knew what it was going to be like.' I don't think people anticipated that we'd be facing this type of health care crisis," she said.
She added Medicaid expansion would also improve access to mental health services.
State budget
Holscher said her experience managing budgets larger than the state’s during her time at Sprint Corp. made her uneasy with the Legislature’s approach to budgeting. This past year marked her first on the Senate Budget Committee.
To avoid future deficits, she proposed new revenue sources rather than cuts, including Medicaid expansion and legalizing medicinal cannabis.
"[Medicinal cannabis is] a huge revenue stream that we have not tapped into. All the states around us are, and we are losing money to other states," she said.
Gov. Kelly's endorsement
Holscher said Kelly is “another voter” who can support whoever she wants, adding endorsements do not determine election outcomes.
"What makes the big difference is your policies," she said. "I'm the only Democrat in this field that wins in red areas. ... I'm the only Democrat in this race and the entire Legislature that wins in red districts and has actually defeated Republican incumbents. That's the toughest thing to do."
Holscher added she has received more than 135 endorsements from leaders across Kansas.
She also highlighted her work on affordability legislation, statute-of-limitations reform for sexual violence victims, the introduction of the purple alert system, and her co-founding of the Women’s Bipartisan Caucus as key accomplishments.