Kansans have two chances to vote on Kris Kobach next month — on Kobach himself in the gubernatorial race, and on his legacy in the Secretary of State race.

Kobach’s tenure as SOS has been marred with mismanagement: failures to update the SOS website, shortfalls in overseeing election technology and officials, tens of thousands of Kansans unable to navigate the bureaucratic red tape that Kobach created in the voter registration process, and failed and costly court battles. Kansans must choose how to move that office forward.

Polling shows that the SOS race is competitive. The Democrat, Brian “BAM” McClendon, is running an actual campaign, something that Kansas Democrats do not always do. McClendon is a former Google and Uber executive who has returned to Kansas, but grew up here, graduated from KU, and co-founded the nonprofit KSVotes.org to promote online voter registration. This is his first run for office.

The Republican, Scott Schwab, should normally be favored in a down-ballot race like this simply by being a Republican in Kansas, but has had a muted campaign. A native Kansan who works in healthcare sales, Schwab has served in the state legislature from Johnson County for thirteen years and, most relevant, formerly chaired the House Elections Committee. His legislative voting record easily puts him in the Brownback-Kobach mold of Republicans.

What does a secretary of state do? Kobach has been unusually visible for the office, becoming a national media darling on immigration and taking side jobs writing political columns and consulting for other states on immigration. But the main duties of the job include election administration, voter registration, registering businesses, and publishing legal and informational documents. It is a technical and bureaucratic position.

Neither candidate possesses Kobach’s flamboyant personality, but there are real issues in this race beyond style. Their answers to July 14 questionnaires in the Topeka Capital-Journal show some differences.

Schwab frames his candidacy around continuing Kobach’s policies like the proof of citizenship regulation—since ruled unconstitutional—and voter ID. He also shares Kobach’s belief that voter fraud from internal and external threats is a serious concern in Kansas. And his response to increasing voter participation indicates that he does not see that as a main responsibility of the SOS, but rather something that campaigns and local election officials should emphasize.

McClendon shares the concern for cyber security and electoral integrity, but does not share Kobach’s dubious belief that undocumented immigrants are a massive voter fraud threat in Kansas. Nor does he share Kobach and Schwab’s support for proof of citizenship regulations. He endorses voter ID laws that ensure citizen access to proof of identification. McClendon also views encouraging voter participation as more central to the SOS role than Schwab.

Importantly, Kansans may not realize that under Kobach’s Crosscheck system, they are footing the bill to allegedly quality check voter rolls in dozens of other states. Yes, readers, you are paying to vet voter rolls in states like Mississippi and Alabama. Independent studies have found Crosscheck to have major accuracy issues, leading several states to abandon it recently. Schwab supports continuing Crosscheck as is, but McClendon is more skeptical of it.

Kansans should understand that they are voting on Kobach’s policy legacy in the SOS race. Down-ballot races matter for how tax dollars are spent and the quality of services Kansans receive. The next SOS may not share Kobach’s eccentric flair, but voters can choose to continue Kobach’s policies or vote for change. Learn more about the candidates and make informed choices.

Patrick. R. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas.

Mother Nature turned the tables this year in Kansas as eastern Kansas cattle producers dealt with diminished grass for their livestock while central and western regions of the Sunflower State flourished with pastures nourished by abundant rain.

In southeastern Kansas, Jim DeGeer, veteran cattleman from Neosho County, says a long, cool spring delayed native grasses (used for summer grazing) from taking off and growing like they normally do. And when it finally did warm up, conditions were so dry, these grasses never had the opportunity to grow.

“Our pastures were extremely short all summer,” DeGeer says. “I know the guys who cut prairie hay throughout our regions and they told me production amounted to only a third to one-half the normal output.”

Yep, forage availability has been tight in much of southeastern Kansas beginning in June and running into August.

“It’s been dry most of the summer,” the veteran cattleman says. “We were drier and had less grass this summer than during the bad drought years beginning in 2011 and running through 2013.”

Then in mid-August, it started to rain, and the grass began growing and greening up a bit, DeGeer says. By the end of September, the pastures looked like they should have.

Despite the dog days of summer, DeGeer says his cows managed to stay “looking pretty good.”

So, what will this dry spell mean to cattlemen like DeGeer in the long run?

“We’re starting to pregnancy check our herd and we’re seeing more open (not with calf) cows than we normally do,” the long-time cattleman says. “I’m sure weaning weights on the calves will be less this year as well.”

While this scenario is not one any cattleman wants to be faced with, DeGeer will live with the hand he’s been dealt, make changes and move ahead.

This will mean reducing the family cow herd this year. In turn, this will allow the pastures a chance to recover from the dry summer of 2018.

Buying additional feed for his livestock will also mean steeper prices for big round bales. Prices for this coveted commodity have jumped from $30-35 a bale to $75-100 each.

“We buy a lot of hay anyway,” the Neosho County cattleman says. “We’ll need to pay the piper to keep our cow herd well fed.”

DeGeer isn’t the Lone Ranger when it comes to cutting cow numbers. Neighbors and other livestock producers are faced with the same dilemma.

“I laugh to myself this year,” DeGeer says. “I grew up in south-central Kansas, in the Gypsum Hills around Medicine Lodge, and cattlemen have received more rain out there than we have in south-eastern Kansas during the summer.”

This year is one DeGeer is looking forward to closing the book on. He does not relish paying top dollar for feed at the close of the year especially when some will not even be the best quality.

“It’s kind of been one of those years,” the veteran cattleman says with a shrug of resignation in his shoulders. “Next year’s going to be better.”

John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi is missing — and the world does not know if he is alive or dead.

That there is no answer yet is, in itself, a tragedy. But depending on that answer, it may well become an atrocity.

Turkey’s government said on Oct. 8 that Khashoggi, a prominent journalist from Saudi Arabia now living in the United States and a regular contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions page, apparently was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last week.

Saudi Arabian officials strongly deny that declaration. But the government of Turkey — even though it’s rated as one of the most repressive nations in terms of press freedom — stands by its assertion.

What we do know is that Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian mission offices on Oct. 2 and has not been seen since that time. His fiancée, who waited outside for hours that day, said she has not seen him since he went into the mission. A surveillance camera outside the consulate shows Khashoggi entering, but no video has been produced showing him departing.

We also know that Khashoggi was a vocal critic of Saudi leaders — and of a government that has been cracking down on dissent and criticism.

Khashoggi had fled to the United States over his criticism of the Saudi royal family and its influence in that nation. He went to the embassy in Turkey to obtain copies of personal papers needed for a planned marriage to a Turkish citizen.

“If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act,” Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post’s editorial page editor, said in a statement. “Jamal was — or, as we hope, is — a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom. He is respected in his country, in the Middle East and throughout the world. We have been enormously proud to publish his writings.”

Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible murder comes at nearly the same time when, in Bulgaria, the body of Viktoria Marinova, a journalist with TVN, was discovered Oct. 6. Marinova, 30, had been raped, beaten and strangled, according to media reports and Bulgarian police. Reporters Without Borders, an international group that tracks assaults on journalists, now lists 57 journalists, 14 citizens working in journalism and four press aides as having been killed thus far in 2018.

In its latest report, the nonpartisan human rights organization Freedom House notes that just 13 percent of the world’s population lives in nations where the press is considered free.

You may well be asking, “Why should I get angry over the as-yet undetermined fate of a journalist whose work, outside of the Washington, D.C. area, it’s likely I have not seen?”

Well, each time a Khashoggi disappears under suspicious circumstances or a Marinova is savagely killed, it diminishes all of our freedoms; there’s a bit more tarnish on what our still-strong First Amendment protection for a free press has always meant to the world.

It’s as simple as that. We care because we value freedom — the freedom to differ with those in power or others in our society, the freedom to speak or write our views, without the fear that someday we may enter a government building on a simple task and vanish.

Yes, there’s great debate around what a free press means today in the United States. But even the most vitriolic attacks often have a call for journalism’s essential values of fairness and accuracy. It’s those values we defend in defending journalists, even those we don’t know.

As a nation, we must declare every time that an attack on journalists anywhere in the world — through violence, threat or faux rule of law — is an attack on a core principle of our democracy. And we do not surrender those principles to tyranny, injustice or criminal acts.

Where is Jamal Khashoggi? His family should know. His colleagues in the profession should know. Every person in every nation around the globe should know.

In the name of press freedom and what it means to us as citizens of the United States and part of humanity, we not only expect an answer, we demand it.

Gene Policinski is president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute. He can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.