Political Action

The legislature is a terrain of struggle, and working people lose on it more often than not. Decisions about housing, land use, public utilities, and civil rights flow from bodies that overwhelmingly answer to landlords, developers, and corporate capital. The Political Action Working Group exists to contest that ground. We translate the priorities of tenants, workers, and ordinary Flint Hills residents into sustained pressure on the elected officials who claim to represent us.

Housing legislation is a constant front. Bills like HB 2504 would strip local governments of the power to cap security deposits or prohibit source-of-income discrimination. We mobilize against legislation that consolidates landlord power and organize support for tenant-protective measures like SB 371's right of first refusal. Our members coordinate letter-writing campaigns, prepare and deliver testimony at committee hearings in Topeka, and turn out at city commission and county meetings where landlord lobbies usually expect no opposition.

The fight against data center expansion is newer and no less urgent. Hyperscale facilities are being courted into Kansas through utility subsidies, sweetheart rate structures, and quiet rezoning agreements, and they consume staggering volumes of water and electricity while delivering few permanent jobs and minimal local tax revenue after abatements. We work alongside neighboring residents, environmental organizations, and ratepayer advocates to expose the public costs of these private profit centers, pressure the Kansas Corporation Commission, and demand that energy and water policy serve communities rather than tech capital.

We also track and resist the broader rightward agenda of the Kansas Legislature. Attacks on protest rights, criminalization of boycotts, restrictions on public education, and the steady erosion of civil rights protections all arrive on the same legislative calendar. Bills like SB 419 do not appear in isolation. They reflect a coordinated effort to discipline dissent and protect the prerogatives of capital, and they call for a coordinated response.

Electoral and legislative engagement is one tactic among many. We hold no illusions that the existing state will deliver socialism. Fighting bad bills, defending tenants in law as well as in their buildings, and refusing to cede public deliberation to the right are necessary parts of building working-class power. If you want to research bills, write testimony, lobby legislators, or pressure local officials, we want you with us.