Go, Lawrence!

Our conservative state legislature hates the city

When someone in the Legislature says, “There goes Lawrence again,” Barbara Ballard doesn’t back down.

“We are proud of the fact that we support the rights of all people,” said Ballard, a Democratic legislator from Lawrence.

It’s no secret that Lawrence, the seat of Douglas County, marches to the beat of a different political drummer compared with the rest of Kansas.

Lawrence has been described as an island of Democratic blue in a sea of Republican red. Unlike most of Kansas, Lawrence repeatedly supports Democratic presidential candidates and was the only Kansas county in 2005 that voted against a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

So, often during the legislative session, something that Lawrence has done, or plans to do, gets targeted by Kansas lawmakers.

I really, truly wish there was some way a city could secede from a state. Lawrence is basically the only desirable place to live in Kansas (with the possible exception of parts of Johnson County, which are really nice suburbs). I would love to go all "Fort Sumpter" on a bunch of conservative legislators from Western Kansas.

We even have a ready-made rebel yell: "Rock Chalk!"