By: Tim Carpenter
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt filed for reelection Thursday to a second term in Congress and argued it would be important to retain a Republican majority in the House to support President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Schmidt, who served a dozen years as state attorney general and in the Kansas Senate for a decade, was elected to the 2nd District seat following retirement of U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner. The eastern Kansas district stretches from Nebraska to Oklahoma, but excludes the Kansas City region served by Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids.
He said it would be important to sustain a GOP majority in the U.S. House to avoid “absolute gridlock” among a Democratic-led House, a likely Republican-controlled Senate and the president. Polling indicates Democrats could take control of the House in November’s elections.
“We want to keep the progress going,” Schmidt said. “We made good progress in terms of the cost of government, both on the regulatory side and on the tax side. Big parts of the farm bill are done. Big progress in terms of securing the border. And, big progress in terms of reinvesting in the military.”
Schmidt, who considers himself from Independence but has resided in Lawrence, would face Chad Young of Lawrence in the Republican Party’s primary in August. Two Democrats, Don Coover and Braeden Curwick, signed on to seek that 2nd District nomination.
Schmidt said he wasn’t aware of development in the state House and Senate on a bill recasting the state’s four U.S. House districts in an effort to make it easier to defeat Davids. The idea was to fracture Johnson County into multiple congressional districts and weaken Davids’ base of support in 2026, but the attempt to secure enough petition signatures of state legislators for a special session last year fizzled.
“I expect to run a reelection campaign with the 2nd District as it currently stands,” Schmidt said. “That changes because the Legislature goes in a different direction, we’ll adopt accordingly.”
Schmidt said a priority would be to place in federal law the policy objectives of the Trump administration, including handling of people in the United States without authorization. He said changes to immigration law needed to be “Biden-proofed.” He was referring to former Democratic President Joe Biden.
The 2024 national elections were tied to voter demand that politicians work to make the cost of living more affordable. An initial consequence of the U.S. war with Iran has been escalation in energy prices, which voters readily observe while driving past any gas station.
“There’s a lot more progress to be made on the cost-of-living issues,” said Schmidt, who blamed the Biden administration for injecting inflationary pressures into the economy. “We’ve tried to take a different approach of actually dealing with the underlying problems. Not saying we’ve done it perfectly, but I’m saying that’s the philosophy we’ve tried to bring.”
Schmidt said Kansans who are convinced the GOP-led House allowed the executive branch to seize too much power were likely critics of Trump’s policies.
“I know there are people who are concerned about it,” Schmidt said. “For the most part, they tend to be people who disagree with the policy direction the administration has gone.”