Roughly 100 protesters had a clear message for Sen. Jerry Moran on Thursday morning: ”Do your job,” they chanted.
The group lined the sidewalks leading into the K-State Olathe campus ahead of the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City’s March luncheon, where the U.S. senator gave remarks.
They held signs with various messages, the bulk of which addressed Sen. Moran directly, imploring him to do more to stand up to the Trump administration as it takes aggressive, and at times legally dubious, steps to reshape the federal government.
For much of the morning, protesters stood along College Boulevard at the corners of Valley Road and Innovation Drive, but later on they moved down the sidewalks closer to the K-State Olathe building, where the luncheon was taking place.
Throughout the protest, individuals called out what they viewed as congressional inaction on a range of issues, including the uncertainty about federal programs, loss of government jobs, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the future of programs people rely on, like Medicaid and Social Security.
“I would like him to grow a spine and stand against the things that are taking away money and health care from Kansans,” said Gail Shafton, a protester from Overland Park.
At the time of publication, Sen. Moran’s office had not returned the Post’s request for comment but did confirm that he was a speaker at the luncheon.
No counter-protesters, or people in support of Moran or Trump, were visible at the protest.
Moran is “doing nothing publicly,” organizer says
John Segale, a Shawnee resident, organized the protest with Peter Geers, an Olathe resident. They used an online progressive organizing platform called Indivisible to get the word out.
Segale said he thinks most people would agree that some kind of governmental reform is necessary, but he wants it done legally.
“I’m upset about the lawlessness of the Trump administration. There are legal methods to change our government, and that’s what needs to be followed,” he said. “They’re just basically operating this like a dictatorship, and Sen. Moran is part of the Congress; he has a vote, he’s in the majority party, and he’s like the rest of the Republicans doing nothing publicly.”
Segale said he’s tried appealing to Sen. Moran directly through his office. He has also spent the past few weeks doing public demonstrations like the one he helped arrange Thursday morning to bring more attention to the issue.
Sheryl Stewart, like Segale, said she’s reached out to Moran’s office and hadn’t heard anything back.
“I would like the Republican Congress that is in the majority to actually use the authority of the budget that they have to stop Elon Musk and President Trump from using executive action to dismantle the government,” Stewart said.
Stewart said she wants to see Moran and his colleagues in the U.S. Congress do more to represent the people they’ve been elected to serve and their interests.
“Our elected representatives need to be doing their job. If we have concerns, they need to be listening to them,” she said.
Stewart and other protesters who spoke to the Post said they want to see Sen. Moran hold town hall meetings before he goes back to Washington, D.C.
Sen. Moran has been quiet about Trump’s actions
Generally, Sen. Moran has stayed largely publicly silent about the Trump administration’s actions.
In February, Sen. Moran, alongside some other members of the Kansas federal delegation, introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate aimed at relocating the administration of the Food for Peace program from the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
During his speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Moran underscored how important the Food for Peace program has been for Kansas farmers.
“We produce more than we can consume in this nation, so without programs to export to, our ability to make a living in agriculture in Kansas and across the country disappears,” Sen. Moran said in February. “Food for Peace bolsters the farmers who feed us, creates a more stable world, and feeds the hungry.”
Moran, at the same time, said USAID was flawed, ineffective and inefficient, echoing Trump administration talking points on the agency historically tasked with distributing large sums of civilian foreign aid around the world.
And though Moran hasn’t had much to say in public, Kansas’ other representative to the U.S. Senate has faced backlash for how he handled a heated town hall in a rural community.
Late last month, Sen. Roger Marshall walked out of a rural town hall meeting with constituents in the Oakley in the northwestern part of the state.
During the town hall in February, members of the audience booed Marshall and hollered questions at him, frustrated with how the Trump administration has handled things.
Later, Sen. Marshall spread a rumor that Democrats had paid organizers to disrupt the forum, but he later walked that back.
Protesters urge others to speak up
Many of the protesters who were out on Thursday also had a message for other community members who are frustrated with the way things are going: They urged others to join them.
“Democracy takes work. It’s not, as they say, a spectator sport. So, if you want to live in a democracy, you’ve got to be engaged,” Sandy Sanders said.
Carol Williamson, a former Johnson County resident who now lives in Lawrence, said she feels like the promise of the U.S. “is being squandered.” She called President Donald Trump and Elon Musk “lawless.”
She urged other individuals who are angry with the way the Trump administration is handling the federal government — and how representatives and senators in Congress are standing by — to speak out too.
“I want the public to know that they have a voice, and every time they say something, to speak out, hopefully as respectful but strongly as they can, they are helping to fight this chaos, they’re helping to save democracy,” she said.
For Shafton of Overland Park, who said she got tired of screaming at her TV, it was time to act.
“I wanted to be here and try to help build community to show Johnson County that there are people here who care,” she said. “There are a lot of people in Johnson County who are prepared to stand up and fight, and we need you to join us.”
Juliana Garcia contributed to this story.
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