Political Shenanigans on the Eve of Easter

I am writing this on the first day of Holy Week. Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, is past. Now on the road before us lies the Last Supper, Gethsemane, Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s 3 denials, the trial at the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate’s question still ringing through the earth: What is Truth? Pilate’s attempt to evade responsibility by symbolically washing his hands, the scourging at the post, the Crown of Thorns, the carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the laying in the tomb, and the Glorious Mystery of Jesus’ Resurrection at the dawn of Easter.

Now to the political caldron.

I don’t know if you were aware that Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins shut down the House abruptly on Thursday, March 19th, and moved everything into Conference Committee bills when coming back into session on Monday, March 23rd. This was Speaker Hawkins’ attempt to protect Big Pharma and the insurance industry from House members who were working on a bill which would cut into the big boys’ profit center of Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs.

To give you an example: Mike Burns (owner of Auburn Pharmacy), a few years ago, had cancer, and part of his chemo protocol was a drug he had available at his pharmacy for a cost of approximately $2,800. Because of PBMs, he was forced to use another pharmacy at a cost for the same drug of $15,000!!! Over a $12,000 increase in cost. Here is the link to Mike Burns’ testimony:

https://www.kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/committees/ctte_h_ins_1/documents/testimony/20260311_55.pdf

This is just the tip of the iceberg of this $100s of billions of dollars scam, which I will expand on next week.

The short version is that the House members evaded Speaker Hawkins’ attempts to block their reform of the PBMs by stuffing their bill into a Conference Committee Report, passed 107–14. The bill is not perfect, but at least this is the beginning of the process of lassoing in these outrageous costs to YOU and ME.

Meanwhile, Speaker Hawkins, because of his antics—temper tantrum??—of shutting down the House to protect Big Pharma and the insurance industry, is now about as popular as a skunk at an Easter egg hunt. And don’t forget, Speaker Hawkins is running for Insurance Commissioner!! Talk about a fox guarding the chicken coop.

Next: election integrity.

Isn’t it wonderful that our Secretary of State (SOS), Scott Schwab (one of my opponents), saved Kansas from the burden of TRUTH in the 2020 election???

• In the spring of 2024, SOS Scott Schwab ordered the destruction of Johnson County’s 2020 ballots, evidence in an ACTIVE criminal investigation by former Sheriff Calvin Hayden.

• Kansas AG Kris Kobach officially requested the SOS not to destroy the ballots.

• Destruction of evidence?? Yep, and not a peep out of law enforcement.

However, in the rest of the good old U.S. of A., the Ghost of 2020 makes multiple appearances. This (including photo) from Coffee and Covid Substack 3/27/2026 (emphasis mine):

• Yesterday (March 26, 2026), CalMatters reported, “Court denies California’s bid to halt Riverside sheriff’s recount of 2025 election ballots.” A Republican sheriff (Chad Bianco, running for governor) in California seized 650,000 ballots to investigate a 45,000-vote discrepancy between the official results and handwritten tally records.

• March 7th, 2026, the FBI served a federal grand jury subpoena on Arizona’s State Senate President Warren Petersen, demanding records from the state Senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election. The feds collected 3 dozen+ hard drives and servers with the audit data from the Arizona Senate building. (The ballots had already been destroyed; Arizona law has a 2-year retention policy.)

• January 28th, 2026, the FBI—accompanied by DNI Tulsi Gabbard—raided the Fulton County Election Hub in Union City, just outside Atlanta. They seized truckloads of physical ballots, ballot images, tabulator tapes, and voter rolls from the 2020 election.

I want you to think about this: since January 2026, in California, Arizona, and Georgia, local officials and/or the feds have taken possession of 2020 ballots for criminal investigations of election fraud.

Here in Kansas, beginning in March of 2022, we had an ongoing criminal election fraud investigation by our Johnson County Sheriff, Calvin Hayden, until it was politically upended in the spring of 2024 when all of the 2020 ballots were destroyed, as ordered by the SOS, Scott Schwab. Even after the AG personally wrote a letter to SOS Scott Schwab requesting that the ballots not be destroyed!!! All I can say is WOW!!

And how convenient it was during the 2020 COVID hysteria that mail-in ballots, drop boxes, expansion of voting days, expansion of days after the election that mail-in ballots had to be counted, and the continued use of voting machines and tabulators (very pricey) further decimated the trust in our election system.

You all know my position on this issue:

• Election Day is Election Day.

• Go back to paper ballots; get rid of the machines, voting and tabulators.

• Ban universal mail-in ballots and return to absentee ballots for specific reasons, convenience not being one of them.

France does just fine with Election Day. Yep, their elections are all on one day, using paper ballots counted by hand, and mail-in ballots are prohibited. Their last general election was held Sunday, July 7, 2024, and the final results were in early on Monday, July 8th.

Kansas, with our voting machines, tabulators, and universal mail-in ballots, we’re lucky to have final results days later.

Happy Easter and God Bless,
Charlotte O’Hara
Republican for Kansas Governor, 2026