OLATHE – As the pressure ticks up in the Third District Congressional race, incumbent Sharice Davids appears to be following the tactics of Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris in cherry picking public appearances and tightly restricting her access to the public and the media as election day closes in.
Henry Lyons, director of the Olathe NAACP confirmed to the Informer Friday that Davids had declined an invitation to the Olathe/Johnson County area NAACP candidate debate on October 14, designed as a specific opportunity for minority media serving the district to get first-hand reporting on Davids and her Republican opponent Prasanth Reddy, a Shawnee oncologist. Lyons did not mince words about Davids’ no show – the second of three Congressional debates since 2020 Lyons said Davids had skipped.
“She came to the first debate we had and then she refused to come in 2022 and now she’s refusing to come again,” Lyons said Friday. “Black voters primarily look to Black media first or news and how they’re going to vote, and we had several black newspapers and media set to be here to cover it but she won’t be there again.”
“It’s an insult, really, is what it is,” Lyons said.
The email response from Davids’ campaign staffer Zac Donely offered no reasons for the congresswoman’s repeated absence.
“Hi Mr Lyons – Thank you for reaching out,” the refusal read. “We appreciate the opportunity but unfortunately representative Davids will not be able to participate. If there are other opportunities to interact with NAACP members and their families please let us know.”
“Other opportunities” for public engagements for Davids typically have meant small, usually private events among groups friendly to traditional Democrat causes or quick, unpublicized, short-notice tours of municipal, county or corporate facilities with applicable public officials – but no notice to the media. Those visits are always the subject of photo ops for publicity pictures which Davids circulates via “X” and Facebook and other social media.
In fact Davids placed specific “take it or leave it” restrictions on the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce political forum set for 7 p.m. October 9th at Ottawa Municipal Auditorium, demanding that she be the first to address the audience during a segment on the 3rd Congressional District and that she not share the stage with Reddy while doing so. Her appearance was also contingent on there being no open question & answer segment with the audience. Chamber of Commerce officials in Ottawa said they made those changes in order to secure Davids’ participation. Media representatives for Davids’ campaign did not respond to the Informer’s request for comment on these restrictions or the NAACP snub.
One other appearance for both candidates has been scheduled as of this date – a debate format with no audience conducted by typically sparsely viewed Kansas City Public Television.
Davids’ restrictions on public contact may revolve around her near lock-step support of the Biden Administration policy agenda for Biden’s first term – an agenda a majority of Americans concur has resulted in high prices for almost all goods, hikes in illegal immigration and migrant crime and an increasingly threatening geopolitical scene. Davids even requested water treatment infrastructure funding for DeSoto, Garnett and other towns in her District in 2023, then actually voted against the bill when Republicans added budget cuts for the Envionmental Protection Agency.
Davids’ tactics seem ripped from the playbook of Democrat presidential contender Kamala Harris, who has been widely criticized for agreeing to appearances only with friendly interviewers and accepting debate invitations with opponent Donald Trump only from hand-picked television networks. As of this writing Donald Trump and his vice presidential pickJD Vance had completed some 80 open media interviews, Trump even volunteering for a skewering before a panel of journalists in the National Association of black journalists. conversely, Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz had done less than 10, most all with journalists friendly to the left.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
