Leading Kansas appeals to teens on East Coast

Pennsylvania university student Jared Rogers has been to 40 of the 50 states, but not to Kansas.

However, if elected governor of Kansas, he “will gladly move” here to serve his constituents, he told The News.

Out-of-state teens - all currently living in the eastern U.S. - have discovered a new method of civic engagement: Run for Kansas governor.

Rogers, from Plainview, New York, appointed himself campaign treasurer in a Feb. 15 filing with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. Conner Shelton, attending the University of Delaware, submitted his filing to the Ethics Commission on Feb. 13. Ilan Cohen, a high school junior living in Bethesda, Maryland, set up his campaign account Feb. 17.

There are links between the candidates.

Shelton, 18, lives in the same dorm hall as Nicholas Schrieber, 18, who followed Shelton’s lead and set up his own campaign account with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission on Feb. 15.

The 2018 gubernatorial race first attracted Kansas teens and that drew national attention.

“A friend of mine sent me one of the articles and said he himself was running for governor,” said Cohen. The friend was Jared Rogers and the two know each other from a youth group.

Cohen, 17, has never been to Kansas, but government and politics have loomed large for him, living so close to Washington, D.C. “This is about engaging teens and inspiring action,” Cohen said. He hopes to promote civic engagement.

Rogers, 18, is a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences studying Mechanical Engineering in Pennsylvania. “I aspire to show that the youth of America are able to make a difference in the country if they want to and that politics need not be controlled by special interest groups that keep our representatives on a short leash,” he said in an email.

Shelton is studying chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. The news article about the Hutchinson dog Angus being disqualified from running for Kansas governor spurred Shelton to look into the requirements for being governor. Age and residency are not mentioned.

Shelton thinks Kansas needs further regulation of fertilizer, as runoff has caused major pollution to the water in western Kansas. He also thinks there should be more employees in Kansas prisons because lack of staffing has caused major issues with inmates.

Shelton is registered as an independent. Rogers said he’s a registered Democrat for voting purposes in Pennsylvania but he’s also running his campaign as an independent. “I might run as an independent,” Cohen said, although he’s affiliated with the Democrats.

If the teens want to have their names on the Nov. 6 general election ballot as independents, they must collect signatures from at least 5,000 Kansas voters by early August.