Democrat Corson always drawn to public service
By Marcia Montgomery
Associate Editor
Thirty-eight-year-old Ethan Corson became interested in politics and public service when he was in college. He’s running for the Kansas Senate in District 7, hoping to represent residents of Fairway, Mission, Mission Hills, Mission Woods, Westwood, Westwood Hills and parts of Leawood and Overland Park.
“I felt like when you were working in government either as an elected official or in a career position or as a staffer, you’re part of a larger organization and you’re really trying to create work for positive social change. I wanted to have a career where I was making an impact in the broader community, and government is a way where you can create social change at scale. In the case of the Kansas legislature, you’re working for policies that affect everybody in the state,” he said.
An attorney licensed to practice in Kansas, Missouri and the District of Columbia, Corson left a job with a law firm in mid-July and is currently focusing on his campaign. Prior to entering government service, he practiced law for seven years in one of the top law firms in Washington, D.C., where he earned recognition as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers magazine.
His government service is long and impressive. Corson served as executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party from August 2017 to August 2019, leading the party through its most successful election cycle in a decade, including the election of Gov. Laura Kelly and Congresswoman Sharice Davids.
Prior to that he was appointed by President Barack Obama to two senior leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2012, he served as the deputy voter protection director for President Obama’s campaign in Wisconsin.
“When I was at the Department of Commerce, we were working to create positive opportunities for people at the national level. I really saw that work as a way that I could have an impact on a large scale.”
Corson said his Jewish values of community, compassion and empathy and the idea that we’re all in this together are also part of the reason he’s drawn to public service. It’s not just about how well you are doing, but how well the community is doing.
“There’s a Jewish value of thinking of the community as being one community in that if its members are not having access to health care, access to quality education, then that’s the community’s problem and we should all be working as a community to try to solve those sorts of problems,” he said.
Corson and his wife, Jenna Brofsky, who was elected to the Fairway City Council in 2019, have a 16-month-old son, Isaac. “We want to make sure that the next generation of public school students like my son have the same opportunity to attend a world class school,” he said.
He pointed out that a Jewish person wouldn’t say, “My son is going to a really good school, so I’m not worried about all these other children.” Ingrained in his Jewish values is asking whether all our children are getting a good education, if all our children are able to reach their potential.
“Our community and my life are worse off if kids in our community aren’t getting the opportunities they need,” he said.
His motivation for running for state Senate is his hope that Johnson County and the rest of the state have a quality public education system. He was brought up in Shawnee Mission schools, graduating from Shawnee Mission South, and said that foundation prepared him for the rest of his life and career, enabling him to make the most of his professional opportunities.
He said if at the end of his service, every child in Kansas had the opportunity to go to what we would all agree is a world class public school, “that would be the thing I would be most proud of having played a role in having brought about.”
Other local issues he wants to work on are affordable health care and continuing to support small and local businesses during the pandemic to keep people employed.
“There is going to be enormous pressure on the state budget because of the pandemic, so the need right now is to get through this crisis in a way that preserves our funding for public education and for critical services for our most vulnerable populations,” Corson said. “It’s going to take teamwork, cooperation and creative thinking on the part of elected officials and others in order to get through this budget crisis in a way where we’re maintaining investments in our children, in those who are the most vulnerable and those who are dependent on services from the government.”
If elected, Corson said he would like to see: increases in early childhood, pre-K, kindergarten and special education funding; making sure people have access to quality affordable health care, especially during this crisis because a lot of people are losing health care coverage from businesses due to layoffs and closures; and supporting small and local businesses that have a lot of challenges in navigating this crisis so they can stay open.
Corson said there are too many Kansans right now who are not able to access quality affordable health care — in Johnson County as well as rural parts of the state.
“We desperately need Medicaid expansion, which would enable us to cover 130,000 more people with insurance. Forty thousand of them would be children,” he said.
Corson grew up at and became a Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Shalom. He and his wife are now members of Congregation Kol Ami.
“We were attracted to that congregation because of the really wonderful social justice work they are doing, and that Rabbi Doug Alpert is leading,” he said. “That really spoke to the Jewish social action and the component of how Jenna and I think of our Judaism. So that’s why Kol Ami has been a really good fit for us and we enjoy participating in the good work they’re doing throughout the community.”
Corson is running against Laura McConwell, former mayor of Mission, Kansas. For more information about Corson, visit www.ethanforkansas.com.
