“You’ve got three choices in life: Give up, give in or give it all you’ve got.
“ I chose to give it all I’ve got.”
Dr. Joy Koesten credits this favorite quote to her mother and used it in the final newsletter she sent to constituents as she was wrapping up her two-year term as Kansas state representative for District 28. While she lost her bid for re-election in August, many of her constituents agree that although her tenure was short, she gave it all she’s got.
Koesten’s political career has been brief. She was swept into office as a Kansas state representative for District 28 in 2016 along with a wave of moderates — both Republicans and Democrats. After only two years, she was defeated in her bid for re-election precisely because she was a moderate Republican.
As one chapter of her life ends — her term officially ends when new state representatives are sworn in Jan. 14 — another chapter, this one as a Democrat, is just beginning. As a private citizen she has vowed to continue fighting to get the state of Kansas back on track and in that vein plans to give her full support to Gov.-elect Laura Kelly.
“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that Laura Kelly is a successful governor,” Koesten said in a recent interview with The Chronicle.
A registered Republican most of her adult life, Koesten’s primary loss contributed to her decision to change political parties last month after discovering that her challenger had been hand-picked by GOP leadership
“I just can’t stomach trying to fit in anymore to a party that grieves me so each and every day,” she wrote in her Dec. 13 newsletter, which she plans to continue to write. “And, it wouldn’t matter one bit how many times I voted with them (90 percent) or how much I have donated to other Republican candidates (plenty); I still would not be welcome in the party.”
She added, “Clearly, moderate voices are not wanted in the party right now. And, that’s a real shame because we are passionate people who believe in good public policy, policy that balances the need for fair taxation with good governance — the foundation of a civil and healthy society.”
This election cycle wasn’t a bed of roses for Koesten.
“It was a tough year,” she said. “We had the far-right pushing mods out in the primaries and the Trump effect during the general, pushing mods out. There’s this tension going on in Kansas and across the country that’s really focused on what do our parties look like. I think moderates in particular on both sides of the aisle got wedged in between all of that.”
For almost three years, Koesten was on the run constantly. First it was fundraising and campaigning, and then serving her constituents while living five months of the year in Topeka, holding town meetings and trying to raise money for her re-election campaign. Now she is “getting back in the groove of regular life” by spending time with family and friends and finding time to travel.
“All of that is constrained when you are in office,” she said.
Later this month, Koesten will resume her teaching duties at the University of Kansas in the Department of Communication Studies, teaching two classes this spring for the Lawrence campus and teaching at the Edwards campus in the fall. She will also engage in a variety of volunteer activities — fundraising for Jackson County CASA’s 2019 Light of Hope Breakfast, stepping into a more active role with Jewish Federation and embarking, along with her husband, Stewart, on a substantial capital campaign with Children’s Mercy Hospital focused on community behavioral health.
Looking back on her term as a legislator, Koesten points to several accomplishments.
“In addition to the school finance bill, we passed tax reform and a budget that began to stabilize our state,” she wrote in her newsletter. “We also passed foster care reform and finalized important work on juvenile justice reform, just to name a few. We fell short when it came to Medicaid expansion, but I believe there will be an opportunity at some point this session despite the new majority leader’s aversion to helping poor, sick people.”
When she discussed her accomplishments, she almost always said “we” instead of “I.” Koesten explained “we” referred to her moderate colleagues — both Republicans and Democrats.
“We lost a lot of really good moderate Democrats this last go-around,” she said, as well as “amazing public servants who were moderate Republicans who were forced out just like me. That’s a shame.”
As has been her theme since she ran for office, Koesten continues to believe Kansas’ state agencies are in a state of disarray.
“It’s going to take years to restore them, but we made some good progress in the two years that we were there,” she said. “We did some tough things to rectify some of the damage that was done.”
Koesten said she was “very, very proud” to have been a part of the mental health caucus and enjoyed being a part of the women’s caucus, which she characterized as a “coalition of smart women who were willing to tackle problems and have conversations.”
“We didn’t always agree but there was a willingness to have those conversations, and that was really important to me,” she said.
Koesten liked “almost every single thing” she did as a legislator. She enjoyed the camaraderie of working with her colleagues and learning about everything that goes on in the state. Getting to know her constituents was perhaps the best part of her job.
“I had a lot of constituents that came up and visited me in the statehouse,” she explained. “To have people in my district reach out and say, ‘I want to spend the day with you’ was really gratifying.”
Yet she said there was a lot of ugliness in the politics of state government.
“When you have 125 house members from all walks of life with totally different world views and diverse agendas, it can be incredibly stressful to try to find that common ground,” she said. “I have to say that there were very few people that I couldn’t have a civil conversation with. Even if we disagreed on policy, typically we would find that common ground or at least we would be respectful to each other and have those conversations.”
Perhaps the hardest part for Koesten was “recognizing that there are forces beyond what elected officials are engaged in that drive the narrative.” She believes it’s hard to fight those outside forces.
“Until we get outside money out of our politics, I don’t see things changing dramatically and that is distressing,” she commented. “But I don’t think we can close a blind eye and just say ‘Oh well, I can’t fight it.’ I think we have to find ways to be vocal about how destructive these outside forces are, and there are plenty of them. It’s just where we are right now as a country.”
Will she run again?
“I haven’t ruled it out,” she said. “It depends on what happens in the next two years. I don’t believe that the people in my district are as far right as the new representative thinks they are, so I’ll be watching closely to see how she votes and to see how my constituents react to that.”
