Republican Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas
Credit: AP/Orlin Wagner

The statement was simple. Factual.

A Kansas spokesperson was acknowledging that the state highway department didn’t have the money to rebuild a dangerous stretch of Interstate 70 that had been the scene of multiple wrecks and a grisly motorcycle fatality caught on video.

“KDOT has lost a lot of money over the last few years,” the spokesperson said. “There’s just no funding at this point.”

Simple, yes. But in Gov. Sam Brownback’s cash-strapped administration, those were fighting words. Days later, the spokesperson was fired.

“Your article was the nail in my coffin for being the face of KDOT,” the spokesperson said in an email to The Kansas City Star.

“My No. 1 question to anybody who opts in favor of nondisclosure is, ‘What are you trying to hide from us?’  ” said former Rep. John Rubin, a Johnson County Republican, calling Kansas “one of the most secretive, dark states in the country in many of these areas.”

What’s hidden are stories of regular Kansans who have suffered inside the silence.

In the course […]

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