Alex Van Dyke

Hello, I'm Alex Van Dyke, and I am running to be the District 67 House Representative. A brief history about me, I was born and raised in Topeka. I went to school in the Washburn Rural district. When I was 18, I came to Kansas State University for college because it's got the best engineering school in the state. I went on to get my bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a second degree in Mathematics. Since I'm apparently a glutton for punishment, I then spent two years getting my Master's in Mechanical Engineering. While still completing my Master's, I worked for GE Aviation in town for 2.5 years. Then I got an offer at CivicPlus that allowed me to stay in Manhattan longer (and drink beer at work). Before my engineering career, I also spent a good deal of time in the service industry; about 5 years of waiting tables at 3 different restaurants. I've also worked as a tutor at Kansas State as well as Sylvan Learning Center. Over the last ten years, I’ve also acted as Director of Engineering for Primary Mobile Med International, a startup company which turns shipping containers into mobile medical clinics for Third World Countries and disaster relief.

In March, I organized the Manhattan March for Our Lives sister march. I joined Moms Demand Action shortly thereafter as their Spokesperson and Media Lead.

 

On May 30, my wife, Simran, and I welcomed our first child, Athena, into the world. The memories I’ll make with my family in this city are just one of the many reasons I’ve tried hard to stay here. And I want other Kansas families -- all families, of all shapes and all sizes -- to have those adventures, those memories, of this state, too. My wish to make these experiences a reality for all Kansans is what pushed me over the edge from an activist to a candidate.

 

I want to bring Kansas into a safe and inclusive future; a future where our children are protected and surrounded by love and acceptance for all. A future where Kansas is a shining example of education, healthcare, and inclusion for the rest of the country, motivating companies and jobs to move into the state.

 

I will be fighting for a Kansas that works for ALL Kansas families. This is why my core platform is based on family essentials:

 

Expanding Medicaid and restructuring KanCare.

• Our current legislators, my opponent for KS67 included, have twice failed to pass Medicaid expansion, leaving more than $5 billion dollars of your taxes on the table to go to other states and making hundreds of thousands of Kansans un- or under-insured.

• Access to rural and mental healthcare must be a priority. Closing hospitals due to a lack of funds which we have the ability to access is absolutely unacceptable. The new Mental Crisis Center being built in Manhattan might only be funded through its first year.

• Thousands of jobs will be added by expanding Medicaid.

 

Adequately funding education, fighting for our teachers, and fight for our kids

• Reinstate due process for teachers, which will help attract, hire, and maintain highly-qualified teachers

• Provide universal preschool, so parents can more easily get back to work to provide for their families while not sacrificing their child's development

• Reinstate the arts commission Brownback dismantled

• Most of all, we need to be inclusive of all Kansans and lead our kids by example that everyone is accepted here.

• Fix the broken foster care system, return it to being ran by the state, and provide more money for social workers and staff to properly care for the children.

 

Balancing out the tax income revenue that was destroyed by the Brownback-Colyer experiments that forced our food sales tax to be the highest in the nation. 

• Making a tax structure that is fair, equitable, and allows our state to pay its bills

• Decreasing sales tax (especially on food) and property taxes

• Setting universal guidelines for sales tax exemption, and hold companies accountable when they don’t meet those guidelines. We are giving away over $1 Billion a year on exemptions

• Giving taxing power back to local government -- I know. A democrat advocating for smaller government. Crazy, right?

 

Anti-discrimination and Equal Pay law expansion

• Immediately overturn the discriminatory law, passed in part with a vote from your current representative, that allows our tax dollars to go to private adoption agencies, even if they reject potential parents for religious reasons. This enables them to discriminate against single parents, parents of different religious views, or parents of the LGBTQ+ community.

• I’m also going to fight for an equal-pay law and paid leave for new parents. The unjust and exclusionary practice of paying women less and forcing them down different career paths practiced by private industry affects single moms, especially moms of color, the most. Our current pay rates for women currently put Kansas at 37th in the nation for equal pay. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research projects that, at the current rate, women and men will not reach equal pay until 2059. Twenty. Fifty-nine.

• Paid family leave will allow our families to remain in the workforce while still taking care of their loved ones.

 

How do we make this wish come true for all Kansas families? Well, I’ll need your help. We’ll all need your help. I’m not surprising anyone when I say we have an uphill battle against a conservative incumbent, who masquerades as a “moderate” -- until he gets his orders to toe the party line.

 

The support for our vision of an inclusive, diverse Kansas is out there -- they just need to know we’re out here, too. So canvass, if not for me, for another candidate you believe in. Donate, protest, share on Facebook, and, most of all, VOTE.

 

I’m not doing this for me. Running for a state seat is not going to be easy with a young family and a job to continue. But I have to. I have to for Kansas. I have to for my daughter and all children in the state. By voting for me, you are committing to a better future for all Kansans; a future our state's children can be proud to call home.