Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly gave her final State of the State address Tuesday night, and it found her in a valedictory mood.

Speaking to a joint session of the House and Senate, Kelly listed a familiar litany of her accomplishments (restoring fiscal stability, balancing budgets, funding schools, bringing new jobs to the state) while celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ move across the border from Missouri. Yet reading the speech closely, one could detect a note of regret here and there, a touch of sadness.

The fact is, Kelly’s tenure was defined as much by what she prevented as what she accomplished.

Republican leaders would have slashed education spending, doubled down on the failed economic agenda of former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, done even more damage to LGBTQ+ youths. Kelly slowed or stopped much of this retrograde agenda. But next year, someone else will be delivering the State of the State, and Kansas will have entered a new era.

“If you think about the last decade in America, the speed of change we’ve endured is staggering,” Kelly told the crowd. “We now live our lives attached to devices. It’s now how we do business, how we keep up with the news, how we talk to our coworkers and our friends, even our own grandchildren.

“And in the midst of it all, we also survived a global pandemic, only to return to a world changing even faster – with remote work, AI bots, and cars that drive themselves.”

Ah, the pandemic. Kelly had scarcely a year in office before COVID-19 scrambled her plans. Medicaid expansion, one of her top priorities on the campaign trail, gave way to the urgent necessity of keeping Kansans alive as a deadly virus swept across the state. Lawmakers like former Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, made political hay of the confusion.

Years after the pandemic were distinguished by huge federal recovery spending, which brought its own conflicts and controversies. Kelly won a second a term, thanks to the a lackadaisical campaign by then-Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is now a congressman. But an enduring GOP supermajority limited her options, and she doubled down on economic development as her signature accomplishment.

Kelly had perhaps hoped to begin a new era of bipartisanship and collaboration with Kansas Republicans. Instead, they badmouthed her from the beginning, claiming she didn’t have a mandate. Her final State of the State touched on this as well.

“Instead of representing their communities, elected officials turned into foot soldiers for their political parties – firing off insults and vitriol to score likes or follows or wins for their team instead of doing what’s right for their constituents,” she said. “It’s as if they checked their free will at the door and just did as they were told. Treating their own colleagues in such angry and dehumanizing ways, just because they’re in the other party.

“And the most frightening part – it’s now become the new normal. An accepted part of political discourse. Well, I reject it. We must all reject it.”

You can see Kelly’s trademark soft touch here: She uses the plural “parties” as though she’s referring to both Democrats and Republicans. Anyone who has watched Kansas politics since 2018 knows the latter bears the lion’s share of the blame here. It’s not even close. Kansas Republican Party officials have turned blind eyes to shocking rhetoric in their pursuit of political power.

In some ways, Kelly reminds me of a president with close Kansas ties, Barack Obama. Like her, Obama ran for office as someone who transcended partisanship. However, once he moved into the executive suite, he found that Republican opponents had decided to face him with all their collected fury.

Obama spent eight years as president attempting to collaborate across the aisle. Instead, Republicans operatives such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner channeled dark currents in their own party to prevent progress.

Their work bore fruit, eventually, with the election of Donald Trump, a crude and bombastic would-be authoritarian.

Let’s hope that Kansas leaders leave us a better legacy after Kelly’s tenure.

She summed up her legacy Tuesday night: “I did not get elected governor – twice – by screaming the loudest or bullying others to get my way. Quite the opposite, I’m here because Kansans were looking for someone who would turn the volume down, to do more listening than yelling, to bring people together, to compromise and govern from the middle.”

Kelly stood against feckless partisans and should be commended for her steadfastness. She remains in office throughout the year, and who knows what surprises await. But her plans for Kansas, and her theory of politics, saw only partial fulfillment over the past decade. If only politics worked the way she suggests.

A tip of the Wirestone fez to pal Joel Mathis, whose Kelly column last month for The Kansas City Star inspired this one.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector (kansasreflector.com) works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.