Joy Koesten
Joy Koesten (Democratic Party) was a member of the Kansas House of Representatives, representing District 28. She assumed office on January 9, 2017. She left office on January 13, 2019.
Koesten (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Kansas State Senate to represent District 11. She lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Koesten completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
On December 14, 2018, Koesten announced she was switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party.[1]
Biography
Joy Koesten was born in Springfield, Missouri. She earned a bachelor's degree from Southwest Missouri State University in 1978. She earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Koesten's career experience includes working as an educator in higher education. She has been affiliated with the Greater Kansas City Mental Health Coalition, Jackson County CASA, the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.[2]
Committee assignments
2017 legislative session
At the beginning of the 2017 legislative session, this legislator served on the following committees:
Kansas committee assignments, 2017 |
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• Corrections and Juvenile Justice |
• Government, Technology, and Security |
• Transportation and Public Safety Budget |
Sponsored legislation
The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.
Elections
2020
See also: Kansas State Senate elections, 2020
General election
General election for Kansas State Senate District 11
Kellie Warren defeated Joy Koesten in the general election for Kansas State Senate District 11 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | ![]() | Kellie Warren (R) | 52.7 | 24,846 |
![]() | Joy Koesten (D) ![]() | 47.3 | 22,317 |
Total votes: 47,163 | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Kansas State Senate District 11
Joy Koesten advanced from the Democratic primary for Kansas State Senate District 11 on August 4, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | ![]() | Joy Koesten ![]() | 100.0 | 7,316 |
Total votes: 7,316 | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Kansas State Senate District 11
Kellie Warren defeated incumbent John Skubal in the Republican primary for Kansas State Senate District 11 on August 4, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | ![]() | Kellie Warren | 63.9 | 9,131 |
![]() | John Skubal | 36.1 | 5,154 |
Total votes: 14,285 | ||||
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2018
See also: Kansas House of Representatives elections, 2018
General election
General election for Kansas House of Representatives District 28
Kellie Warren defeated Brian Clausen in the general election for Kansas House of Representatives District 28 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | ![]() | Kellie Warren (R) | 56.0 | 6,446 |
Brian Clausen (D) | 44.0 | 5,064 |
Total votes: 11,510 | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Kansas House of Representatives District 28
Brian Clausen advanced from the Democratic primary for Kansas House of Representatives District 28 on August 7, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | Brian Clausen | 100.0 | 1,312 |
Total votes: 1,312 | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Kansas House of Representatives District 28
Kellie Warren defeated incumbent Joy Koesten in the Republican primary for Kansas House of Representatives District 28 on August 7, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
✔ | ![]() | Kellie Warren | 58.4 | 2,176 |
![]() | Joy Koesten | 41.6 | 1,547 |
Total votes: 3,723 | ||||
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If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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2016
Elections for the Kansas House of Representatives were held in 2016. The primary election was held on August 2, 2016, and the general election was held on November 8, 2016. The candidate filing deadline was June 1, 2016.
Joy Koesten ran unopposed in the Kansas House of Representatives District 28 general election.[3][4]
Kansas House of Representatives, District 28 General Election, 2016 | ||
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Party | Candidate | |
Republican | ![]() | |
Source: Kansas Secretary of State |
Joy Koesten defeated incumbent Jerry Lunn in the Kansas House of Representatives District 28 Republican primary.[5][6]
Kansas House of Representatives, District 28 Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
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Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
Republican | ![]() |
54.21% | 1,591 | |
Republican | Jerry Lunn Incumbent | 45.79% | 1,344 | |
Total Votes | 2,935 |
Primary election
In the primary elections held on August 2, 2016, six incumbents were defeated in the state Senate, while nine incumbents were defeated in the state House. Outside of the one incumbent Democrat who was defeated in the House, moderates defeated 14 conservative Republican incumbents in the primary. Before the 2016 primary, moderate Republicans had been losing ground in the state legislature since the 2010 election of Gov. Sam Brownback (R), shifting from a more moderate Republican-controlled state legislature to a more conservative one after the 2012 elections. Eighteen Republican incumbents were defeated in the conservative wave in 2012. Jerry Lunn was one of 14 Republican incumbents who were defeated in the 2016 primary.
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Joy Koesten completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Koesten's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
Collapse all
|Koesten's research over the years focused on family communication, interpersonal communication, and health. She has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and presentations. As a founding member of the Greater Kansas City Mental Health Coalition, Koesten served as an advocate for individuals and families who are challenged with mental health and addiction disorders. She has also served on the board of Jackson County CASA; whose mission is to be the child's voice in court. CASA recruits, trains, and supports lay volunteers to act as advocates on behalf of the best interest of abused and neglected children.
Most recently, Koesten served for two years as a Kansas State Representative (District 28). She served on three committees: Corrections & Juvenile Justice, Government Technology & Security, and the Transportation & Public Safety Budget committee. Koesten also served as co-chair of the Mental Health Caucus, as a founding member of the Early Childhood Caucus, and as a member of the Women's Caucus.
- The biggest issue we face as a state is certainly rebuilding the economy, but closely tied to that is ensuring every Kansan has access to affordable health care (including mental health care) and funding our public schools. Without a ready workforce, we can't rebuild the economy. And, you can't have a ready workforce without access to health care and robust education. There is only one way to move the state forward and that is to build a coalition of elected leaders who are willing to work together. There are many ways we could strengthen relationships with elected leaders in other counties to achieve common goals. I would begin working on building these relationships on day one.
- The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted what we have known for years, access to affordable health care is critical to the well-being of every Kansan. Medicaid expansion would have strengthened our ability to manage this public health crisis and save lives; there is still time to move that forward. Our family knows firsthand that there is no health without mental health, so strengthening and integrating our mental health system into our health care system is critical to ensure the whole health of every Kansan.
- As an educator, I believe that democratic freedom requires education. Our world is changing faster than in any other time in history. Today we create more unique information in one year than we did over the course of the last 5,000 years. The amount of technical information created now DOUBLES every 72 hours. Learning to access and stay abreast of information is the only way we prepare students to join a competitive and ever-evolving global workforce. As Senator I will support legislation that: invests in a world-class public education system at all education levels, invests in teachers who are experts in their field, and fosters collaboration with business partners and civic leaders for real-world training.
Women's reproductive health.
Commerce
Education
Judiciary
Public Health and Welfare
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2016
Koesten's campaign website highlighted the following issues:[7]
Responsible budget
- Excerpt: "It is time for leaders capable of delivering a responsible budget. Kansans expect a budget which generates enough recurring revenue to support the public resources we rely upon and builds adequate reserves for our state."
Education
- Excerpt: "At the local level, our school board and administrators work diligently and responsibly to best allocate a dwindling stream of revenue from Topeka and our teachers have borne the burden of these cuts in an effort to shield students from the impact. We are weathering the crisis but this path is not sustainable."
Local control
- Excerpt: "Taking control from local officials and centralizing it in Topeka is bad for Kansas."
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Kansas scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2019
In 2019, the Kansas State Legislature was in session from January 14 through May 29.
- Kansas AFL-CIO: House
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to labor issues.
- Legislators are scored on their support for bills that the organization lists as promoting "individual liberty, limited government, free markets and student-focused education."
- Legislators are scored by the MainStream Coalition on whether they voted with the moderate position on selected bills.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on conservative issues.
2018
To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2018, click [show]. |
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In 2018, the Kansas State Legislature was in session from January 8 through April 7.
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2017
To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2017, click [show]. |
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In 2017, the Kansas State Legislature was in session from January 9 through June 26.
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See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ U.S. News & World Report, "Outgoing Lawmaker Switching From GOP to Democratic Party," December 14, 2018
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 11, 2020
- ↑ Kansas Secretary of State, "Candidate list," accessed August 23, 2016
- ↑ Kansas Secretary of State, "2016 General Election official results," accessed December 19, 2016
- ↑ Kansas Secretary of State, "Candidate list," accessed June 3, 2016
- ↑ Kansas Secretary of State, "2016 Official Kansas Primary Election Results," accessed September 12, 2016
- ↑ Joy Koesten, "Campaign Issues," accessed June 16, 2016
Political offices | ||
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Preceded by Jerry Lunn (R) |
Kansas House of Representatives District 28 2017-2019 |
Succeeded by Kellie Warren |