Friends,

I spent another productive week at home, crisscrossing the district and meeting with small business owners, local officials, farmers, and everyday Kansans. It is truly a blessing to be able to represent the Second District.

As a proud Representative of a state where over 99% of businesses are small businesses – and as a member of the House Committee on Small Business – advocating for main street is one of my top priorities in Washington. This past week, I headed to Topeka to meet with the Greater Topeka Partnership.

Since 2018, the Greater Topeka Partnership has brought the Topeka Chamber, Downtown Topeka, Inc, GO Topeka, and Visit Topeka together under one roof, with the shared goal of improving the economic climate in Shawnee County and beyond. The Partnership does wonderful work for the businesses and people of our community. I provided them with an update from Washington and shared the work I’ve been doing on the federal level to ensure our main street businesses can continue to thrive in the Second District.

I also hosted a small business roundtable with the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) last week, where I discussed the positive impact the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” will continue to have on our state. As the largest small business trade association in the country, NFIB works every day to be a voice for our Kansas entrepreneurs.

The bill contains major wins for our small businesses, including making the Section 199A Qualified Business Income Deduction permanent. If Congress failed to extend this key piece of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, more than 45,000 small businesses in our district would have their tax rate raised significantly at the start of next year. The bill also permanently extends Death Tax relief, which is particularly important to our family-owned farms in Kansas, and supports growth by providing immediate expensing of capital investment.

Thank you to everyone who attended our meetings last week for taking the time to speak with me. Providing Kansans with a strong economy is incredibly important to me; I’m confident we’re well on our way to doing so.

I joined Kansans and Americans across the country in closely watching President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the White House summit he hosted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European NATO leaders.

Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images file

President Trump promised the American people he would restore peace through strength, and he’s doing just that. Kansans I talk to every day are very clear about two things: they want the endless bloodshed in Ukraine to end, and they don’t want our military to be involved.  I couldn’t agree more with both of these points, and I’m hopeful President Trump is making substantial progress toward ending the war and finally delivering peace in Eastern Europe.

On Friday, I joined KVOE in Emporia to discuss my thoughts on the negotiations.

ABC News map

Congress also has a major role to play in restoring America’s strength. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I work on legislation that directly affects our military every day. Prior to leaving for our extended district work period, our committee advanced the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual bill which authorizes funding for our entire military. This year’s NDAA will make our military more lethal, improve our servicemembers’ quality of life, and ensure the Department of Defense is always ready to respond to any threat.

I’ll be back in Washington next week, where my colleagues and I will support commonsense legislation the American people expect.