At that time, Kansas still had Republican leaders capable of independent thought and action, and our senior senator, James B. Pearson, was one. He engaged with Republican Party politics, served a term in the state senate, and identified with the party’s moderate or progressive wing. This did not stop in the wake of the Watergate scandal that took down his party’s president. “To say that a contemporary president would not likely abuse emergency power available to him is no guarantee that some future president under unforeseen conditions might not do so,” Pearson wrote. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.