from the kba president
Did you miss it? by Charles E. Branson KBA President, 2020-2021
Screenshots from sessions held during the virtual 2020 KBA Annual Meeting!
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id you miss it? Over 160 of you didn’t! Our virtual annual meeting was held on August 20 and 21. Despite some small technical difficulties on day two, the meeting was a great success! We heard from Governor Kelly and learned the state of the judiciary from Chief Justice Marla Luckert. There were entertaining ethics hours and fantastic training on unconscious bias, constitutional issues in public health and a review of U.S. Supreme Court Cases. A key feature of our annual meeting was the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment and the 150th anniversary of the 15th amendment. The fight for the right for women to vote had taken nearly 100 years for activist and reformers to win. Despite winning the right to vote 50 years sooner, it took until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to remove the legal barriers to African Americans to freely vote in elections.
I remember my first time voting. It was November 1988. I can vividly remember walking into the retirement home a few blocks from my house and giving my name to the poll worker and walking into the strange metal frame voting booth surrounded by the red, white and blue striped curtains. I am proud to be able to say that I have never missed a major election and cannot think of many local elections where I did not exercise the ultimate expression of freedom by casting a vote for a candidate or a proposition. Often times I would wonder, does my vote really count? Should I take the time to get up early and head to the polls or go on my lunch hour or even wait in line after work? Every now and then I see a reminder of what a vote means. During the primary in August, one of my local races came down to just three votes. This example may seem trite, but I am confident there were people who were relieved that they voted and other people cursing that they did not.
www.ksbar.org | September/October 2020 7
