You Can Change Politics for Good

No matter how you’re voting this November, you probably agree it’s been the kind of exhausting election season we’ll all be glad to see the back of. But if we want our communities to be as great as they can be, there’s only one thing to do: Get involved. You can make politics what it needs to be, and it’s easier than you think.

- Kristen Mascia

GROWING UP IN LEAFY Shawnee, KS, a suburb nestled southwest of Kansas City, Stephanie Sawyer Clayton adored school. Her teachers were hands-on and accessible; her district boasted some of the state’s highest graduation and college placement rates. So when it came time to put down roots with her husband, Ben, in 2001, it was an easy choice to settle in nearby Overland Park, where the schools had always been just as exceptional.

But by the time Stephanie’s daughter, Stella, was ready to enter kindergarten in 2009, much in the school district had changed. After years of funding cuts, class sizes had ballooned, extracurriculars were disappearing, and librarians couldn’t replenish bookshelves. “I’d heard complaints from friends with older kids, but now it was like, All right, this is getting real,” she says. When she found out that her PTA was seeking a volunteer to keep tabs on developments at the capitol having to do with education, she raised her hand.

Through a PTA-sponsored training program, she figured out how to follow legislation, and over the course of a year, she developed a deep reserve of knowledge. So much so that by the following year, she had decided to take her involvement further by running for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives on a platform focused on schools. She had support—but lost the election in a landslide. “I think I got 23 or 24 percent of the vote. It was embarrassing, really bad,” Stephanie says, a cringe in her voice. Still, the race ignited something within her. Two years later, she tried again and won. Now she’s running for a third term,​with a list of bipartisan accomplishments to her name.