Kansas surgeon running for U.S. Senate focuses campaign on gun policy, affordable health care

TOPEKA — Kevin Latz, a pediatric surgeon, said he has “spent way too many hours in the operating room taking bullets out of children.”

But he is also an outdoorsman, citing one of his proudest moments as a father when his daughter shot her first turkey last winter. These experiences informed one of his top policy priorities as he runs for the U.S. Senate. Latz said he wants to push for a federal gun purchasing waiting period, mandatory firearm safety training and a moratorium on the purchase of weapons at gun shows.

“Those seem to be very commonsense regulations that could go a long way towards making gun ownership safer,” he said on the Kansas Reflector podcast.

Latz, a Democrat, is one of 12 people challenging the Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall.

“My role, I think, as a surgeon, even more so than a physician, is to work in, frankly, very demanding, exacting environments, sometimes to make very difficult decisions, but always to sit and converse with the family and with my patients,” Latz said.

He said scientists are underrepresented in Congress, and his work as a physician mirrors how a lawmaker should function.

Latz filed for office in late March, falling in the middle of a large pack of Democrats.

He said it is his life experience that differentiates himself from others. His more than 30 years’ experience as a surgeon and raising three children allow him to “understand what the average Kansas husband, wife and parent is experiencing,” he said.

Latz hasn’t been on the campaign trail much, he said, but he has developed key policy stances. He said he supports reproductive rights and opposes cuts to Medicaid and federal food assistance programs.

He said he is in favor of a single-payer health insurance model that includes private insurance, adding that “a government-paying program is the most moral and cost-effective way to go.”

He wants to restore funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which he said could help Kansas farmers.

“The amount of our crops in Kansas that were going out via USAID programming was significant, and that was a huge blow, and forced our farmers to look for other markets when the USAID program was essentially defunded, if you will, early in the Trump administration,” Latz said.

Latz wants stricter guidelines for social media companies and adolescent social media use. He favors no social media for those under age 16 and argued in favor of mandatory national service as a “way to make us a more cohesive people.”

The Kansas primary election falls on Aug. 4, when Latz will be running against 10 other Democrats for the nomination to challenge Marshall in November.