Jason Kander

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Jason David Kander (born May 4, 1981) is an American attorney, writer, and politician.

He served as Missouri's 39th Secretary from 2013 to 2017.

He served as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 2009 to 2013.

He served as an intelligence officer in the Army National Guard before entering politics, rising to the rank of captain. In 2016, he was the Democratic nominee for Missouri's Senate seat, barely losing the election to Republican incumbent Roy Blunt.

Kander founded Let America Vote, a group dedicated to ending voter suppression following the Senate election.

He registered himself as a candidate in the 2019 Kansas City mayoral election but later revealed he suffered from PTSD and depression.

Early life and education

Kander was born in Overland Park, Kansas, the son of Janet (née Secor), a juvenile probation officer, and Steve Kander, a police officer who later operated a small company. Kander was born in a Jewish household that he describes as "Reform but not very observant." He and his younger brother, Jeff, were raised in Shawnee, Kansas, and several troubled children were raised by his parents. He graduated from Bishop Miege High School in 1999, where he played baseball and was a member of the debate team.

He studied political science at American University in Washington, D.C.

Personal life and family

Kander married Diana Kander (née Kagan), a high school sweetheart, entrepreneur, and author, in 2003. In 1989, Diana and her family immigrated from the Soviet Union. True is the couple's one son, who was born in September 2013, and Bella, who was born in September 2020, has one daughter named Bella.

Kander is the grand-nephew of musical composer John Kander, whose best-known works include Cabaret and Chicago. He is a distant cousin of Lizzie Black Kander, author of The Settlement Cookbook. He is a huge fan of the Kansas City Royals.

Kander also plays centerfield for the Kansas City Hustlers of the National Men's Adult Baseball League.

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Political career

Heartland Democrats of America (HDA) was a political action committee established in Kansas City, Missouri, by Kander and his partner, Diana. He was treasurer from 2007 until 2007. During the campaign for Democratic candidates and causes, HDA raised over one hundred thousand dollars from special interest groups and individuals. Notable supporters included current and former state and local legislators, as well as national figures, such as Terry McAuliffe, a senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley; and Project Judaica Foundation president Mark Talisman, an author and scholar.

The goal of HDA was to "recognize the need for Democrats to participate in, expand, and ultimately win the 'values debate.' Members of HDA know that progress can't wait until the next campaign season because Democrats are able to start changing minds now. In Missouri and throughout America's Heartland, HDA promotes strong Democratic values. The apologetic Democrat in middle America is set to die indefinitely, replaced by a unifying values message that is inclusive of middle America's hard-working people." In 2008, HDA was officially decommissioned.

Kander was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2008, representing the 44th district. In the primary election, he easily defeated two other Democrats, and he was unchallenged in the general election.

Kander, a member of the Budget Committee, protested no-bid contracts and continued to pass balanced budgets without raising taxes. He helped pass legislation to upgrade Missouri's human trafficking laws as well as a statute that allowed authorities to prevent kidnappings during custody battles. He was appointed by the Missouri Veterans Commission in 2009 to oversee all programs for the state's veterans in addition to his legislative duties. Kander co-sponsored the first big ethics reform bill in Missouri since 1991. He ran for re-election to his State Representative seat in 2010 and secured 69.6% of the vote to over Republican Sally Miller.

Kander was the chief sponsor of 28 bills during his time in the Missouri House, none of which became law.

After Robin Carnahan's announcement that she did not seek reelection, Kander declared his candidacy for the Missouri Secretary of State. In the primary election, he defeated MD Rabbi Alam, winning the Democratic nomination.

Kander defeated Speaker Pro Tempore of the Missouri House, Shane Schoeller, in the general election. Schoeller ran on a platform of tighter voter identification laws. Kander, on the other hand, opposed tighter voter identification laws, instead focusing on reforming the state's campaign finance laws.

Kander barely defeated Schoeller on November 6, 2012, and was elected Missouri Secretary of State. He was both the first millennial and the youngest statewide elected official in the country at the time at 32 years old.

Kander made ethics reform one of his top priorities when he was in office. Since Missouri has some of the country's weakest ethics laws, Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, he cautioned that this could be "an uphill battle." "I am realistic about the fact that no legislative body is able to regulate itself." Big Ethics, a community interest group in Jefferson City, is not involved. "I just want to remind legislators of both sides of the government that this is something that the average person wants of all of us," he said in 2014.

Kander entered the contest against Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, the Republican nominee, on February 19, 2015. On August 2, 2016, he defeated three other candidates in the Democratic primary against three others. Throughout the campaign, he portrayed himself as a Washington, D.C. outsider and boasted his work as an Army Intelligence officer. Blunt accused Blunt of being closely connected to Washington lobbyists (Blunt's wife and three children are in fact lobbyists). Blunt accused Kander of being too liberal.

Kander's campaign attracted national attention in September after it revealed an advert announcing his support for gun control reforms. It was depicted as "Background Checks" that it showed him assembling an AR-15 rifle while blindfolded and then challenging Blunt to try the same thing. The commercial went viral quickly, and as of November 2016, the original YouTube video had more than 1.3 million views. Kander came in a long way in the campaign, but polls began to point toward a tightening in the fall. In reaction to this, Blunt's campaign began attacking Kander for being a national co-chair for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign, Kander received endorsements from Americans for Responsible Solutions, Daily Kos, the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, and the Sierra Club.

Kander was defeated by Blunt in the general election, receiving 48.4% of the vote to Blunt's 49.2%. Despite the loss, Kander gained the most votes of any Democrat running in Missouri this year, beating Clinton, gubernatorial nominee Chris Koster, and other Democrats.

Kander announced on June 25, 2018, that he was running for mayor of Kansas City in 2019 to replace incumbent Sly James, who had been term limited.

Kander had been consistently portrayed as a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 US presidential election prior to his announcement. Speculation about his presidential aspirations had fuelled his frequent visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, and Kander had speculated that after the 2018 midterm elections were concluded, he might consider running a bid. The rumors of a bid for mayor had been put to rest by the man's campaign. Kander revealed on Twitter in January 2021 that he had been planning to run for president in 2020.

Kander dropped out of the mayoral race on October 2, 2018, citing the need for medical attention for symptoms of PTSD and depression. He also revealed that he will be stepping away for a short time as he seeks medical attention.

Kander was named as a candidate for Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Biden administration in November 2020. Denis McDonough was proclaimed the nominee later in December.

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