The next time someone asked me to run, I felt called to stand up for regular people - for soccer moms and neighbors than had told me they were fed up with the direction of our state. We put together a team, knocked on thousands of doors and won a State Senate race as a first-time candidate.

In my first term, I learned that the voice of a frustrated parent is just as effective on legislators as it is on my own children. Through bipartisan legislation, we repealed the Brownback tax experiment, returned to constitutional levels of funding for public education, and made important investments in early childhood programs.

I'm running for a second term because Kansas should be a state where everyone has access to affordable health care, a world-class public education system, and a legislature that solves problems instead of creating them. Through smarter, more efficient governing, we can save time and money while achieving better outcomes for people's everyday problems.

I've got a lot of titles. I'm a State Senator, an advocate for children, a fierce supporter of public education, a wife and a mother, but you can call me Dinah. I hope you'll join our campaign to prove that we can make government work for more people with courage, compassion and common sense.