Mayor Quinton Lucas
Mayor Quinton Lucas grew up in Kansas City, experienced housing insecurity as a kid, went on to study at Washington University in St. Louis and Cornell Law School, and came back home to serve. Today, as mayor of a rapidly growing city that’s hosting Super Bowl parades, the NFL Draft, and a 2026 World Cup match, he’s juggling long days, big expectations, and real challenges around housing and public safety. On the day of Kansas City’s 2023 local primary elections, we sat down with Mayor Lucas to talk about what his job actually looks like, how his childhood shaped his priorities, what advice he has for students interested in public service, and why he still believes in “retail politics” in an age of social media.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
A Glimpse Into a Mayor’s Daily Routine
BW: Johnny and I want to thank you so much for sitting down with us. We’ve been looking forward to this interview, and we hope to make it a good one.
Our goal today is to give high school students a better understanding of which career paths they might want to pursue—in this case, a career in politics and public service. And because of the timing of this interview, with the 2023 local primary elections being held today, we’ll also ask you a couple of questions about the future of Kansas City.
QL: Awesome. You guys picked great timing.
BW: I’ll start us off. What does a typical day look like for the Mayor of Kansas City? What time do you get up, what time do you go to sleep, how many meetings do you have?
QL: I usually get up around 4:30 a.m. I try to hit the gym—because I’m trying not to have a heart attack while I’m still mayor. I’m only 38, so it feels early for that.
Then I get back, have a little family time, and I’m usually doing interviews by about 7 a.m.—mostly radio and media hits. I’m at City Hall by around 9.
I try to do most of my “intellectual work”—emails, reading, anything that requires real focus—in that 4:30 to 8 a.m. window, in between the gym and being with my kid.
Once I get to City Hall, I’ll usually have meetings starting at 9. I meet with internal staff—our city manager, my chief of staff, my team—mostly between 9 and 11. We try to schedule a lot of events and public appearances in the afternoon.
In the evening, I’m often at dinners, sporting events, or community events. So usually I’m engaged politically from about 6 a.m., when I start sending emails, until 7:30 or 8 p.m. It’s pretty full. I don’t get to watch a lot of sports on TV—I miss out on that part.
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From Housing Insecurity to City Hall
JH: Why did you pursue politics? Were there any experiences in high school that pushed you in that direction?
QL: Yeah. I remember when I was in high school—I went to school on State Line, like a lot of folks here do—the mayor back then, Mayor Cleaver, came and gave a speech. I remember thinking, “Mayors actually really get stuff done.”
They’re people who can make a difference without getting bogged down as much in the partisan battles you see in Congress or in the state legislatures in Missouri and Kansas. I thought it was a great way to have an impact.
For me, a lot of that came from my own experience. What we now call “housing insecurity”—we went through that. My family was homeless for a little while when I was growing up. It was an interesting mix: I was going to Barstow, but we were also staying in a by-the-hour motel in east Kansas City at one point.
That strange combination really shaped me. It encouraged me to find a way to help people and make sure fewer kids had to go through some of the challenges I did. That’s what pulled me into public service.
Just quickly on my education: I went to Washington University in St. Louis for college. Then I attended Cornell for law school—loved it. A lot of my buddies were going to practice law in New York City and were like, “What the hell? You’re going back to Kansas City? What are you going to do with your life?”
But I’ve loved it ever since. I ran for City Council in 2015, about six years out of law school.
Thinking Beyond City Hall: Governor, Cabinet, and Executive Leadership
BW: You talked about how impactful mayors can be. Are there any other roles in government you’d consider pursuing in the future?
QL: You’re asking the good questions—the kind they’ll use against me someday in a campaign.
If we’re being honest, I think it would be amazing to be governor of a state. I don’t know if I’d ever get elected governor of Missouri, but executive positions are really interesting because you get to be the decision-maker.
Mayor, governor, president—those are the roles where you’re hiring people, setting direction, making real decisions that shape a city or state. I think that’s fascinating.
And if the current president—or a future one—ever called and said, “I want you to be Secretary of Transportation,” or something like that? I’d be very interested. That would be fascinating too.
What a Mayor Actually Does in Kansas City’s Regional Ecosystem
JH: So as mayor, are you essentially the executive for the city council?
QL: Yeah. I get to pretend to be the “president of the city,” basically.
The cool thing about Kansas City is that so many of the big things we handle are regional. The airport is in Kansas City. A lot of our public transit, big venues, big events—they all serve a region of about 2.5 million people.
So you get to have an impact that’s bigger than just Kansas City, Missouri itself. That’s exciting for me.
Balancing Competing Needs Across a Growing City
BW: On that note of making Kansas City more dynamic: with the city’s popularity growing every day, how do you balance the needs and interests of different communities?
QL: It’s the hardest thing of all.
Some people really care about more funding for the arts. Other people say, “I don’t care about that—fix the sidewalk in front of my house.” Then there are a lot of people who say, “All of the above. I want everything to be perfect.” The first step is engaging with a lot of different people. That’s why I’m out and about so much. You have to talk to people to know what’s really going on. The other important thing is finding the concerns everyone shares. Potholes, for example, are something people deal with whether they live in a wealthy neighborhood or one with much lower home values.
I try to listen a lot and engage a ton. During the pandemic, I gave my cell phone number to the whole city. People always ask, “Was that a good idea?” I say: eh. It got me a lot of random texts and calls. But it also gave me a chance to be out there, engaged and accessible. One of my biggest goals is to be the most accessible mayor in the country. And I think we’ve come a long way toward that.