Kansas’ public humiliation beyond its borders continues, this time in the form of Popular Science magazine’s annual “The Worst Jobs in Science” list. “Kansas Biology Teacher” was accorded the No. 3 spot (after “Human Lab Rat” and “Manure Inspector”). Olathe high school science teacher Brad Williamson explained, “The evolution debate is consuming almost everything we do. It’s politicized the classroom. Parents will say their child can’t be in class during any discussion of evolution, and students will say things like, ‘My grandfather wasn’t a monkey!’” Of Kansas’ reputation, Williamson said, “We’ve heard anecdotally that our students are getting much more scrutiny at places like medical schools. I get calls from teachers in other states who say things like ‘You rubes!’ But this is happening across the country. It’s not just Kansas anymore.” So why is Kansas feeling most of the pain?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kansans tempted by the campaign for a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) should keep an eye on Colorado, where voters decide today whether to take a five-year break from TABOR’s spending limits in an effort to fix that state’s budget nightmare. Denver’s mayor even parachuted out of a plane recently to draw attention to the state’s TABOR-related shortfalls. As Kansas Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, told The Kansas City Star, “The key lesson to be learned from Colorado is that they’re having a very difficult time fixing the problems TABOR created.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush’s response last week to the indictment of top White House aide “Scooter” Libby was a terse statement affirming that the accused are presumed innocent until proved guilty. Of course, no one would argue with that bedrock legal principle. But Bush missed a chance to communicate to the American people that he takes the Plame affair and the indictment seriously and that unethical behavior — not just illegality — is unacceptable in the White House.
He doesn’t even have to apologize to the American people or fire Karl Rove, as Democrats are demanding, to make that point.
Unlike past presidents facing scandal, Bush doesn’t seem inclined to admit any weakness by shaking things up on his staff. Instead, the Bush team is downplaying the charges, digging into a bunker mentality and hoping it all goes away.
More passivity and drift from this supposedly take-charge president.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
On today’s Opinion pages, Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, questions the timing of Eric Rosen’s swearing-in as a justice on the Kansas Supreme Court. Now a Shawnee County District Court judge, Rosen was named to the seat by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in July. But he won’t take his oath until mid-November, just late enough to avoid a retention election next year — the first such statewide vote since the court came under such heavy criticism for its death penalty and school finance rulings. “The chief administrative judge in Shawnee County did request that Rosen stay on the District Court through the end of October, but this does not explain why Rosen needs to delay taking his seat on the Supreme Court until mid-November,” Landwehr notes. It does make you wonder, though buying Landwehr’s suspicion means concluding that Rosen and Sebelius are lying about the timing.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Both conservatives and liberals are pointing fingers and trying to tar judges with the “activist” label. But Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King is thankful for activist judges in the past. He wrote: “It was a default by elected leaders that led an ‘activist’ Supreme Court to decide in 1956 that it was unconstitutional to require that Rosa Parks and other black passengers in Montgomery, Ala., sit at the back of buses solely because of their race. . . . Alabama argued then, as do conservatives today, that courts have no business second-guessing decisions of states and cities that are acting within their own laws. . . . But ‘activist’ high court justices, bless their souls, examining the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, found violations of the rights of black passengers that Alabama was either too blind or too unrepentant to see.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Sex offenders don’t have lobbyists, which is why they are easy marks for politicians seeking votes and why nobody much cares about rules such as those forbidding them to observe Halloween. But sex offenders who’ve completed their sentences are still entitled to some rights. That’s why lawmakers should be cautious about the proposal by House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, to establish a 2,500-feet sex offender-free zone around schools or licensed day care centers, and perhaps around other kid-friendly places statewide. Indeed, in some tiny towns, such a buffer would zone out sex offenders entirely. Mays’ proposed crackdown on offenders who fail to register their addresses with authorities seems warranted, though locking them up won’t come free. Is this measure a “top priority for the Legislature this session,” as Mays said Friday? Or is it just a top priority for Mays’ gubernatorial campaign?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A Senate subcommittee chaired by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., recently held a hearing on the proposed “Marriage Protection Amendment” and likely will take up the legislation again this week. “The threat to marriage is imminent and the time to act is now,” Brownback has said. “The will of the American people is in danger of being thwarted by the will of an unaccountable, activist federal judiciary.” But the effort by Brownback and others to amend the Constitution to redundantly ban gay marriage seemingly contradicts the goal that many of them have of overturning Roe v. Wade. Consider what conservative guru Robert Bork told The Washington Post last week: “It is difficult to get across to many Americans that overturning Roe v. Wade does not make abortion illegal, it merely returns it to the state legislatures and ultimately to the people.” Actually, what’s difficult for many Americans to comprehend is why states can be trusted to decide when life begins but not which lovers can wed.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
