A relaxed, confident Gov. Kathleen Sebelius offered her case to The Eagle editorial board last week for why she deserves re-election. (We’ll hear from GOP challenger Jim Barnett again next month.) She remains well-positioned to win, but the meeting left the editorial board wanting more from the popular incumbent in the way of big ideas for a second term, along with more substance in the race generally.
Surely one of Time magazine’s “five best governors” in 2005 should be laying out an agenda for something more bold and enduring, even considering the difficulty in seeing her proposals through a GOP-controlled Legislature.
That said, as we ask in our editorial on today’s opinion page, is it somehow too much to expect big ideas and detailed agendas in a Kansas gubernatorial race? Do Kansans prefer their governors to be competent caretakers rather than trailblazers?
FYI: Check out the video excerpts of our interview that are posted on our Opinion page.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Attorney General Phill Kline’s “church effort” memo came up in a New York Times article primarily about Wichita-based Operation Rescue West’s loss of its tax-exempt status, specifically the question of whether Kline was advocating that churches do anything illegal that could risk their own status with the Internal Revenue Service. Sherriene Jones, Kline’s communications director, suggested to the Times that Kline was referring in the memo to the churches’ pastors, not the churches themselves, and to the need to recruit volunteers for his receptions, not for his campaign. “The attorney general would never ask a church to do anything illegal,” Jones told the Times. But to many, Jones’ explanation will sound a lot like a distinction without a difference.
Meanwhile, a national religious organization responded to Kline’s memo by sending a letter last week to the Republican and Democratic national parties asking candidates to stop using churches for campaign purposes, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. “Congregations look to their religious leaders for guidance — spiritual, moral and otherwise — not manipulation on behalf of political organizations with a partisan agenda,” said C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance and a pastor at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Frustrating as it is for Sedgwick County voters to judge which judicial candidates are best, the answer is not for candidates and sitting judges to declare positions on hot-button social and political issues during the campaign. So it’s disturbing that Sedgwick County District Judge Eric Yost recently asked to join the other plaintiffs, including incoming Judge Robb Rumsey, in the federal lawsuit challenging the state’s judicial ethics canon, which limits what candidates for judge can say during campaigns.
Part of a national effort in reaction to a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Minnesota case, the push to let judges and judicial candidates speak freely sounds great on its face. “There are two sets of rights involved here — the right of the judge to speak and the right of the people to know,” Richard Peckham, the Andover attorney who chairs the statewide Kansas Judicial Watch group, told the Kansas City Star.
But the questions on the group’s candidate questionnaire reveal a narrower goal: to pin down candidates on the school-finance lawsuit, same-sex marriage, assisted suicide and abortion. Such opinions are irrelevant to a judge’s decision making, which should be based on the law. The expression of such opinions also jeopardizes impartiality and the ability to do the job once on the bench, forcing the judge to recuse himself from cases related to his stated opinions. How does that serve justice?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Americans for Prosperity Kansas issued a press release last week arguing that the Kansas economy is struggling, despite rising revenue collections. It said that from January 2006 to August 2006, Kansas ranked No. 50 in private job growth, losing 3,800 jobs. Meanwhile, during the same time period, Kansas ranked No. 1 in government job growth, gaining 15,800 jobs.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
As Congress debates a 2007 farm bill, will pro-agriculture lawmakers be able to persuade their urban colleagues to give farmers what they want? “It will be a difficult sell,” Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, said last week. “Ag is the minority. Those who care about these issues are fewer than those who don’t.” According to the Hutchinson News, Moran said there is strong congressional support for conservation programs, including the goal of having 25 percent of U.S. energy sources from renewable fuels by 2025.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
