Kansas is not in the half of the states that require newly former legislators to effectively sit out of the game before becoming lobbyists. That’s why former House Speaker Doug Mays is already lobbying for several groups, including a payday lender, a pharmaceutical company, one group promoting a casino in southeast Kansas, and another that opposes wind farms in the Flint Hills. Three others who just left office also are among the two dozen former lawmakers registered to lobby their former colleagues. In the unlikely event that such job changes bother lawmakers, they can give serious consideration to a bill from Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, to bar legislators from becoming lobbyists for two years after leaving office.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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12 Comments
I wish they had something like that for Congressional members as well.
I remember somebody having a great idea on this one for former congressional members who turn lobbyist. Basically you would pass a law that any former Congressional member who registars as a lobbyist will have to forego their congressional pension.
Because it dosen’t make sense that a former congressional member becomes a lobbyist but still gets paid by the federal government.
Whatta guy!You can tell he’s had the people’s interests in mind the whole time he was speaker.Now he’s goana save us from eeevil wind farms, lower drug prices, and those wonderful payday lenders that help me spend all my money on dope before I ever get the money!God bwess his widdle heart.
Seriously, if you pay attention to these things, how could you be anything but disgusted?
Damn Joe.That is one helluva great idea.
They are getting big bucks from all kinds of corporate interests,let’s take their pension to help pay off the debts they create while in office.
What a seriously bad idea to be a paid lobbyist after being in a position of power like that.
What do you wanna bet the republicons kill this good bill.
It’s wrong to bar someone from participating in the political process.
Instead of this joke, bills should be passed to make what is going on in Topeka more open to the public. I do not know of any specifics, but I would bet there are plenty of ways lobbyists are getting money to the legislator in a legal, yet hidden manner.
Welcome to Kansas, where legislators take care of their own and ignore the needs of the people.Kansas is one of only 2 states to not only encourage but empower lobbyists. Apparently our legislators need the encouragement from those with a vested interest in legislation that they are doing the “right thing”.Visit the web page https://www.accesskansas.org/lobbyist/demo.html for details on how to make that special bill for your business become the law of the plains!
Your principle has placed these words above the entrance of the legislative chamber: “whosoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of legal plunder.” And what has been the result? All classes have flung themselves upon the doors of the chamber crying: “A share of the plunder for me, for me!”
– Fr?©d?©ric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy [1848]
Can we call them “Pirates” instead of “Politicians”?After all they do prey on others by means of plundering.
It cracks me up when Recons complain about organizations like MoveOn.org and George Soros, but they are prefectly fine with lobbyists like Abramoff and others.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.
“… Professor Hayek replied he’d write a law that read: Whatever Congress does for one American it must do for all Americans. He elaborated: If Congress makes payments to one American for not raising pigs, every American not raising pigs should also receive payments. Obviously, were there to be such a law, there would be reduced capacity for privilege-granting by Congress and less influence-peddling.”
It could be as easy as this. All we have to do is agree to stop meddling in others’ lives.
SB 168 is a bill proposed by a democrat. Senator Tim Huelskamp, a republican, does not have the courage to let this bill out of committee. If he did, then the republicans that did NOT vote for it would be exposed. Ah, the quiet, contrived death of a good law.
WSClark,
Democrats are just as hypocritical as Republicans, if not more so. They claim to be for the small person, but their votes and political contributions show otherwise. If you follow contributions, big business splits between D and R, and whichever party has the Congressional majority gets more money. Before the D’s lost power in the early 90’s, they received more big business money. After they lost, they still got a lot, but it went down somewhat.
Sadly, the Democrats have fallen prey to the same things they accuse the Republicans of.
The good news is one day enough people will wise up enough to vote both parties out of office.
It is pitiful that the idiots that voted Democrats back into power in Congress forgot why they were voted out in the first place. I am not advocating control go back to the Republicans, but to a replacement party. A party that actually cares about the people the Democrats claim to care about.
The Republicans took the religious conservatives for granted and lost last year. The Democrats have been taking Black and Hispanic voters for granted for many years, and at some point, it will bite them in the rear.