If I were a betting man, I’d have wagered that a gambling bill wouldn’t pass this year. Yet, against long odds and after more than a decade of trying, the House and Senate have now approved casino gaming in Kansas. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius plans to sign it.
The measure still requires voter approval in the host counties. But given that Sumner County has already approved it and will get a casino if Sedgwick County voters don’t approve it, Sedgwick County voters have almost no choice but to approve it — a casino is going to be built, so it ought to be here, where we can share the revenue and get the jobs. The real battle will be whether the new casino will be located in Wichita, Park City or elsewhere within the county.
There will also be lawsuits to try to block the bill; opponents argue that the state constitution requires the state to actually operate the casino, and not to contract that out to private companies. But that seems unlikely to succeed.
So, ready or not and like it or not, casino gaming is coming.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Senate Democrats were right to deny the nomination of Sam Fox (in photo) to a foreign ambassador post, in light of his $50,000 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that ran the ugly smear campaign against Sen. John Kerry in 2004.
The White House withdrew the nomination Wednesday after it became clear Fox didn’t have the votes on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Kerry serves.
The Swift Boat episode was a scurrilous low point in American politics, and anyone who helped finance it isn’t fit to hold a diplomatic post.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“You see John Brown over here holding it up,” said James Conrad, pastor at First Baptist Church in Shawnee, during the anti-abortion rally at the Statehouse Tuesday, pointing to the mural of the abolitionist holding a Bible. “I really would like to see a mural of (former Attorney General) Phill Kline holding it up right next to John Brown over here, because Phill Kline upholds the word.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Interesting how FBI Director Robert Mueller chose to blame his management and agency rather than the USA Patriot Act in Senate testimony Tuesday about the FBI’s shocking misuse of the authority to gather phone, e-mail and financial records on Americans without a warrant. “The statute did not cause the errors. The FBI’s implementation did,” Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Still, in light of the abuses, the new Congress needs to ensure that the Patriot Act’s far-reaching tools are necessary.
Some of Tuesday’s talk did seem premature: The suggestion from Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that the FBI’s spying powers might be better trusted in the hands of a new agency. Surely new bureaucracy isn’t the answer.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A Survey USA poll contains grim news for Mayor Carlos Mayans: He hasn’t made up much ground since his double-digit loss to Carl Brewer in the mayoral primary. The poll found that 58 percent of likely voters plan to vote for Brewer and 36 percent for Mayans. And as in the primary results, Brewer led across the board, in every demographic category.
That’s a huge gap for Mayans to close with less than one week left before the general election.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The attorney for Sedgwick County District Court Judge Rebecca Pilshaw said she “will be very careful to conform her conduct” to suit the state’s Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which recently gave her two “cease-and-desist” orders over her handling of two criminal cases. She’d better make some changes. Pilshaw also came in last among 26 Sedgwick County judges in the 2006 survey evaluating the court conducted by The Eagle and the Wichita Bar Association. The only woman on the local bench, she could face trouble should she run for re-election next year. So could Judges Warren Wilbert and Richard Ballinger, who received similar orders from the commission last year related to a sexual harassment complaint by a Courthouse employee.
But that’s how our county’s system of electing judges works. And why it works, some would argue — because judges have to answer to voters.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
