“We know who these people are. They’re the good guys. Why would we take the good guys’ right to defend themselves away?” – Rep. Jim Howell, R-Derby, talking on Kansas City public radio station KCUR about the new law allowing concealed-carry in more public buildings
“This is definitely an unfunded mandate. I just don’t like someone telling me what I can do in my house.” – Pratt County Sheriff Vernon Chinn, about the concealed-carry expansion
“We have become a pawn in a game of high-stakes poker.” – Shawn Naccarato, director of community and governmental relations at Pittsburg State University, on how higher-education funding figures into the Statehouse’s sales-tax debate
“Why in the world would we abolish one of the rarest things in American political history, a government program that’s working?” – Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, in the Washington Times, on federal legislation that would repeal the E-Verify immigration-status check system
It’s too bad, but not at all surprising, that mediation talks on the state’s school-funding lawsuit have been unsuccessful. Because of confidentiality agreements, it is unclear whether more meetings are scheduled. But given that the state lost the last lawsuit, then reneged on the funding agreement, then chose to cut taxes rather than restore funding, the case always has seemed headed to the Kansas Supreme Court. And it’s difficult to imagine the high court failing to uphold the lower court’s ruling that state funding is unconstitutionally low.
That didn’t take long. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (in photo) informed Gov. Sam Brownback that part of a new state gun law is unconstitutional — the provisions saying guns made in Kansas are immune from federal regulation and prohibiting federal officials from enforcing those regulations. “In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, (the law) directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Holder wrote. State lawmakers were told by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office that the law was unenforceable, yet they passed it anyway, and Brownback signed it into law. Now taxpayers will get stuck paying the legal bills in a losing attempt to defend the law.
The Kansas Bioscience Authority was set up with a separate governing board in an attempt to minimize political influence on funding decisions. But those walls have been crumbling in recent years. Wichita lawmakers intervened to get funding for a local project, and now Gov. Sam Brownback wants to use KBA’s funding to help pay for an adult stem cell research center. The Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center was an idea hatched this year by some state senators and will be part of the University of Kansas Medical Center. KU never asked for the center, and the project’s medical and commercial merit was never vetted. As part of the spending adjustments that he released this week, Brownback proposed diverting almost $1.2 million from KBA next year to create the center and about $750,000 annually to help pay for its operation.
“This 1-cent sales tax will only last for three years, then drop to 0.4 cents to pay for the ongoing transportation plan,” wrote Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson (in photo) in July 2010, arguing the statewide sales-tax increase would avert a sixth round of budget cuts and help fund schools, public safety and social services. But now Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is lobbying the House to join the Senate and extend the full 6.3 percent sales-tax rate – to avoid cuts to higher education and other items in a budget under pressure from last year’s deep income-tax cuts. How does Parkinson feel about the likelihood of his temporary tax hike being made permanent? When The Eagle editorial board e-mailed Parkinson, now president and chief executive officer of the American Health Care Association in Washington, D.C., he said: “I believe that interjecting myself in current issues would just be noise and not helpful. Running a state is not easy. The current governor and Legislature don’t need me second-guessing their actions.”
Gov. Sam Brownback’s effort to turn Kansas into a “red-state model” was featured in a long report on National Public Radio last weekend. Brownback explained how he wants to put Kansas on a “glide path” to zero income taxes as a way to create growth and attract investment. But economist Brad DeLong warned that Brownback’s approach likely will produce “a relatively low-wage form of economic development” and result in social services that are “quite lousy.” Former Gov. Bill Graves also was interviewed and blamed Kansas’ sharp shift to the right on a well-funded effort to “suggest that less government is gonna be better for everyone.”
Praise is due Sens. Pat Roberts (left) and Jerry Moran (right), R-Kan., for trying again to do something about the 11 natural-gas storage fields in the state that have gone without government inspection since a 2009 court ruling. Like their similar 2011 bill, the latest legislation should be a no-brainer – “allowing states to step in when the federal government fails to monitor natural-gas storage sites,” as Moran said in a statement. Anyone wondering why this matters should check with residents in Hutchinson, the site of a 2001 tragedy in which migrating gas underground caused explosions that killed one couple and destroyed a block of downtown businesses. The longer Congress waits to respond to the federal government’s inaction and to restore the state’s authority to regulate interstate gas storage, the greater the risk of more explosions.
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ty Masterson, R-Andover, has a novel way to help prevent budget cuts to higher education: Use the $15 million to $30 million in savings resulting from the merger of the Kansas Turnpike Authority with the Kansas Department of Transportation. “I would be willing to use (those savings) to keep higher ed where it was at in the governor’s proposal,” Masterson said. The problem is that the savings are a made-up number. The Brownback administration was never able to explain how a merger would save that much money. Also, lawmakers were so concerned that the merger could degrade the turnpike that they only partially merged the agencies, and they made clear that turnpike fees could not be spent on other roadways.
“We got rid of the wind production tax credit. I worked really hard on it. We got rid of it for 23 hours. Crowning achievement of my time here in Congress so far. And then in the Senate, they stuck it back in, in the dark of night.” – Rep. Mike Pompeo (in photo), R-Wichita, at a Politico forum on energy and taxes
“There was a bright light in the room.” – Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sparring with Pompeo
“An alien who has a terrorist background can call himself ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ without having to prove that that is his real name.” – Secretary of State Kris Kobach, arguing against an immigration-reform bill last week in Senate Judiciary Committee testimony
“The testimony had nothing to do with this office.” – Kobach spokeswoman Kay Curtis, after Sunflower Community Action asked in a news release, “Has Anyone Seen Kris Kobach in Kansas?”
“If I do vote for it, it would end my political career. Politics in this state are brutal.” – Rep. Don Hineman, R-Dighton, at a Garden City forum, saying he won’t support the governor’s effort to retain the higher sales-tax rate
It’s amazing how flippant some state lawmakers are about the state’s legal bills, considering them just a cost of doing business. No, they are a cost of making bad laws. The Kansas Attorney General’s Office estimated last week that it will need an additional $1.2 million to defend likely challenges to the state’s new gun, abortion and drug-testing laws. It’s already spent more than $750,000 defending previous abortion laws (and cases are still in the courts). The Attorney General’s Office even told lawmakers earlier in the session that parts of the new gun law couldn’t be enforced and would spur costly lawsuits, but lawmakers passed the bill anyway. It’s as if they are spending other people’s money. No, wait – they are.
Though the roles of men and women in the workplace have changed greatly in the past few decades, education has been slower to see changes, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. For example, 89 percent of all the active elementary teaching licenses in Kansas are held by women, according to the Kansas State Department of Education. But men still hold 58 percent of the leadership and administrative roles. Education could benefit from more male elementary teachers and more female administrators.
The state’s new revenue estimates released last week show the stark budget challenge facing the state – how to cover the loss of nearly $1 billion of revenue over two years, mostly due to the tax cuts signed by Gov. Sam Brownback and the scheduled reduction in the statewide sales-tax rate. Actual revenue receipts in fiscal year 2012 were $6.4 billion. The new revenue estimate for next fiscal year is $5.45 billion. That drop is considerably more than what occurred during the Great Recession, when revenue dropped by $618 million over a three-year period, according to former state budget director Duane Goossen. Federal stimulus money helped offset a significant amount of that drop. Another big difference between then and now: The previous budget problems were triggered by a global economic crisis that was beyond our control; the current shortfall is self-inflicted.
Predictably, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was a star witness at Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill, fearmongering about its potential to lead to more attacks like the Boston Marathon bombings. But another witness, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist (in photo), surprised some with his testimony in favor of reform, arguing that “people are an asset, they’re not a liability,” and that those who would make the nation less immigrant-friendly “would also make us less successful, less prosperous and certainly less American.” Afterward, Norquist tweeted: “Anti-immigrant witnesses @ Senate Judiciary hearing were quite weak. The communities of faith, farmers and business guys are all with Reagan.” When Norquist visited Topeka in January with a similar message for conservative legislators, Kobach responded that Norquist “has no legal expertise in immigration law.”
Law enforcement authorities in Wichita can take pride in having helped pass the state’s new anti-human trafficking law, which Gov. Sam Brownback signed Monday. Because of local officials’ good work investigating and prosecuting such cases in recent years, traffickers now will face tougher justice statewide, as vulnerable victims and survivors are handled with more care and compassion. “Kansas has made great strides forward in the fight against modern-day slavery with this new law,” said Brownback, who was a leader in the global fight during his time in the U.S. Senate. As the bill passed the Legislature unanimously, though, one concern got too little attention: its resulting costs to local governments. In February, Sedgwick County commissioners were told by county staff that such legislation would cost the county about $255,000 more a year.
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An Associated Press photo showing “JESUS + Mary” written at the top of Gov. Sam Brownback’s notes about the abortion bill he signed Friday has received some national media notice. The sweeping bill blocks tax deductions for abortion providers and those who receive abortions, requires abortion clinics to provide information about how abortion may cause an increase in breast cancer, and declares that life begins “at fertilization.” The typewritten portion of Brownback’s notes stated that the bill would create “a culture of life” in Kansas.
Proponents of the Second Amendment Protection Act, which Gov. Sam Brownback signed last week, see no legal problem with its wording exempting Kansas-made guns from federal laws. But Robert Cottrol, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Huffington Post that the Constitution’s commerce clause generally covers trade within a single state that affects trade in a given industry nationwide. He suggested another way to exempt Kansas gun owners from federal gun laws: “Declare a large number of citizens deputies. That would be in the power of state government.”
Is Gov. Sam Brownback sure that Kansas should be like Texas? An annual report by the Texas Legislative Study Group lists some of that state’s poor performance measures, including that it’s first among states in the percentage of population uninsured, 50th in percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care in first trimester, first in amount of hazardous waste generated, 50th in percentage of population who graduated from high school, 47th in average SAT combined scores, seventh in percentage of children living in poverty, third in percentage of population with food insecurity, 44th in median net worth of households, and 50th in per capita state spending on mental health.
In a week full of awful news, one story stood out as hopeful – the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the infant-mortality rate dropped 10.5 percent nationally and 15.6 percent in Kansas between 2005 and 2011. The state has done good work in recent years trying to address its comparatively high rate of infant deaths, including by convening a Kansas Blue Ribbon Panel on Infant Mortality. Together with the March of Dimes and other private efforts, state leaders need to keep up the study of infant deaths and be aggressive in targeting medical factors such as congenital abnormalities, preterm births and sudden infant death syndrome. For example, Kansas Health and Environment Secretary Robert Moser recently announced an initiative to cut the premature birthrate from 11.2 to 10.3 percent by the end of 2014.
“I think we’re all Bostonians this week.” – Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn (in photo), at last week’s commission meeting
“It just reminds you that with public service comes the real possibility that you could be a target.” – Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., about the letters possibly contaminated with ricin that were sent to President Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.
“Imitation is the finest form of flattery.” – Mike O’Neal, president and CEO of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, on Missouri legislation to slash individual income taxes on business income
Will the recently passed Kansas bill declaring that life begins at fertilization lead to efforts next session to increase regulation on or restrict in vitro fertilization? “I won’t be surprised,” Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. She cited a hearing in February organized by Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee, that featured only critics of in vitro fertilization, in which eggs are fertilized outside a woman’s body. Pilcher-Cook also argued during the legislative debate this session that fertilized eggs stored in a fertilization clinic’s freezer have the same inherent value as people who already are born. She told the Capital-Journal last week that she hopes to co-sponsor legislation next session that will have bipartisan support.
Duane Goossen, former longtime state budget director, warned that the state’s “current spending levels dramatically exceed expected income.” On his blog for the Kansas Health Institute, Goossen noted that state general fund spending approved for fiscal year 2013 is nearly $6.2 billion, while the estimated revenue for fiscal 2014 is only $5.4 billion. He also said the fiscal 2014 budgets proposed by the governor, Senate and House variously rob highway money and cut higher education and courts but still don’t get to even $6.1 billion. “The inability to close the gap with spending cuts suggests the solution must be increased revenue,” Goossen wrote, saying the governor and lawmakers could “transfer money from other funds,” “use up the available bank balance” and “add tax revenue.” They also can hope Friday’s updated revenue estimates will narrow the budget gap, he wrote.
Kansas’ new law to drug test some recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance or unemployment benefits is narrower than the one that sparked a long court case in Florida, so it should lead to fewer tests and legal problems. But it requires that welfare applicants or recipients be screened “when reasonable suspicion exists” that they are using a controlled substance, which seems a subjective standard at best. It will cost the state an estimated $1 million next year and require four additional state employees. And as Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill Tuesday, it was disappointing to see him join those claiming the law’s main purpose is to help people by providing treatment. Who doubts that for many of the 29 senators and 106 representatives who voted for the bill, the motivation was more punitive than beneficent, and based on the myth that drug abuse is rampant among welfare recipients?
Before passing a bill that eliminates most mandates on health insurance, shouldn’t the Kansas House first make sure that such stripped-down coverage meets the coverage standards of the Affordable Care Act? But when asked on the House floor whether the “mandate-lite” policies qualified, Rep. Phil Hermanson, R-Wichita, vice chairman of the House Insurance Committee, said he didn’t know. “At this point, I couldn’t dissect everything that’s covered or not covered,” he said. Yet the House approved the bill anyway. So would the policies qualify? No, said Linda Sheppard, director of the Kansas Insurance Department Division of Accident and Health.
“Republican Sen. Pat Roberts is on a glide path toward re-election, having won endorsements from each of the state’s four members of Congress as well as five statewide officeholders,” wrote Kansas City Star columnist Steve Kraske. “Oh, did I mention he’s got $1.1 million in the bank, too?” Kraske also credited Gov. Sam Brownback and his political operative, David Kensinger, with “the solidarity the Kansas GOP is maintaining in the wake of its historic clean-sweep election of 2010. The temptation to break rank and run for Senate or governor, and trigger a primary, is extraordinary given the number of down-ballot officeholders with oversized ambitions,” he wrote. “But so far, the dam is holding.” Of course, the newly powerless moderate Republicans are angry and restless, and will see their only statewide officeholder, Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, retire after 2014. The GOP primary for that job will feature at least three conservatives, including repeat candidate David Powell of El Dorado.
“We should swallow hard and extend the sales tax,” concluded Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rose, urging the House to go along with the Senate and Gov. Sam Brownback. The 2012 tax plan won’t be repealed, Rose wrote, and extending the sales-tax hike beyond its June 30 sunset date is the only way to avoid draconian budget cuts to K-12 schools, higher education and social programs as state revenue ebbs. “It is appropriate to feel sympathy for those who would like to see the governor pay the price for his irresponsible income tax cuts. And sympathies abound for those who were viciously attacked for supporting the sales-tax hike in the first place,” Rose wrote. “But let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot while aiming at Brownback.”
