On May 6, 2008, Kansas State Senator Anthony Hensley, Democrat from Topeka and Senate Minority Leader, introduced a resolution commemorating the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s new deal.

Besides being misinformed about the true impact of Roosevelt and the new deal, Senator Hensley wastes the time and resources of the people of the State of Kansas with resolutions such as this. Sadly, not even one Kansas senator voted against this resolution.

For a true look at Franklin D. Roosevelt and his presidency, I recommend reading Ralph Raico's introduction to John T. Flynn's book The Roosevelt Myth here: John T. Flynn and the Myth of FDR.

Here's the text of the resolution:

SENATE RESOLUTION No. 1868
A RESOLUTION commemorating the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

WHEREAS, In the summer of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York, was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party at a time the country was suffering from the Great Depression. In his acceptance speech, he told the American people, ‘‘I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.’’ And, Roosevelt won the presidency by a landslide; and

WHEREAS, The New Deal was the title President Roosevelt gave to a sequence of programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving relief to the needy, reform of the country’s financial system, and recovery of the economy during the Great Depression; and

WHEREAS, The New Deal Roosevelt had promised began to take shape immediately after his inauguration in March of 1933. The first days of Roosevelt’s administration was the ‘‘First New Deal’’ aimed at short-term recovery programs and saw the quick enactment by Congress of the Emergency Banking Act, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Rural Electrification Administration (REA) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); and

WHEREAS, Later the ‘‘Second New Deal’’ led to the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, which established stronger collective bargaining rights for labor unions and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which created hundreds of thousands of low-skilled blue collar jobs for unemployed men and women; and

WHEREAS, The most important program of Roosevelt’s New Deal was the Social Security Act, which established a system of universal retirement pensions, unemployment insurance and welfare benefits for low income families; and WHEREAS, Several New Deal programs still exist under their original names, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), while the largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and

WHEREAS, The New Deal programs were a reflection of Franklin Roosevelt’s personal and political philosophy that government has an important role in helping people make ends meet and in earning money for the work performed which raises the morale of the working man and woman: Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas: That we commemorate the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal; and

Be it further resolved: That the Secretary of the Senate provide an enrolled copy of the resolution to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, c/o Cynthia M. Koch, Director, 4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, New York 12538.

On emergency motion of Senator Hensley SR 1868 was adopted unanimously.

From Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network.

How Much More Will Electricity Cost In Your Future?
Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

Governor Sebelius and her bankrupt Secretary of Health and Environment Rod Bremby (Bremby filed for personal bankruptcy over a year ago) now appear to have stopped the Kansas house from joining the Kansas senate in overriding her veto of the coal power plant expansion in western Kansas. The legislature’s final attempt at legislating a solution that would expand electrical power generation in the western half of Kansas is headed for another gubernatorial veto. The Kansas House of Representatives appears to be well short of the 84 votes needed to override her veto.

A number of legislators from northeast Kansas as well as mainly Wichita Democrats have mustered up enough house votes to kill this $3.6 billion power plant project. The May 13th death of Rep. Ted Powers, R-Mulvane, who voted to override this veto, makes a sine die override even more unlikely.

Eastern Kansans who seldom venture into western Kansas unless they are driving on I-70 to Colorado felt little direct concern on this 2008 legislative issue. That allowed the well-organized urban-based environmentalists to convince enough big city legislators from both parties to sustain Sebelius’ veto in the house.

Eastern Kansans’ power generation was not at immediate risk. Neither were their utility rates. That will change and this unpleasant and very expensive change is coming soon.

If you want details on the national plan and how this is becoming Kansas’ environmental policy the Capital Research Center (CRC) has provided the details. There is a national plan established by ultra-left wing environmental groups and CRC’s April, 20008 report (see www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1207000450.pdf) details this effort. The liberal environmental foundations are funding this state level plan to impose Kyoto Treaty like cuts in carbon energy emissions.

This will result in a huge rise in electricity costs as well as making other power sources more expensive. It will help push gasoline and other petroleum prices higher. This will be accomplished through entities like the Pennsylvania based Center for Climate Strategies that is helping establish new carbon controls by administrative edict over Kansas state policy.

Soaring utility costs will limit economic growth in a way that will restrict the economy while dramatically raising prices across the board. Here’s how it will happen.

What Governor Sebelius is trying to do at the state level in the 21st century with new restrictions on carbon based energy will soon lead to new carbon taxes. It is possible that new carbon taxes will appear at both the state and federal levels. Along with the tax hikes will be emission restrictions. Don’t forget that whenever you exhale or burn a log in the fireplace, you are emitting carbon.

Bremby’s edict is similar in impact to what former President Clinton achieved when he vetoed oil drilling in Alaska in 1995. It took roughly a decade for the lack of oil drilling to impact the U.S. oil prices. In contrast, today the demand for electrical power is growing. There is pressure on prices but major increases have not occurred. You can expect the rising demand for electricity to hit much more quickly than oil prices did a decade ago. Don’t forget that oil fell to record lows in the late 1990’s a couple of years after Clinton’s anti-energy veto.

The demise of the Holcomb power plant expansion when combined with new “carbon emissions” edicts from regulators like Bremby will negatively impact the Kansas economy in the future. This is a continuation of Democratic Party energy policies. At the beginning of the Clinton presidency, the Congress narrowly rejected the Clinton administration’s new carbon tax. This is likely to reappear in Washington next year.

The Holcomb power plant battle was not an aberration or isolated event. It is the energy tip of the “man made global warming” hoax (ironically occurring while parts of Kansas have been at or near freeze warnings well into May) that is centralizing all economic power and authority with state or federal levels of government in our state. The governor’s new energy council will include industry leaders who need to be worried about their carbon emissions.

Several established Kansas businesses are already expanding elsewhere like Bombardier and Spirit AeroSystems going to North Carolina. Cessna, whose President Jack Pelton will head up the governor’s new energy panel from the private sector, will now expand in Kansas after the state agreed to subsidize this expansion. So now, the state will be picking “winners and losers” in our economy.

Westar Energy, the electrical power company that owns a number of Kansas coal fired power plants, is now seeking higher electrical rates to pay for new pollution equipment costs from the KCC. They need to do this since their existing coal fired power plants are not nearly as low pollution as the Holcomb expansion would have been. Westar now needs Bremby to renew their existing permits to continue operations. Bureaucratic coercion is now codified in Kansas under Queen Sebelius.

House Speaker Rep. Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, has campaigned for the Holcomb plant expansion and against this arbitrary power grab by Bremby and his boss. This is a problem in Neufeld’s southwest Kansas district where the nearby Hugoton gas field slowly declines in production. Neufeld has warned that Bremby’s bureaucratic edict against Holcomb has pushed a possible oil refinery, a $10 billion project with 1,500 new full time jobs, out of state too. Neufeld has copies of documents concerning the permitting process from Bremby’s office concerning this project. Naturally, liberal newspapers like the Wichita Eagle criticized Neufeld for pointing out this loss.

Another irony about power generation and carbon emissions was the fact that both houses of the legislature overwhelmingly passed state legislation to try and locate a new agricultural-terror research facility in Manhattan this year. This new federal facility would need a special electrical power plant to be allowed to operate. Since this was a government facility, unlike the private co-op, the carbon dioxide being generated from this proposed new back-up electrical power plant was not a problem. The carbon it emits comes from natural gas and not the politically incorrect coal too.

Governor Sebelius quickly signed this authorizing legislation into law. If it is government, it is good. If it is private, let’s stop it. Here is another example of government economic hypocrisy.

Kansas has started a new era. The price of living in Kansas is going to soar while you will be facing stagnant incomes as politicians in Topeka and their out-of-state environmental foundations control economic activity by regulatory edict.

While the rest of the world grows, China alone has built or is building hundreds of new power plants, many of which will be coal fired. Jobs will continue to flow out of the U.S. Kansas and the other 49 states will increasingly find themselves and our economy in green handcuffs. That will result in a lot of Kansans eventually finding themselves in the same bankruptcy line behind the already bankrupt Rod Bremby while Governor Sebelius makes plans for her next job in Washington.

Denis Boyles dissects the 2007 Kansas Economic Report and discovers something growing quickly in Kansas under its governor Kathleen Sebelius: poor children. He quotes the report as follows:

The number of Kansans estimated to be living below the poverty threshold in 2004 totaled 297,733, or more than 11.0 percent of the total population. From 2000 to 2004, Kansas poverty increased 26.6 percent while poverty in the U.S. went up 17.3 percent. From 2000 to 2004, the number of people in Kansas living below the poverty level increased more rapidly than the state’s population as a whole, with a 26.6 percent increase in poverty and a 1.7 percent increase in population.

Since a low in 2000, the number of people under the age of 18 in poverty in Kansas has increased by nearly 20.0 percent, reaching more than 98,000 people in 2004. This rate was higher than the national rate which increased at 12.5 percent. Additionally, the number of people under age five in poverty in Kansas has increased 27.5 percent in the past five years compared to 15.1 percent for the nation.

Read the entire analysis as published on Kansas Liberty here: Into poverty, with difficulty.

The Kansas Meadowlark again stirs up controversy in reporting on the travel of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

The "rates" charged for flying an aircraft like this are, in my opinion, totally misleading. The rate may reflect the actual variable costs involved for the time the plane is in the air. I believe, however, that the rates do not account for the fixed cost of owning an asset worth some $4 million.

Read the article here: Friend of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius? Did you get to fly the State of Kansas Executive Aircraft with Kathleen to the NCAA basketball tournament in San Antonio?

(By the way, Meadowlark, I like your switch to a WordPress blog. I especially like that now your site publishes an RSS feed, which I subscribe to.)

Here's an update by The Kansas Meadowlark on the abuse of franking by the Kansas Senate Majority Leader, Anthony Hensley of Topeka.

Update on Franking Abuse by Kansas Senate Minority Leader Hensley: $53,564 on 161,277 franked pieces

Part of the Wichita Eagle opinion watch series.

A writer in the April 2, 2008 Wichita Eagle presses the case for passenger train service in Wichita. But there are several problems with the writer's argument.

The writer makes this claim: "With Kansas' vast wind resource, we could power our trains with no fossil fuels." Yes, there is a lot of wind in Kansas. But it doesn't blow continuously. What does the writer suggest we power the trains with at those times? Until there is an economically feasible method of storing the electricity generated by wind, we will be reliant on traditional methods of power generation. Wind can only be a supplement.

The writer admits that high-speed passenger train service will require a lot of public money. That's okay, he says, as we presently spend a lot on our roads and traffic systems. The government-built and owned roads are frequently criticized, however. The fact that we've spent a lot on them -- with often unsatisfactory results -- is not an argument in favor of more government involvement in transportation systems. There is, in fact, a small movement towards more private highways, and there are persuasive arguments that all roads and highways should be privately owned.

If there is in fact a demand for high-speed rail travel in Kansas and the United States, let private entrepreneurs, rather than government, lead its development. That's the best way to have a system that meets the needs of customers, rather than the needs of politicians and government bureaucrats.

I wonder if the writer remembers that the government does have a track record of owning and operating a railroad. That's Amtrak, and having mentioned that, I believe no more needs to be said.

On May 1, 2008, the Americans For Prosperity Hot Air Tour made its stop in Wichita, Kansas. It was too windy for the big hot air balloon (who could have guessed that might be the case in the Kansas springtime?) but the speakers spoke as planned, and that's the important part of this event.

Some photos that I took may be viewed here.

Some of the material from AFP:

Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness. It’s time to tell the other side of the story.

Climate Schemes Mean Higher Taxes

• A cap-and-trade system would amount to a $1.19 trillion tax hike over the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
• Energy taxes would drive gas over $8.00 per gallon and more than double electricity bills, according to a study by the American Council for Capital Formation.
• Revenue from energy taxes or permit sales will be used by bureaucratic central planners to pick politically-favored but horribly ineffective alternatives, like ethanol.

Cap-and-Trade is a Massive Job-Killer

• The hundreds of billions of dollars of economic activity destroyed by the cap-and-trade tax scheme translate into millions of lost jobs for American workers.
• We would trade millions of productive private sector jobs, for a smaller number of jobs created by a government regulatory scheme.

Climate Alarmism Threatens Freedom

• The inevitable result of energy regulation is centralized control of the economy and our lives. The government has already banned incandescent light bulbs even though replacements, compact fluorescent bulbs, contain toxic mercury.
• California wants to place radio control devices in thermostats so the government can set the temperature in homes and businesses.
• Higher energy costs will increase the price of any product that is transported to market; these effects will ripple through the economy. Food prices have been especially hard hit, with milk prices up 20% in the last year.
• State climate panels want to return to 55 MPH speed limits.

Radical Proposals will have Very Little Impact

• Cap and trade policies are already failing to reduce CO2 emissions in Europe. In fact, emissions covered under their legislation in Europe have gone up according to the think tank, Open Europe.
• Even if the cap and trade scheme actually reduce emissions in the United States – despite failures in Europe, climate models show that the reductions would have an impact of approximately 0.1 degree Celsius in the year 2100.

Low-Income Families will be Hit Hardest

• Low-income families pay a much larger share of their income on goods that will be affected by these policies.
• Higher energy and food prices are a genuine hardship for low-income Americans, even if they are an affordable indulgence for Al Gore, who already spends tens of thousands of dollars on his home energy bills.

From our friends at the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy in Wichita, Kansas.

Universal Preschool Wastes Money, Imperils the Good Society
Short-term benefits, politicization of childhood await public funding

(WICHITA) - If K-12 schools fail to graduate one in four students on time, does it make much sense to enroll children in public programs at an even younger age? That's one problem with proposals for universal, taxpayer-funded preschool, as outlined by a new report issued by the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy. Read "Plato's Republic on the Plains: Should Kansas Really Embrace State-Financed Early Childhood Education?" at www.flinthills.org.

"On the one hand, you've got to applaud the desire to 'do something' to improve education," says John R. LaPlante, Education Policy Fellow of the Kansas-based think tank. "But what we see is that the longer children stay in school, the worse off they do. We should fix the K-12 system through competition and expanded school choice rather than enroll infants and toddlers in public programs that are often run through those same schools."

The study reviews the weaknesses of reports used to justify universal preschool programs, including methodological shortcomings. The benefits seen in preschool programs tend to be focused in lower-income children and fade out in a short time-hardly a prescription for a universal program.

In addition to experimental and economic problems, universal preschool poses a moral question: Do children belong to parents or do they belong to society and the state? Plato called for some children to be reared not by parents but by the collective. The impulse to use government to fix children's lives for the societal good may have at first a moral foundation, but it violates foundational truths about American society and the meaning of limited government.

When Bob Corkins, a lawyer with no classroom experience, was named Kansas Commissioner of Education in 2005, newspapers editorialists and education bureaucrats throughout Kansas condemned the action. How could a person with no classroom experience and no traditional education credentials possibly manage the state's schools?

"Bob's in way over his head," said Winston Brooks, superintendent of USD 259, the Wichita public school district.

But what about Martin Libhart, the man who succeeds Winston Brooks, if only as the interim superintendent? According to a news release on the USD 259 website: "Because Libhart does not currently possess a district level leadership certificate, the district is working with the Kansas State Department of Education for a restricted certificate as permitted by the department." (emphasis added)

It seems that lack of formal credentials was not an obstacle to the promotion of Mr. Libhart. But Mr. Libhart has worked for the Wichita public school district for 20 years, and it seems that loyalty is now paying dividends. Evidently it is enough to overcome his lack of classroom experience and traditional education credentials -- the same inexperience that made Bob Corkins, in the minds of Kansas education bureaucrats, unfit to serve.

What exactly did Mr. Libhart do for the Wichita school district? Again, from the USD 259 news release: "During his 20-year career in the Wichita Public Schools, Libhart served for 13 years as director of the Facilities Division prior to being appointed chief operations officer."

It seems, however, that the facilities and operations of the Wichita school district are managed somewhat less than efficiently. I say this because if you submit a records request asking the district how many classrooms and portables the district owned for the previous two years, you may get this answer, as did one citizens group:

The information is available. In order to prepare the information, it will require 40 hours of staff time @ $20.00 and 300 copies @ $.20, for a total cost of $860.00.

The Wichita public school district is telling us that in order to count the number of classrooms it possesses, it will take someone an entire workweek to produce this number. Does it seem like the district is effectively managing its resources when it will take one week to simply count the number of classrooms?

From Denis Boyles's column at Kansas Liberty, calling the consistency and judgment of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius into question (admittedly, a small task):

If there are at least some scientific studies that show gambling’s bad for you, and none that show that carbon dioxide’s bad for you, why is the governor of Kansas hugging casinos and banning power plants?

Read the entire column here: Feedlot Environmentalism.

By the way, the new book Superior, Nebraska: The Common Sense Values of America's Heartland by Denis Boyles is wonderful. I recommend it to all with an interest in Kansas politics.

From our friends at Kansas Liberty:

The Kansas Supreme Court is a private club filled with people you've never heard of until they pass some tax you have to pay or invent some law you don't want. There is a way to fix this, but you won't like it, says Denis Boyles.

Read the full story at Kansas Liberty.

Professor Stephen J. Ware of the Kansas University School of Law writes this in a Lawrence Journal-World editorial:

What makes the Kansas Supreme Court selection process unusual is not that it’s political, but that it gives so much political power to the bar (the state’s lawyers). Kansas is the only state that gives its bar majority control over the commission that nominates Supreme Court justices. It’s no surprise that members of the Kansas bar are happy with the current system because it gives them more power than the bar has in any of the other 49 states and allows them to exercise that power in secret, without any accountability to the public.

His research paper may be read here: www.fed-soc.org/kansaspaper.

An argument opponents of the proposed Holcomb Station coal-fired electricity generation plant make is that its water usage is excessive and will lead to, depending on who is speaking, little water left for other uses. Even drinking water, according to some critics, could be threatened.

Together, the proposed plants will use 16,000 acre-feet of water -- about 5.2 billion gallons – annually. While that seems like a tremendous amount of water, especially in dry western Kansas, we should put that water usage in context before making judgments.

According to the Kansas Water Office, in 2006, 3,496,586 acre-feet of water was used to irrigate 3,066,602 acres, a rate of 1.14 acre-feet of water per acre. In Finney county, where the Holcomb plant is located, water use for irrigation is a little higher. The average usage for 2002 to 2006 was 1.31 acre-feet per acre.

Using the Finney county rates, we find that the 16,000 acre-feet of water usage by the proposed power plants is enough to irrigate 12,215 acres of crops.

While 12,215 acres of crops may seem like a lot, Finney county alone had 227,297 acres under irrigation in 2006. So the water usage by the proposed plants amounts to 5.4% of just Finney county's water use for irrigation. For the entire state of Kansas, it's less than one-half of one percent of the water used for irrigation.

So while 5.2 billion gallons of water seems like a lot, it's not much more than a few drops in the bucket, figuratively speaking, of water use for irrigation in Kansas. The economic value of the electricity the Holcomb plant expansion will generate, however, is large.

The Kansas Meadowlark reports on Franking Abuse by Kansas Democratic Legislative Leadership:

Recently both the Kansas House Minority Leader, Dennis McKinney, and Kansas Senate Minority Leader, Anthony Hensley, abused their nearly unlimited budget to mail items to Kansas voters. These mailings had less to do with helping inform constituents about what is going on in the Kansas legislature, and more to do with getting certain Democrats re-elected this year.

A reliable source tells the Meadowlark that House Minority Leader Mckinney will reimburse the State for postage for his recent mailings. However, the Senate Minority Leader has not made a pledge to repay taxpayers for his franking abuse, even though taxpayers paid a hefty sum for his recent needless mailings.

Actual amounts for these mailings will be published here when available.

Read the entire story here at The Kansas Meadowlark website: Franking Abuse by Kansas Democratic Legislative Leadership

I have been recruited to participate in the Sunshine Blogger Project, an effort to gauge the compliance of the nations' governors with open records laws as they exist in each state. I wrote about my experience with the office of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius in this article: Open Records in Kansas.

The letter I received from JaLynn Copp, the Assistant Chief Counsel to Governor Sebelius, was so confusing that I wrote back requesting clarification. I had to communicate this request by writing on the processed fibers of dead trees, which were then delivered to Topeka by carbon-spewing trucks operated by the United States Postal Service, as Ms. Copp did not share an email address with me.

My records request had specifically asked that the email records I was requesting be delivered to me electronically. That seemed to make a lot of sense, as email is nothing if not electronic. But the governor's office won't comply with that request.

The governor's office, legitimately, must review the emails to determine whether any fall under the exceptions to the open records act. The office will do that by reading the emails on a computer. Then, if an email is judged not to fall under one of the exemptions, it will be printed and sent to me, at a cost of $.25 per page.

There seems to be no interest at the governor's office in providing the records in any other form. I could wind up spending thousands of dollars to print thousands of pages of spam.

The Wichita Eagle wrote a story about this, and a few of the comments left by readers on the newspaper's website were alarming. One comment read: "The request was irresponsible! If there was a legitimate need for particular information, that would be one thing, but to demand all of the emails the Governor received across any given four days is ludicrous, and wasteful. ... If there was a specific issue needing verified or researched, and a public need or good, then the fees would be onerous."

I might ask this writer these questions: Who determines what qualifies as a "legitimate need?" How would I know if there was a specific issue needing research, without seeing all the emails? Should we rely on government agencies to judge which records will satisfy our interests?

Another reader left a comment that made a charge of hypocrisy for the media wanting government records to be open, but refusing to open their own records. This reader has forgotten the difference between the government and a private institution.

Here's a message from John Todd about an exciting event to be held by Americans for Prosperity. If you're in south-central Kansas the bus trip is much easier and less expensive than driving to Topeka. AFP is a great group to be involved with, and I encourage everyone to take advantage of this free bus trip to this important event. The event in Topeka costs $29, but as John says, there are a limited number of scholarships available.

You are invited to join the Wichita Area Chapter of Americans for Prosperity Foundation -- Kansas for a bus trip from Wichita to the Defending the American Dream Summit in Topeka on Wednesday March 19, 2008.

The Kansas Meadowlark reports on the debut of Kanview, and wonders "Why did the Kansas press give this new information resource such little coverage?"

Read the excellent report at http://www.kansasmeadowlark.com/2008/03-02/index.htm.

Recently I was recruited to participate in the Sunshine Blogger Project. Its purpose is to “find out whether America's governors properly archive the e-mail that comes into and goes out of their offices, and are able to provide copies of those e-mails when members of the public request them.”

I believe that open records and meetings are important, both to news media and citizens, so I agreed to take part in the project.

On February 7, 2008 I mailed (by postal mail) my request for the records of interest, which are emails sent and received by the office of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for a recent four-day period. We asked that the emails be delivered electronically, which seems natural given that computerization is the essence of email.

On February 15 I received a letter from JaLynn Copp, the Assistant Chief Counsel to the Governor, stating that the office is “in the process of reviewing your request and generating a response.”

As of February 25 I hadn't received that response, so I called to inquire. I left a message requesting my call to be returned. Over the next few days I made several calls and left messages, but no one returned my call. Finally I was able to reach the Assistant Chief Counsel, who then briefly described the details spelled out in a letter that I received on February 28.

The Governor's office has approximately 25 full-time employees, the letter explained. It will take a minimum of two hours for each employee to conduct a review of each employee's computer to see if any of the requested emails fall under one of the many exemptions to the Kansas Open Records Act. This adds up to $1,350. The office requests payment before any work will be done.

The letter I received contained this paragraph:

I will look into the possibility of providing our response in electronic form as you have requested. This may be an additional charge; I can let you know what that is if it is possible. If it is not possible, then we would provide the information in hard copy and this would cost .25 per page. Of course, we will not know the up front costs of how many pages this would be until we do the searches. This would be assessed after we have done the searches and would need to be paid before we turned over the documents to you.

I found this paragraph remarkable. I am not able to fully understand what this means, and I have written to ask for clarification. Part of what I wrote is this:

I have a question or two. Will the total cost be the estimated $1,350 for reviewing plus $.25 per printed page that is supplied to me? Will your office be performing the review reading from printed pages or from reading the emails on a computer in their original electronic form?

I ask because it seems to me that if the review is going to be conducted by reading the emails on a computer, then printing costs could be avoided. Alternatively, if the review will be performed by reading printed pages of paper, then perhaps the $.25 per printed page charge could be waived, as the material would have been already printed.

I'll update this article when I receive an answer. It may take some time, as the Assistant Chief Counsel did not share an email address with me.

Recommended sites: State Sunshine and Open Records, WikiFOIA, the wiki for helping people understand and use the Freedom of Information Act at the state and local level, Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government.

In this article, Karl Peterjohn states that the professional staff at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment approved the permit for a new coal-burning electricity plant in Kansas, but the agency's Secretary, Rod Bremby, overruled that staff. It seems as though he and Governor Kathleen Sebelius were trying to stake new political ground in America. Why they would want to do this is not clear to me and many other Kansans. China builds a new plant like the one proposed for Kansas every seven to ten days. India builds many, and so do some other countries. Since it's not called global warming for nothing, it doesn't matter where these plants are built. They all affect the global atmosphere, as far as carbon dioxide is concerned, in precisely the same way. So two Kansas politicians, cheered on by a few newspaper editorial writers, place the Kansas economy at great risk for what benefit? Perhaps in a few years, on a hot summer day when little wind is blowing, the chillers at the Wichita Eagle building on East Douglas will slow to a crawl, the editorialists' computers switch to battery back up power with only a few minutes left to finish the day's work, and no electricity is available to run the printing presses or the servers hosting the Eagle's web site. But at least we in Kansas spewed only 0.01% as much carbon into the atmosphere as did the new Chinese coal plants.

Regulatory Uncertainty Weakens Kansas’ Economy
By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, www.kansastaxpayers.com

The regulatory uncertainty created by Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Secretary Ron Bremby’s decision to deny a permit to Sunflower Electric’s proposed power plant places the Kansas economy at risk and should be obvious to everyone. Sadly, this everyone does not include the Wichita Eagle’s editorial board’s February 27th editorial.

Electric utilities are already highly regulated by the state as well as federal rules and edicts. Sunflower Electric’s proposed coal fired electrical power plant expansion had been through numerous permits and regulatory requirements. The professional staff at KDHE had recommended approval based upon the criteria elected officials had placed in Kansas law.

Secretary Bremby decided that he would add new criteria that no federal or state elected officials had approved. Kansas became the first state to declare that carbon dioxide emissions are pollutants. That became his basis for denying a construction permit.

Lost in the debate over the building of a coal-fired electricity plant in Kansas is the fact that China builds a plant like this every week to ten days, according to the New York Times. Nonetheless, newspaper editorial writers like Randy Scholfield of The Wichita Eagle want to saddle Kansans with higher utility bills and a stifling regulatory structure. There is no doubt that other forms of producing electricity are more expensive than coal. Mr. Scholfield's newspaper is full of stories of woe about how people can't pay their bills when the price of natural gas or gasoline goes up. Yet, he is willing to ask them to pay more for something of dubious value. At the same time, his position holds the real possibility of reducing economic growth in Kansas, which should lead to more tales of woe for the Wichita Eagle to report.

Even the New York Times recognizes that wind power can't be our sole, or even major, source of power. As it reported on February 23, 2008: "Despite the attraction of wind as a nearly pollution-free power source, it does have limitations. Though the gap is closing, electricity from wind remains costlier than that generated from fossil fuels. Moreover, wind power is intermittent and unpredictable, and the hottest days, when electricity is needed most, are usually not windy."

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network for the following explanation.

Are You Polluting Kansas?
By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

It is a biological fact that every time Governor Sebelius breathes, she exhales carbon dioxide. Every editorial writer at the carbon dioxide phobic Wichita Eagle also exhales carbon dioxide with every breath.

Are they polluting? All mammals exhale carbon dioxide and the plants that inhale carbon dioxide (CO2) need this compound to grow. This is part of the photosynthesis that is the foundation for life on earth. This is basic biology. CO2 has never been made a pollutant by the action of either the state or federal elected officials. Now the advocates of man-made global warming claim that it is. That is now Governor Sebelius’ and her staff’s official position.

The following testimony from John Todd explains some of the harmful effects of taxpayer-funded lobbying. Isn't it terrible that that interests of governmental bodies like the city and county you live in or your local school district are different from your interests? As John explains, local government has become a special interest group, and like other such groups, it must lobby for its own interests.

February 18, 2008

House Committee on Federal and State Affairs
Kansas Legislature
State Capitol
Topeka, Kansas 66612

Subject: My testimony is presented in SUPPORT OF House Bill No. 2775 concerning governmental ethics; requiring the reporting of lobbying expenses by municipalities.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the House Committee on Federal and State Affairs, my name is John Todd and I live in Wichita, Kansas. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Support of the passage of House Bill No. 2775 concerning governmental ethics; requiring the reporting of lobbying expenses by municipalities.

"Government lobbying is toxic to representative democracy," says Goldwater Institute Chairman Tom Patterson. "It distorts the democratic process by pitting government interest against those of citizens. Letting government agents lobby with taxpayer funds ... drowns out the voices of regular citizens, putting private citizens at a distinct disadvantage." (See Goldwater Institute Policy Report No. 217, January 23, 2007 "Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Implications of Taxpayer-funded Lobbying" by Benjamin Barr at www.goldwaterinstitute.org)

As the residents of Wichita consider whether to vote for the $350 million school bond issue proposed by the board of USD 259 (Wichita Public Schools), be aware that the bond issue and its associated increase in property taxes is not the only tax increase the public schools in Kansas would like to have. The following article from Karl Peterjohn explains.

Tax Funds Being Spent To Push For Kansas Tax Hike
By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network. Released September 20, 2007.

Your tax dollars are being used to push for an increase in Kansas income taxes. Do you want your tax money spent on raising your taxes?

This tax hike plan was initially reported by in the Hawver’s Capitol Report (www.hawvernews.com) state capitol newsletter August 27. The Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) is seeking another statewide income tax hike. This tax hike would be used to provide more state tax dollars to the 296 Kansas public school districts.

News Release: Kansas Taxpayers Network Opposes New Tax On Elderly

A proposal to raise a new "assessment" or tax on nursing home bound Kansas elderly will have its first hearing in front of the Kansas senate's Ways and Means Committee February 14. The new charge on nursing home residents will total $1,733.75 a year or $4.75 a day if the proposed bill, S.B. 585, becomes state law. Nursing home operators would be required to collect this charge from nursing home residents who are not covered by Medicaid or are in a veterans home. This legislation is structured to turn the nursing homes into unpaid tax collectors for the state and make them the fall guys by having this new charge hidden in their current bills.

A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

It's not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else's property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don't want to be around smoke.

Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their "right" to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else's private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they -- instead of the property owner -- dictate.

Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as "I'm a non-smoker and I think that …" or "I'm a smoker and …" These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers' interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

Submitted by John Todd.

February 13, 2008

Senate Judiciary Committee
Kansas Legislature
State Capitol
Topeka, Kansas 66612

Subject: My testimony presented in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Opposition to passage of Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking, aka the Kansas smoking prohibition act.

My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker and land developer from Wichita. I currently serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors of Wichita Independent Business Association. I am the Wichita Area Volunteer Coordinator for Americans For Prosperity—Kansas. I have been working with the Wichita Business and Consumer Rights Coalition in an effort to stop a smoking ban ordinance currently being debated by the Wichita City Council. I appear before you today as a private citizen, speaking only for myself and not for any other group.

I do not smoke, but does that give me, or even the majority of non-smokers in our state the right to use state law to restrict the rights and freedoms of those people who choose to smoke? A Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding where to go for lunch. The lone sheep would have to agree with De Toquiville who described that situation as the "tyranny of the majority." The pledge of allegiance describes our country as a "republic." Our founders established a republican form of government in order to protect the individual’s rights from the tyranny of the majority.

This article explains the prevalence of and the problems with taxpayer-funded lobbying. This type of lobbying is especially egregious, as it is using taxpayers' own funds to harm them further. It's bad enough that a governmental body -- say the Wichita Public Schools -- receives funds, increasing rapidly from year to year, from the local taxpayer. It then compounds the damage by using some of that money to persuade other governmental bodies to send them even more. Sometimes they use your own money to fund lawsuits to get even more of your money.

You may be thinking that these local governments have the best interests of their constituents as their goal, so it's okay for them to lobby. But you'd be wrong. The League of Kansas Municipalities (how could an institution with a civic-minded name like that do anything wrong?) lobbies for the ability to take a person's private property and give it to another through the process of eminent domain, all in the name of economic development. This is a serious violation of the right to be secure on your own property, and they are spending your tax money to support this lobbying effort.

Thanks for Picking up the Tab
By Alan Cobb, Americans For Prosperity Kansas State Director

It’s a common scene in Topeka -- a lobbyist treating an elected official to lunch, giving a legislator a cigar, or picking up the tab at a local watering hole. Of course, there is talk. Talk about new programs, regulations, budget increases, and the like.

Who is paying for these perks?

You are.

Your tax dollars are used by school districts, city and county governments and other taxpayer funded organizations for direct lobbying efforts in Topeka.

Some local officials say it isn’t “lobbying” but rather “representing our town, county, or school district” before the Legislature. Your tax dollars are being used to influence legislators to voting a particular way. That’s lobbying.