Category: Kansas state government

Thank you again, Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, for your insights into the Kansas Legislature’s special session.

The legislative special session is going to reach a crucial turning point today at the Kansas statehouse.

A group of tax and spend Republicans, lead by Rep. Ward Loyd, Rino-Garden City met with Governor Sebelius and received her blessing for a $161 million school finance spending bill that will be debated and voted upon in the Kansas house today. Last year, Loyd begged Democrats to re-register before the August primary so they could vote for him in his tough primary race. Loyd barely won that contest.

If this spending bill passes the legislature will have begun surrendering their fiscal authority to the Sebelius dominated Kansas Supreme Court. While Governor Sebelius only appointed one of the current six judges on the court, Justice Carol Beier, her chief of staff is married to another judge on this court, Justice Donald Allegrucci. In addition, Governor Sebelius has been working to enact the court’s $1 billion edict to increase school spending in the Montoy school finance case. In April, the governor endorsed the school districts position opposing the $142 million school spending increase approved by the 2005 legislature and which became law without the governor’s signature. She is backing the court’s usurpation of fiscal power in this state by her actions.

The house is scheduled to come in at 11 AM this morning and this debate is likely to be long and acrimonious. The key will be whether or not there are 63 fiscally responsible house members who will reject this fiscal folly or not. This issue, and potentially the future of representative government in Kansas, is definitely in doubt.

If this spending package is passed the session will then move to trying to figure out how to raise roughly $75 million to finance this abomination in the fiscal year that begins Friday, July 1. Proposals to expand gambling or raise taxes will be on the table. The $86 million windfall the state received earlier this month will be spent but a lot more money will be needed.

This spending growth will be chump change compared to the revenue that will be needed to finance the rest of the court’s June 3 edict. The incredible irony about this matter is that the 15 school districts sued the state board of education over school finance funding and the court rules against the legislature and the taxpayers of Kansas–none of whom are parties to this lawsuit. None of whom are allowed to speak in front of this arrogant court. In fact, legislative lawyers were specifically denied the opportunity to address the court during oral arguments in May.

This court is treating the legislature with contempt.

Sadly, the liberal Kansas press, as well stated by the Wichita Eagle’s editorial of June 26, 2005 that is headlined, “Calm Down,” and subtitled,”Judges do have authority on schools,” begins, “Those clamorous groups advancing on the Kansas Supreme Court with torches and pitchforks should pause and take a long, deep breath. That includes the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which opined portentiously last week that the six ‘unelected and unaccountable’ judes of the Kansas Supreme Cort had violated the separation of powers and formented a constitutional crisis..” and continued, “..In their carefully argued and precedent-based opinion, the Kansas Supreme Court justices addressed the authority issue directly, citing similar education battles in other states such as Kentucky…”

Sadly for the Wichita Eagle, the Kentucky Constitution is not phrased the same as the Kansas Constitution’s public school provisions. What is significant is the fact that six appointed judges (four are registered Democrats and one of the two Republicans used to represent the Salina school district that is promoting this school finance lawsuit) have usurped legislative budget authority by ordering the legislature to spend $143 million in additional funds by July 1, 2005. In addition, one moderate Republican lawyer who chairs the house judiciary committee, Rep. Mike O’Neal, warned the house federal and state affairs committee June 28 that the court has created a clear and present danger by continuing to issue orders to the legislature that is not a party to this lawsuit. The court has not actually gotten around to overturning its 1994 ruling that school finance is constitutional and is operating under “interrim” rulings. The court’s January 3 interrim edict conflicts with the court’s June 3 edict.

Unfortunately, the Kansas house recently rejected a proposal to provide a constitutional amendment (73-to-50 with 84 votes needed to send it to the voters to ratify it) that would clarify that fiscal authority lies with the legislature and not with other branches of Kansas government and stop this judicial usurpation.

Kansas is in danger of a judicial oligarchy that is being supported by a governor who is deeply indebted to the government school spending lobby that is promoting this litigation and her Democrat legislative allies. The governor and the school spending promoting legislators deeply believe that the end justifies the means and the court’s actions are promoting public policy outcomes supported by these officials. Legislative skeptics are asking these legislators how they would feel about the court’s decision if the court was ruling that spending should be reduced instead of increased? This appeal to logic does not seem to be having much of an impact as of June 28.

The real question is whether or not the average Kansas taxpayer is paying attention and cares about this critical fiscal fight at the statehouse. There are so many distractions. Besides the usual summertime diversions Wichita is still digesting the Dennis Rader atrocities and his 10 murder convictions. The transfer of Boeing Commercial Aircraft to Onex Corporation is transforming what used to be this state’s largest private employer in Wichita. In the Kansas City area General Motors recent announcement that it will be cutting 25,000 jobs over the next few years could definitely impact the car assembly plant in that area. The legislative sessions normally end in late April or early May so this is an unusual event that is not at the forefront of the news coverage in many parts of this state.

Fiscally concerned Kansans should contact their legislators (this might be hard considering that some legislators have not turned on their email) by calling or writing (state capitol, Topeka, KS 66612).

It is interesting to note how invisible Governor Sebelius has been in this special session. The governor called this special session but provided legislators with only a single sheet of platitudes when they arrived back at the statehouse. The “behind-the-scenes” meeting I mentioned above on June 28 (which was also reported in the news pages of the June 29 Wichita Eagle) between a bipartisan group of tax and spend legislators and the governor shows how far she has walked away from her 2002 campaign promises for fiscal conservatism and opposition to raising taxes. Like a lot of candidates who decline to sign KTN’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, she walked away from her promises of fiscal responsibility once she took her oath of office.

Here’s one example of her tax and spend behavior. The governor took a temporary sales tax hike that her predecessor had set at 5.3% and made it permanent. Sadly, all too many legislative Republicans voted for this back door tax hike. The sales tax rate was supposed to phase back down to 5.0 percent based upon the 2002 tax changes.

In addition, the state’s General Fund is going to exceed $5 billion for the very first time if the governor gets her way on the state budget. Remember, it was 1981 when the state had its first $1 billion General Fund budget. Kansas’ All Funds budget (which includes KDOT, Medicaid, and other off-budget items) topped $11 billion for the very first time this year.

The future of Kansas remains at risk and is dependent upon the fortitude of a majority of the Kansas House of Representatives today.

Thank you, Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of Kansas Taxpayers Network.

Here’s a legislative update from Topeka as of noon Tuesday. A proposal to raise income and sales taxes has appeared now that the gambling measures are unable to pass out of the Kansas senate in the on going battle over judicial interference with the legislature and school finance in this state.

The house is working on two tracks: the federal and state affairs committee is working on a constitutional amendment that would provide specific boundaries to protect the legislature’s appropriation powers. The second track is a supplemental appropriations bill. The latter requires 63 votes to pass in the Kansas house while a constitutional amendment needs 84 house votes and then is submitted to voters for their final approval.

The legislature is operating under the Sebelius Supreme Court’s July 1 deadline of appropriating an additional $143 million for the fiscal year that begins on Friday. More is expected next year. Here are the major players and their positions:

Governor Sebelius called the special session and wants expanded gaming (although apparently not by Indian tribes but by state owned franchise monopolies) and the legislature to submit to the court’s spending order on school finance. Legislative Democrats are backing her position but have begun expressing support for increased income and sales taxes. It is unclear how big a tax hike the governor is supporting since she relies upon the court and legislative leaders like senate Minority Leader Tony Hensley, D-Topeka when it comes to various revenue measures.

Legislative conservatives are strongest in the house where many of them are saying that they will not appropriate a penny of new money (the state’s latest revised revenue estimates are showing that the Bush tax cuts nationally have recently produced about $86 million state revenue windfall) until the constitutional amendment clarifying the legislator’s budget powers is approved.

GOP liberals are trying to work a deal in the house with legislative Democrats but it is unclear if they have anywhere close to the 63 house votes needed to submit to the court’s order. The senate passed a $161 million spending plan last Friday on a 25-to-14 vote. There were 15 Republican senators who voted with all ten Democrats for this spending bill (one liberal GOP senator is sick and absent) and 14 Republicans voting against it. The entire senate GOP caucus along with one Democrat then followed this vote by rejecting expanded gaming 17-to-22 and then voted for the constitutional amendment clarifying the legislators budget powers. This was highly unusual since the senate Republicans can seldom agree on where the sun is going to set.

There are some GOP moderates who are outraged by the court and have backed the constitutional amendment to protect their constitutional powers. However, when this came up for a final vote in the Kansas house on Sunday, it failed on a 73-to-50 vote with two legislators missing and 84 votes needed for passage. 40-of-the-41 Democrats voting opposed the amendment. Nine Republicans voted with the Democrats led by several Johnson County “moderates” along with a handful of liberal and rural legislators. The GOP legislators voting with the Democrats on this included: Jeff Jack, Jim Yonally, Tim Owens, Stephanie Sharp, Barbara Craft, Don Hill, Dale Swenson, Pat Colloton, and Ray Cox.

The Kansas Supreme Court has one vacancy since the April death of one of its members. The six members include four registered Democrats (one was appointed by former Governor Bill Graves) and two Republicans. One of the Republicans was a lawyer who represented the lead school district behind the school finance lawsuit. What is interesting about this lawsuit and perhaps unique about Kansas is these facts: A) the legislature is not a party to the lawsuit and when they sought to participate before the court during the May oral argument the court denied them the right to appear; B) the legislature is being ordered to appropriated specific amounts by a date certain by this court; C) It is possible (I am basing this upon the testimony of the Attorney General and Rep. Mike O’Neal before the house’s federal and state affairs committee today) that the court may decide to allocate the funds in a manner that differs with the legislators’ appropriation and allocation of these funds.

Attorney General Phill Kline is clearly informing the entire legislature of their options and situation. Kline is trying to protect the citizens from a court that the moderate Rep. O’Neal described as engaging in a form of “…judicial extortion…” against the legislature and ultimately against the taxpayers of this state. O’Neal was careful in stating that the court had not overreached in their January 3 opinion on this case but had done so in their June 3 edict.

Interestingly enough, AG Kline reported that the court has not actually overruled their previous decision from 1994 in the USD 229 case where that KS Supreme Court declined to assume the powers that the 2005 KS Supreme Court has now grabbed. No final ruling has been issued by the court.

Regardless of how the legislature gets out of the current situation these facts are clear: 1) Increasing revenues are likely to be thrown at the schools if a constitutional option is sent to the people but this can occur without a tax hike but at a level well below $143 million; 2) gaming remains an issue; 3) while tax hikes are not the first option, tax hikes are going to appear among the tax ‘n spenders among most Kansas Democrats and all too many “moderate” Republicans; 4) the senate rejected on a 18-to-19 vote a proposal to cut spending by under $40 million yesterday (9 Republicans joined all ten senate Democrats on this vote).

The fact that tax ‘n spend legislators like Bill Kassebaum, Cindy Neighbor, and Dave Corbin were retired by the voters in 2004 is the primary reason that both expanded gaming and taxes have not moved further through the legislative processes this year.

Please feel free to forward this or send it along to Kansas web sites and blogs that are interested in this issue.

Karl Peterjohn
www.kansastaxpayers.com

Thank you again, Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network

The $160.7 million school spending bill approved by the Kansas senate yesterday passed with the votes of all 10 senate Democrats and 15 GOP tax ‘n spenders. These legislators were also willing to surrender their constitutional and budget authority to the six appointed members of the Kansas Supreme Court.

Here is the list in alphabetical order:

Pat Apple, R; Jim Barone, D; Don Betts, D; Pete Brungardt, R; Jay Emler, R; Marci Francisco, D; Mark Gilstrap, D; Greta Goodwin, D; David Haley, D; Tony Hensley, D Minority Leader; Laura Kelly, D; Janis Lee, D; Steve Morris, R Senate President; Ralph Ostmeyer, R; Roger Pine, R; Roger Reitz, R; Derek Schmidt, R Majority Leader; Vicki Schmidt, R; Jean Schodorf, R; Chris Steineger, D; Mark Taddiken, R; Ruth Teichman, R; Dwayne Umbarger, R; John Vratil, R Vice President; David Wysong, R.

This list includes a variety of folks whose work includes school teachers and school district lawyers. Sen. Barbara Allen, who regularly votes for higher spending and taxes, is suffering from cancer and has not been attending this special session.

Fortunately, the house Education Committee took $149 million out of this outrageous spending plan when they got their hands on it. Three Democrats walked out of the committee meeting in protest of this action. The house will debate this bill later today.

Before the house gets to this education bill it is scheduled to debate two constitutional amendments to restrict the court’s from their legislative activities in the future. It will be fascinating to see if the tax ‘n spenders from both the Democrat and Republican caucuses will be willing to defend their constitutional and historic powers of the purse when these amendments are being debated. It will take 84 votes for final passage of any constitutional amendment out of the house and several members are absent today.

This session is definitely running into this weekend and could wrap up early Sunday morning. If it does, it will be sometime between 3 and 8 AM Sunday. However, I would not bet on that outcome and expect to be back in Topeka next week as this constitutional crisis created by the left-wing Sebelius Supreme court continues.

A correction: yesterday, I believe I mispelled the senate majority leaders last name. It is Derek Schmidt. I apologize for any mispellings contained within these posts and any other insults to the English Language I have accidently and unintentionally committed.

This message will be posted shortly on www.kansastaxpayers.com and other quality web/blog sites. Please feel free to forward to fiscally and constitutionally concerned Kansans.

Writing from a rest stop on Interstate 80 in Iowa where there is free wireless Internet access: Thank you again, Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, for your insights into the Kansas Legislature’s special session.

The Kansas senate begin surrendering their legislative powers to the Kansas Supreme Court when a 25-to-14 majority approved a $160 million school spending bill. This surrender took the form of the supreme court may want $143 million but we’ll show them with a $160 million!

Take that, Kansas Supreme Court!

Next for the senate is gambling and that wrangling will take quite a while. Last night the senate met until about 9 PM which I cannot recall ever occurring on the first day of any session. Yesterday was the “first day” for this special session.

Only one slight piece of good news was the pro-tax and spend senator Barbara Allen from Johnson County is absent and that means it is a bit harder for the fiscal damage to occur without her consistent record of fiscal profligacy. I wish the reasons for her absense was not tied to her illness. Despite policy differences on fiscal issues I do not wish cancer upon anyone in public or private life…..well there might be a Bin Laden exception.

The house has not done much. They could take up some constitutional amendments to restrict the activist, left-wing supreme court, but they need 84 votes to pass anything. With only 83 Republicans and a solid dozen left-wing RINO tax and spenders who cannot wait to surrender their fiscal powers to the court, this is a very high hurdle to overcome. The house is instead going to fund the Attorney General’s appeal of the death penalty case to the U.S. Supreme Court and aid national guardsmen from Kansas with their insurance.

And….please don’t forget to forward this to friends who share your concerns about the fiscal/judicial climate in Kansas. This will be posted shortly at www.kansastapayers.com as well as other quality web sites and blogs in this state.

Here’s a report on the special session of the Kansas Legislature from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network. Thanks to Karl for his fine reporting and commentary.

Here’s the start of a blog for KTN and any other quality Kansas sites interested in this state’s fiscal crisis thanks to our left-wing, prejudiced Kansas supreme court. For the details on the court’s conflicts of interest see the recent KTN editorial column discussing Justice Nuss and Justice Allegrucci’s need to recuse themselves in the school finance litigation.

The house is likely done for the day (June 22) with all eyes watching efforts to put together a bill that would raise state school spending beyond the $143 million sought by the court and try and turn Kansas into a state with franchise casinos dotting the state. Kansas would be the only state that I know of where the casinos would be “owned” by the state and then contracted out to operators.

In theory there is a one subject limitation on any bills but once the court threw the rule book out the window it seems like anything goes and this bill could have gambling, appropriations, and new plumbing for the judicial center (tongue-in-cheek on last item) combined into one fat piece of legislation.

What makes this special session unique is the remodeling of the statehouse has forced the Kansas senate into meeting in the third floor chambers that once upon a time belonged to the Kansas Supreme Court. I jokingly asked if black robes were being issued to each senator. It is standing room only inside the chamber with senate leaders seated like judges at the front of the room and the backbench senators seated at a table in front of their leaders.

This is quite a change from the usual senatorial operations at the statehouse. It does seem appropriate in an era of judicial edicts setting and perhaps even determining the legislative outcome. First we have a bunch of black robed judges behaving like legislators. Now we have the Kansas senate meeting in the Old Supreme Court Chamber.

There seems to be a determination on the part of the liberal senators in both parties that a spending package of expanded gaming and reduced cash balances will allow them to expand spending according to the order from the court. Some senators want to expand the spending well beyond the court’s edict. I guess that will show them that they are not subservient to their judicial masters!

House members as a whole are not nearly as submissive as the senate. However, it is not clear what will be offered in the way of constitutional amendments to stick it to the court and defend the legislature’s constitutional and historic powers. The problem is that any amendment needs 27 senate votes and 84 house votes to be sent to the voters. that is a very difficult threshold to cross. There are hallway discussions on statutory provisions that would make it more difficult for the court to continue to meddle in legislative matters. Sadly, all too many legislators appear ready willing and able to submit to whatever nonsense the court ordered June 3 and could order in the future.

The school spending lobby held a rally this morning but the statehouse was ready for an anti-judicial tyrrany rally over the lunch hour. Elsewhere in the statehouse it looked like it was spend and fritter the taxpayers money away as usual. More details in an upcoming post.

Nationally, the Wall Street Journal editorial page has an editorial today entitled, “Jayhawk Judgment,” and sub-titled, “A constitutional showdown oer the power to tax.” It is excellent and I recommend it highly. Here are a couple of fair use quotes from it: “…under the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, the legislative branch makes the laws and the judicial branch interprets them. No so in Kansas these days. There the state Supreme Court has commanded that the legislature must increase spending on the schools, as well as the taxes to pay for it, by precisely $853 million over the next two years.” Later it says, “The legislature is sworn to abide by the Kansas Constitution, but that doesn’t mean abandoning its own powers of the purse to an unelected judiciary. This is a showdown between the branches of government, and the legislature has every right to protect its own constitutional prerogatives from judicial intrusion. In this case that means protecting Kansans from judicially ordered, and thus unconstitutional, tax increase.”

This is a national warning that any business looking to locate or expand in Kansas with our runaway courts and unlimited tax and spend policies would be crazy. Our neighbors will benefit from our spendthrift legacy. In fact there is vivid evidence of this legacy.

It is interesting to note that an important and largely unknown former Kansan died yesterday. The inventor of the integrated circuit chip Jack Kilby, originally from Great Bend, died at 81. This 2000 Nobel Laureate is an excellent example of a former Kansan who grew up here and moved elsewhere, like to Texas as in Texas Instruments to pursue his career. We graduate a lot of Jack Kilby’s from Kansas who return as regular “Kansas tourists” visiting family and friends over a week in summer or during the holiday season at Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is part of the price Kansas pays for being a high tax and big government state that regularly stifles entrepreneurship with the highest business property taxes and high corporate income taxes that were strongly criticized by Scott Hodges, the head of the Tax Foundation, at a Topeka forum June 14. Our property, income, sales, and excise taxes are lousy too. See other parts of KTN’s web site: www.kansastaxpayers.com for details.