Senator Ruth Teichman, Republican in Name Only?

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This is an interesting analysis that I received from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network. What Karl doesn’t mention is that Senator Teichman is a Republican.


Bob,

This response is so interesting and the timing is so remarkable that I want to submit it for Wichita Liberty. Sen. Teichman responds to my mid-February email that I sent her opposing SB 58. Shortly thereafter, she voted to APPROVE SB 58 on the floor of the Kansas senate. March 22, 2005 the Kansas house votes for SB 58 in an unamended form so it will go directly to the governor for her signature.

Today, March 24, I received her response to my February 15 e-mail! The timing of this response provides a fascinating insight into the Kansas legislature in general and Senator Teichman in particular. You might also find it interesting to know that Sen. Teichman’s lifetime KTN fiscal vote rating is only 9.7%, and is now the lowest of the currently serving Kansas senators. Sen. Buhler’s was 3.9% but he was beat last November. Her fiscal vote rating is going to continue to be low as Senator Teichman continues to mistreat taxpayers.

Karl Peterjohn

Ruth Teichman wrote:
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:25:50 -0600
From: “Ruth Teichman”
To:
Subject: Re: SB 58 Arena tax bill

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your concerns.
Senator Ruth Teichman

>>> kpeterjohn 02/15/05 12:58 >>>

Senators:

A quick reminder of six reasons why the Kansas Taxpayers Network testified in opposition to SB 58 in senate tax committee earlier this month.

1) SB 58 makes a bad law, KSA 12-187 worse.

2) SB 58 adds a retroactive provision to KSA 12-187. KTN is adamant in opposing retroactive provisions to state tax law.

3) SB 58 treats Kansas citizens as second-class to local units who can ignore state law with impugnity if this law is passed.

4) One of the reasons that this vote won by a very small margin (52-to-48)city, county, and state tax funded organizations donated over $45,000 for the “Vote Yea” campaign conducted by the arena tax hike proponents. This misuse of tax funds outspent the “Vote No” campaign by better than 2-to-1. This was a gross misuse of tax funds including turnpike and regents spending.

5) The arena will be a money losing failure if it is built using the current plan. The plan itself projects annual losses in the range of $800,000 a year. I frankly believe the losses will be larger than projected. This would be added to a large number of governmentally financed projects that are losing money in downtown Wichita.

6) This bill should be amended to extend the requirement in KSA 12-187 requiring voter approval of local sales taxes to be extended to cover local property taxes too.

We have had some folks ask about SB 58 appearing on Kansas Taxpayers Network’s 2005 vote rating. This will be a vote that is included for the reasons cited above.

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