Wichita City Council members speak in opposition to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s veto of Senate Bill 338, which would have given cities additional power to take property. April 12, 2016. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. For more on this issue, see Governor Brownback, please veto this harmful bill.
Today Kansas Governor Sam Brownback vetoed Senate Bill 338. As explained by John Todd, this bill unnecessarily and dangerously increased the power of cities over private property rights. Thank you to the governor for understanding the harm of this bill and acting appropriately. Most of all, thank you to John Todd for recognizing the bill’s danger, for his committee testimony, and for his tireless work in helping inform the governor and his staff about this bill.
Following, the governor’s veto message:
The right to private property serves as a central pillar of the American constitutional tradition. It has long been considered essential to our basic understanding of civil and political rights. Property rights serve as a foundation to our most basic personal liberties. One of government’s primary purposes is to protect the property rights of individuals.
The purpose of Senate Bill 338, to help create safer communities, is laudable. However, in this noble attempt, the statute as written takes a step too far. The broad definition of blighted or abandoned property would grant a nearly unrestrained power to municipalities to craft zoning laws and codes that could unjustly deprive citizens of their property rights. The process of granting private organizations the ability to petition the courts for temporary and then permanent ownership of the property of another is rife with potential problems.
Throughout the country, we have seen serious abuse where government has broadened the scope of eminent domain, especially when private development is involved. The use of eminent domain for private economic development should be limited in use, not expanded. Senate Bill 338 opens the door for serious abuse in Kansas. Governmental authority to take property from one private citizen and give it to another private citizen should be limited, but this bill would have the effect of expanding such authority without adequate safeguards.
Kansans from across the political spectrum contacted me to discuss their concerns that this bill will disparately impact low income and minority neighborhoods. The potential for abuse of this new statutory process cannot be ignored. Government should protect property rights and ensure that the less advantaged are not denied the liberty to which every citizen is entitled.
There is a need to address the ability of municipalities and local communities to effectively maintain neighborhoods for public safety. However, Senate Bill 338 does much more. Though I am vetoing this bill, I would welcome legislation that empowers local communities to respond to blight and abandoned property that does not open the door to abuse of the fundamental rights of free people.
Kansas progressives and Democrats oppose a judicial selection system that is used by U.S. Presidents, both Democrats and Republicans.
What is the substantive difference between these two systems?
A) A state’s chief executive appoints a person to be a judge on the state’s highest court. Then the state’s senate confirms or rejects.
B) A nation’s chief executive appoints a person to be a judge on the nation’s highest court. Then the nation’s senate confirms or rejects.
Perhaps there is a difference that I’m not smart enough to see. I’m open to persuasion. Until then, I agree with KU Law Professor Stephen Ware and his 2007 analysis of the way Kansas selects Supreme Court judges as compared to the other states.1 That analysis concludes that “Kansas is the only state in the union that gives the members of its bar majority control over the selection of state supreme court justices.”
Ware has made other powerful arguments in favor of discarding the system Kansas uses: “In supreme court selection, the bar has more power in Kansas than in any other state. This extraordinary bar power gives Kansas the most elitist and least democratic supreme court selection system in the country. While members of the Kansas bar make several arguments in defense of the extraordinary powers they exercise under this system, these arguments rest on a one-sided view of the role of a judge.”2
Judges, Ware says, make law, and that is a political matter: “Non-lawyers who do not know that judges inevitably make law may believe that the role of a judge consists only of its professional/technical side and, therefore, believe that judges should be selected entirely on their professional competence and ethics and that assessments of these factors are best left to lawyers. In short, a lawyer who omits lawmaking from a published statement about the judicial role is furthering a misimpression that helps empower lawyers at the expense of non-lawyers, in violation of basic democratic equality, the principle of one-person, one-vote.”3
Kansas exhibits a pattern of selecting governors from alternate political parties.For Kansas progressives and Democrats to oppose Kansas adopting the same system that has enabled Barack Obama to appoint two liberal justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, with perhaps more to come — don’t they realize that Kansas will (likely) have a Democratic governor someday? As Clay Barker noted, for the last 50 years, no Kansas governor has been followed by a successor of the same party (except for Mark Parkinson filling the remainder of a term after Kathleen Sebelius resigned). If that pattern holds — and there’s no guarantee that it will — the next Kansas governor will be a Democrat, just three years from now.
Superficially, it doesn’t seem to make sense for Kansas Democrats to oppose the governor making judicial selections while supporting the President of the United States having the same power. It does make sense, however, when we realize that Kansas Democrats are comfortable with the state’s bar selecting the judicial nominees that the governor may consider. (Which gives truly useful and enjoyable bars a bad name.) Lawyers, especially lawyers that take an active role in politics, tend to be Democrats, and progressive Democrats at that. If the Kansas bar was dominated by constitutional conservatives, would Kansas Democrats feel the same?
I’m not claiming that the motives of conservative Kansas Republicans are pure. Will they change their stance on the desirability of the governor appointing Supreme Court judges if there is a Democratic governor? I don’t know, but I have a suspicion.
Defenders of the current Kansas system claim that the system is based on merit, not politics. To which we must note that this year the Kansas Supreme Court was reversed by the United States Supreme Court. It wasn’t even close, with justices voting eight to zero that the Kansas court was wrong in its application of the law. (The other Supreme Court justice said “I do not believe these cases should ever have been reviewed by the Supreme Court.)
Ware, Stephen J., The Bar’s Extraordinarily Powerful Role in Selecting the Kansas Supreme Court (September 25, 2009). Kansas Journal of Law & Pubic Policy, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 392, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1478660. ↩
Ware, Stephen J., Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study (August 3, 2012). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2129265. ↩
Kansas City Star editorialist Steve Rose visits with Kansas State Senator Jim Denning.
It’s helpful for Kansans to have commentary and factual injection accompany a Steve Rose editorial in the Kansas City Star. In this case let’s look at a column based on his interview with Kansas State Senator Jim Denning.
Steve Rose: “The numbers can be sliced and diced to make a positive or negative picture, but it is undeniable that Kansas government itself is virtually bankrupt, and Brownback’s tax policies are responsible.”
A government can balance a budget by taxing more or spending less. We see the clear preference of Rose here: There is not enough taxation. We now have an efficiency study that shows some ways to save money. The question is why didn’t the legislature commission this study in 2012, the year in which it cut taxes?
“[State Sen. Jim Denning of Overland Park] Denning said: ‘The governor rolled the dice on the most aggressive tax cut policy in history, and things just did not turn out the way he expected.’”
It’s a shame to see Republicans — or anyone, for that matter — referring to tax cuts as “rolling the dice.” Cutting taxes simply means that people are allowed to keep more of what is rightfully theirs in the first place — which is a good thing. There is legitimate concern that the 2012 tax cuts were distributed in an unfair or unwise way. The way to fix that is to cut taxes for those who didn’t receive the purportedly unfair cuts.
As far as the results of the tax cuts, the governor should not have bragged as he did. The ability of government to manage the economy is limited, especially at the state level. Consider the Obama stimulus. The nation’s unemployment rate was always above the rate the administration predicted if there were no stimulus. See Brownback and Obama stimulus plans.
Further, what is the role of taxation in Kansas? Is it taxation or government spending that is purportedly good for the Kansas economy? Is it to support spending? If so, the tax cuts have not have an effect on spending. While some programs have been trimmed, overall state spending continues on a largely upward trend (for all funds spending) or remains mostly flat (for general fund spending). See Spending and taxing in Kansas.
Denning: “If we would have closed the [LLC] loophole, we would have brought in an additional $200 million, and the governor would have been a hero.”
Kansas General Fund spending, showing large deficits of revenue compared to spending in 2014 and 2015.The LLC loophole Denning refers to is the zero income tax on pass-through business income. Eliminating it and recapturing the $200 million would not have balanced the Kansas budget. In fiscal years 2014 and 2015 the state spent $340 million and $308 million more than it took in as revenue. Spending restraint is necessary.
Denning: “The Legislature has controlled spending to the lowest levels on record. … Our constituents wanted us to reduce spending, and we did.”
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Jonathan Williams of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) explains the goals of ALEC, changes to Kansas tax policy and the results, and the effects of state taxes on charitable giving. View below, or click here to view in high definition at YouTube. Episode 100, broadcast November 8, 2015.
Reactions to the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress scores for Kansas and the nation. Also, an interactive visualization.
Results for the 2015 administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress became available October 28. The test, sometimes called the “nation’s report card,” is described as “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.”
The Wichita Eagle didn’t have much to say on this, reporting “Results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress show that Kansas scores dropped in most areas since 2013, state education officials announced Wednesday. The decreases echo a downward trend in scores nationwide on the NAEP exam, also known as the Nation’s Report Card.”
The Kansas State Department of Education reported “Results from the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, show that Kansas followed the national trend of decreasing scores. Across the nation this year, both fourth- and eighth-grade mathematic scores, as well as eighth-grade reading scores, are lower in 2015 than in 2013. Fourth-grade reading scores aren’t significantly different from 2013.”
The Lawrence Journal-Worldused the Associated Press story: “Kansas schoolchildren are faring worse on a test known as the nation’s report card. The state’s performance dip follows a national trend of falling scores on the National Assessment of Educational progress.” So too did the Topeka Capital-Journal.
The Kansas Association of School Boards noted “State and national education leaders, including KASB, are currently researching the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, which were released earlier this week. Both nationally and in Kansas the 2015 NAEP results decreased slightly. … While Kansas results decreased slightly, Kansas student achievement remained above the national average in 4th- and 8th grade math and 8th grade reading and was the same as the national average in 4th grade reading. KASB is currently doing an in-depth analysis of the NAEP results and release its findings as soon as possible.”
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback issued a statement: “Today’s NAEP scores reflect the need for real education reform to benefit our students. This is a complex issue with no single cause or solution and today’s results confirm a trend showing that even though education funding has increased by more than $1 billion over the past decade, NAEP scores have remained largely flat. … While our Kansas schools remain above the national average, we can and should do more. We want our students to excel and have the skills they need to succeed in school and life in the 21st century. To do that, we must work to get more dollars into the classroom and into the infrastructure our teachers need to improve student performance, particularly in math. We need flexibility at the local level to address students’ needs, and we should support the great efforts of the thousands of teachers who work every day to help give our students opportunity for a brighter future.”
Some of these statements compared Kansas scores to the national average. That is not appropriate if there are subgroups that score at different levels, and if the composition of these subgroups varies significantly between states or the national average. That is the case with Kansas, which has significantly lower minority populations than the nation and some states. Care must be used when making comparisons.
To assist in understanding NAEP scores, I’ve updated two interactive visualizations with 2015 data. One visualization shows subgroups based on race/ethnicity, and the other shows subgroups based on national school lunch program eligibility, which is a commonly-used surrogate for income.
Each visualization has a number of tabs that display data in different ways. Most tabs allow for filtering of data in several ways.
$63 billion is a lot of output. It’s about 43 percent of the Kansas economy. A document supplied by the Kansas Department of Agriculture provides more detail: “As shown in the above table, agriculture, food, and food processing supports 229,934.1 jobs, or 12% of the entire workforce in the county [sic]. These industries provide a total economic contribution of approximately $62.8 billion, roughly 43% of Gross Region Product (GRP).” (Estimated Economic Impact of Agriculture, Food, and Food Processing Sectors, May 7, 2015.)
The document explains how such a large number is obtained. It includes three components, explained here: “Direct, indirect, and induced effects sum together to estimate the total economic contribution in the state. Direct effects capture the contribution from agricultural and food products. Indirect effects capture the economic benefit from farms and agricultural businesses purchasing inputs from supporting industries within the state. Induced effects capture the benefits created when employees of farms, agricultural businesses, and the supporting industries spend their wages on goods and services within the state.”
This method of reckoning economic impact is from a model called IMPLAN. It is a proprietary system with methodology and assumptions not open to inspection. It often used by those who are asking government for money or tax breaks. IMPLAN comes up with some real whoppers as to how important an industry is to the economy. When shown these figures, government officials are usually swayed to grant incentives.
There’s a problem, however. Agriculture cannot possibly be responsible for 43 percent of Kansas GDP. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has figures for each state showing the contribution to GDP for industry categories. I’ve gathered the data and calculated percentages for each industry. As you can see, the category “Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting” accounts for $8,136 million or 5.5 percent of Kansas GDP. There are seven other industry categories that rank above agriculture.
Gross Domestic Product for Kansas by Industry.
5.5 percent is a long way from the governor’s claim of 43 percent. It is true that the title of the paper is “Estimated Economic Impact of Agriculture, Food, and Food Processing Sectors.” So consider these industry subsectors:
Food and beverage and tobacco products manufacturing of $3,463 million (2013 value; 2104 not available)
Food services and drinking places $2,776 million (Also 2013 value)
If we add these to agriculture, we have production worth 9.8 percent of Kansas GDP. This is being overly generous to agriculture. It counts all bars and restaurants as part of the agriculture industry, something that makes no sense.
So how do we take these numbers and pump them up to 43 percent? IMPLAN, that’s how. It’s true that when an industry causes economic activity to occur, it spawns other economic activity. These are the indirect and induced effects that IMPLAN produces. But these numbers are hugely inflated. And when we take all industries, economic activity is counted more than once.
Recall there are seven industry categories ranking above agriculture. When it suits its needs, each of these uses IMPLAN to boost its importance to the state. Consider manufacturing, which at 13.1 percent of GDP is the third-largest industry in Kansas. When manufacturing companies appeal to state or local government for subsidies, they use IMPLAN or related mechanisms to inflate their importance. Almost everyone does this. It’s standard procedure.
Except: When everyone claims the same indirect and induced economic activity, such analysis becomes meaningless. If we added up the IMPLAN-calculated value of each industry to the Kansas economy, we’d end up with a value several times larger than the actual value.
This is what the Kansas Department of Agriculture and Governor Sam Brownback have done. We expect this behavior from companies or local economic development agencies when they appeal for economic development incentives. They need to inflate their importance to gullible government bureaucrats and elected officials. But Governor Brownback doesn’t need to do this, and neither does the Kansas Department of Agriculture. From them, all we want is the truth, and nothing more.
Kansas public schools ought to thank the governor and legislature for failing to give parents the power of school choice.
The public school establishment in Kansas is angry with the governor and legislature over school finance. Really, the public schools ought to be grateful for Governor Sam Brownback. In many states with conservative Republican governors, school choice programs have grown. In the summer of 2011 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it called “The Year of School Choice.”
Some governors have been warriors for school choice. Not Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, however. He signed a small school choice bill when it landed on his desk. But he has not vocally advocated for expanded school choice. There are several Kansas legislators who are in favor of school choice, but not enough, certainly not in leadership.
As public schools and their unions despise any form of school choice and the accountability it provides, they should be grateful for our governor and legislature. Kansas public schools operate without much competition, and that’s the way public schools and their unions like it.
School choice in Kansas
How little school choice exists in Kansas? One implementation of school choice that is popular in some states is the charter school. According to National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Kansas has a poor charter school law. That is, Kansas law makes it difficult to start and maintain a charter school. Of the 43 states that have charter schools, Kansas ranked 42. Kansas public schools are effectively shielded from the diversity and competition that charter schools provide.
Others have also found the Kansas charter school law to be very restrictive. The Center for Education Reform found the Kansas charter school law to be the worst in the nation.
Governor Brownback signed a tax credit scholarship program. The Kansas program is small and restrictive, earning the grade of “D” from Center for Education Reform. Kansas has no school voucher program.
Altogether, Kansas parents have little power to choose schools for their children. The primary power Kansas parents have is to choose where they live. If a family can afford to, it can live in a district where the public schools are not as bad as they are in other districts. Given that these desirable districts almost always cover higher-income areas, poor parents don’t have this possibility.
School choice won’t fix everything, but it goes a long way. Here’s a portion of the 2011 Wall Street Journal article “The Year of School Choice.”
Choice by itself won’t lift U.S. K-12 education to where it needs to be. Eliminating teacher tenure and measuring teachers against student performance are also critical. Standards must be higher than they are.
But choice is essential to driving reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper.
This year’s choice gains are a major step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall’s elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their parents want them to attend.
Letter from ALEC to Kansas lawmakers. Click to read.To balance the budget, there are many things Kansas lawmakers could do other than raising taxes.
In congratulating Kansas lawmakers for passing a pro-growth tax cut, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) reminds everyone that there is more than one way to balance a budget. Spending needs to be addressed:
However, as budget realities need to be addressed, the spending side of the fiscal coin is a good place to start. ALEC has conducted non-partisan research on how states can make government more efficient. In the State Budget Reform Toolkit, case studies and policy options are examined that allow the state to maintain core services of government at a lower cost. One example is to eliminate positions in state agencies that have been vacant for more than six months, or to adopt a sunset review process for state agencies, boards and commissions. These examples and many more can be found on our website for your review.
Some of the ideas in the State Budget Reform Toolkit have been considered and rejected by the Kansas Legislature. Others have not been considered, as far as I know. Most take more than one year to implement. These ideas remind us that when the Kansas Legislature and Governor Brownback cut taxes for everyone, they did not start planning for lower spending.
As far as the results of the tax cuts, the governor should not have bragged as he did. The ability of government to manage the economy is limited, especially at the state level. Consider the Obama stimulus. The nation’s unemployment rate was always above the rate the administration predicted if there were no stimulus. See Brownback and Obama stimulus plans.
Further, what is the role of taxation in Kansas? Is it taxation or government spending that is purportedly good for the Kansas economy? Is it to support spending? If so, the tax cuts have not have an effect on spending. While some programs have been trimmed, overall state spending continues on a largely upward trend (for all funds spending) or remains mostly flat (for general fund spending). See Spending and taxing in Kansas.
