Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas legislature

Articles about the Kansas legislature, both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

  • Wichita Municipal Judges Need to be Elected

    Here’s a letter from citizen activist John Todd to Wichita City Council candidate Ken Thomas. The election of Wichita municipal court judges is important for reasons John makes clear in his testimony to the Kansas Legislature from 2004, which follows.

    I am pleased that you are making the election of Municipal Court Judges by the people a campaign issue. Since 1999 three different local state legislators introduced bills in the legislature in an attempt to achieve municipal court reform, primarily by allowing the people to elect municipal court judges. All efforts at municipal court reform on the state level have failed. I am not an attorney, but I am now of the opinion that the city of Wichita could legislate the election of Wichita Municipal Court judges by Charter ordinance through their Home Rule powers as allowed by the Kansas Constitution.

    Attached for your information are copies of testimony I presented before House and Senate legislative committees in 2004 regarding the need for the election of municipal court judges. I believe the arguments for the election of municipal court judges by the people I presented at that time are still applicable for today.

    This information is intended to help you in your attempt to make the election of Wichita Municipal Court judges a reality. Please let me know if I can provide additional information. Former Wichita Municipal court judge Bruce Brown who was recently elected as a judge in the 18th Judicial System would be a good source of information regarding the election of municipal judges.

    Here’s John’s testimony:

    February 18, 2004
    To: Members of the House Ethics and Elections Committee
    Subject: Support for the passage of HB#2811, Election of Municipal Court Judges by the People.

    My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker from Wichita. I am here to speak as a private citizen in favor of the passage of House Bill No. 2811 that would allow the people to elect their Municipal Court Judges in the same manner and at the same time that they elect their City Council Members and Mayors.

    I have been studying the Wichita Municipal Court since 1997. As a frequent visitor to the Court I have witnessed the workings of the Court, and I have had the opportunity to visit with citizens who have appeared before the Court. The Municipal Court has more power over citizens than most people know about. The Court can levy hundreds of dollars in fines against citizens, and can send them to jail for up to one year.

    One of my first surprises was that there is no stenographic record of the Court proceedings. The Judge and the Prosecuting Attorney, both appointed city employees, can therefore say or do anything they wish with impunity! I heard one Municipal Court Judge refer to his docket as the “cattle call”. On another occasion I observed a citizen threatened with 5 years in prison if he didn’t follow the Judges wishes even though the Court jurisdiction only allows a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

    I discovered that the Wichita Municipal Court Judges are actually appointed by the City Council. They actually work at the pleasure of the City Council from whom they receive their salary. There is no separation of power between the City Council (the Legislative Branch) and the Judge (the Judiciary Branch) of city government. The Municipal Court is therefore not independent from the influence of the City Council. In the late 1990’s the Municipal Court Judges were actually required to sign employment contracts with the City Council. Can anyone imagine the how difficult it would be for a citizen to protect their rights and receive due process of law in a Federal or State Court if Federal and State Court Judges worked at the pleasure of Congress or the State Legislature!

    There are those who contend that the Municipal Courts are a revenue source for cities and towns with little thought of justice or doing what the law requires. One could see how a Municipal Court Judge who is appointed by the City Council might come under pressure from City Councils to raise money. A Wichita Eagle article reported that Wichita Municipal Court revenues increased from approximately $3 million to $9 million over a period of 6 years. That is an increase of approximately 300%. It is interesting to note that during the same time period that Court fines increased, news media accounts gave no mention of a 300% increase in the crime rate. Does anyone really suspect that the Wichita Municipal Court was more interested in collecting revenue than in dispensing justice?

    Why is the election of Municipal Court Judges so important? I would estimate that a huge majority of our citizens who have their day in Court do so in the Municipal Court system in our towns and cities across the state. Is it important that people receive a fair trial in a free and independent Court? Absolutely yes! Is the citizen’s impression and perception as to the quality of justice that is dispensed important? As public servants, I believe you all know the answer to that question.

    The election of Municipal Court Judges is the right thing to do. It returns control of the Municipal Courts to the people and makes the Judiciary branch of city government accountable to them. Please support the passage of House Bill No. 2811.

  • Another Misleading Question by GPACE

    Yesterday we saw how the website of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy contains a list of ten questions for Sunflower supporters. My post GPACE “Sunflower” Questions Misleading showed how these questions are designed to influence public opinion in a very misleading manner.

    One of the ways some of the questions are misleading is that they’re based on a false premise (or two). Here’s question number eight, which provides another example: “How is it a good idea for the part-time, partisan Kansas Legislature to be responsible for thousands of annual permit requests and for enforcing compliance, in addition to other priorities and constitutional duties?”

    This question is based on this premise: that because a majority of Kansas legislators want to overrule one decision made by Rod Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the legislature wants to be responsible for all decisions made by KDHE.

    That’s quite a leap of logic, and one unsupported by any public statement by any member of the legislature that I’ve seen. This question is obviously designed to evoke a specific response unsupported by facts. It’s misleading.

    Here’s something else: The use of the word partisan in describing the legislature. This is designed to convince people that the action taken by the legislature was tainted because it was based on political considerations, rather than other considerations of a higher order such as, say, scientific evidence.

    The reality is that the Sunflower electrical plant permit was approved by the professional staff of KDHE. It was KDHE Secretary Rod Bremby, a political appointee of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who decided to overrule his staff and deny the permit. That sounds like partisan action to me.

    GPACE’s website states “GPACE seeks to correct an imbalance in the information citizens and their elected representatives have received regarding the critical and complex energy policy decisions facing our state.” From what we’ve seen so far, GPACE’s misleading and loaded questions contribute to misinformation rather than balance.

  • Kansas Legislator Rosters Not Ready

    At the Kansas Legislature website, two useful pages to visit are the roster of house and senate members. These pages hold the names of all the members, along with their email addresses and a link to the page for each member.

    As of today, these pages aren’t ready for this year’s legislative session, which started Monday.

  • Sebelius’ Proposed Cuts Not Likely Enough

    Martin Hawver explains that as bad as the Kansas budget situation is, Governor Kathleen Sebelius — at least for now — isn’t required to recognize the full depth of the crisis.

    The Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, comprised of fiscal wizards who, well, estimate future revenues into the State General Fund, predicts that revenues will fall at least $211 million before the fiscal year ends on June 30, 2009. What that means is that spending approved by last year’s Legislature is about $140 million more than Kansas is likely to have (the state had been looking forward to ending this fiscal year with a small balance). … Here’s the political good part, if we can call it that. Sebelius has to meet the figures produced by the revenue estimators back on Nov. 4, and revenues have gotten worse since then. But the Nov. 4 estimate, legally, is the target she is required to meet. … It probably means that the Legislature is going to have to cut more spending this fiscal year, but Sebelius gets to make the least-icky of the cuts. And the political focus will be on the Legislature’s additional cuts to get through this fiscal year.

    The full article, well worth reading, is The politics of budget cutting.

  • Kansas Votes: A Valuable Resource

    Recently the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy began sponsorship of a valuable resource for all Kansas. This site, Kansas Votes, provides information about pending legislation as it works its way through the law-making process. This process, unbelievably complicated to the average citizen, is explained in plain language. Even I can figure out what’s going on in Topeka by using Kansas Votes.

    From its website, here are some features of Kansas Votes:

    • Concise, plain-language, objective and accurate descriptions of every bill, amendment, roll call vote and voice vote.
    • Ability to track all the votes of a particular legislator, or search by bill number, category or keyword.
    • Ability to view all the bills and amendments introduced by a particular legislator.
    • Ability to post a public comment, view others’ comments, and participate in citizen surveys on each bill.
    • Automatically e-mail legislators or others about a bill.
    • Ability to follow action in any one or more of 50 different categories of legislation (such as Education or Land Use or Taxes).
    • Ability to sign up for e-mail notifications of action on any bill or subject area of interest, including new bill introductions.

    Today marks the start of the session of the Kansas Legislature. Now citizens have a valuable tool to help them follow the action in the statehouse. This is especially important as traditional media such as newspapers devote less coverage to news like this.

    And did I mention it’s free? Thank you to the Flint Hills Center for that.

    To use Kansas Votes, click here: Kansas Votes.

  • Kansas Speaker Mike O’Neal at AFP Summit

    Representative Mike O’Neal, Republican from Hutchinson, is the new Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. He spoke on January 10 at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita.

    His speech warned of tough times ahead, with a difficult job for both the legislature and citizens. Part of the problem is that we’ve been spending a lot in recent years: “Kansas is a cash basis state. We have spent more in the last four years than we’ve taken in, primarily because we’ve had healthy balances, and because we have had, historically, some decent economic growth. That, however, is not, and should not be, the justification for growing government and continuing to spend money without looking out on the horizon to see what economic markets are going to do.”

    He said that the current year deficit (the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009) is around $190 million. But the number to aim for is $290 million, so that there is an ending balance. Then for fiscal year 2010 (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010), somewhere near $1 billion.

    That’s the bad news, he said. “The good news is that presents us with an excellent opportunity to do things fundamentally different with the way we look at state budgets. … It would probably surprise many of you in this room to learn that we do not conduct financial audits of the state budget, and have not done that for a number of years.”

    “We simply spend our session looking at the governor’s enhancement budget for those agencies, and determine what, if any, enhancements we’re going to allow. That is not going to happen this year. … We are looking at making fundamental cuts in the budget.”

    He went on to say that we’ve known of the trouble with the budget for about 90 days. So why hasn’t anything been done? The legislature couldn’t do anything because it wasn’t in session. But, Governor Kathleen Sebelius can do things when the legislature is not in session. She can make targeted cuts. With permission of the finance council, she could make across-the-board cuts. But she’s not done either.

    The Wichita Eagle provided coverage of O’Neal’s talk, including some remarks made afterwards, in the article Speaker says cuts will be painful.

  • Testimony against taxpayer-funded lobbying

    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)

    I have personally witnessed this abuse over the last several years as a citizen appearing before a number of legislative committees. During the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions government lobbyists and their associations opposed popular reform efforts in the area of eminent domain.

    In previous legislative sessions government lobbyists were successful in blocking two attempts to obtain Municipal Court Reform that would have allowed the election of Municipal Court Judges by the people. A third attempt at Municipal Court reform was opposed by a lobbyist from the Kansas Supreme Court itself, resulting in this measure never making it out of committee.

    Local government in Wichita and Sedgwick County has become “big business” with government spending for our city, county, and local school district at nearly $1.4 Billion. In addition to their taxpayer-funded associations like the League of Kansas Municipalities, the Kansas Association of Counties, and the Kansas Association of School Boards, these government entities employ their own taxpayer-funded lobbyists.

    At a minimum, the passage of House Bill #2775 is a start towards making taxpayer-funded government lobbying more transparent and accountable to the people. I would request that you study the report “Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Implications of Taxpayer-funded Lobbying” by Benjamin Barr posted on the Goldwater Policy web page, as referenced above, to consider additional taxpayer-funded lobbying reform that is needed in Kansas.

  • The Kansas legislative buffet

    When Sen. Phil Journey, a legislator who is known as a conservative, uses the term “legislative buffet,” it reveals the wisdom and foresight of Bastiat, who long ago described the legislative process as this: “A share of the plunder for me, for me!”

    The Wichita Eagle article “Water, med school join priority list” (November 30, 2007) describes the battle Wichita-area legislators face: “work together to compete for state resources or lose out to other areas, primarily Johnson County.” As Kansas will spend some $12 billion this year — and probably much more the next — there’s a lot at stake. Whether Wichita gets its fair share of spending on local needs depends on how agile our local senators and representatives are at the buffet.

    What’s not often discussed is the absurdity of sending billions of local dollars to Topeka each year, hoping we are judged worthy enough to get some of it back. Or, perhaps we’re hoping to hit the jackpot: if we have very good legislators who can really “belly up” to the buffet, they might manage to get back more from Topeka than we sent. This pattern is not unique to Wichita; each city or region has its own needs and priorities. Why not just leave the money at home, letting each city or county decide how much and on what to spend?

    Even better: many, if not all, of the things we want the legislature to do could be done privately, without any government intervention. Then we could accomplish things through voluntary cooperation, instead of the coerced march of our dollars to Topeka, where we have to then fight to get them back. Conservative legislators like Sen. Journey should seek to end the “legislative buffet” instead of restocking it year after year.

    Your principle has placed these words above the entrance of the legislative chamber: “Whosoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of legal plunder.” And what has been the result? All classes have flung themselves upon the doors of the chamber, crying: “A share of the plunder for me, for me!”

    — Frederic Bastiat, “Selected Essays on Political Economy” (1848)

  • Floods and whirlwind (of spending in Kansas)

    Floods and Whirlwind
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Kansans are focused upon the floods as well as the results of the tornados that tore up this state in early May. The wrath of Mother Nature is upon us just as the Kansas legislature has left its own flood of spending and whirlwind of legislative changes on this state. The legislature’s fiscal wrath might be overlooked by Kansans focused upon their flooded basements or providing help and assistance to the devastated folks who survived in Greensburg. Kansans ignoring the legislature do so at their peril.

    Kansans will soon have to pay another $1/2 billion more for state government. As one liberal Democrat legislative leader put it, “We spent it,” was the watchword from assistant minority leader State Representative Jim Ward, D-Wichita, to his home town newspaper April 22 when asked about the 2007 session at that point. A few days later the legislature returned to Topeka and spent even more.

    That’s the budget that will soon become law as a result of the 2007 Kansas legislature. Governor Sebelius’ signature is needed to make this $6.089 billion General Fund budget official. This is a 10.4 percent spending hike over last year’s budget.

    It is almost a billion more than the 2006 budget of $5.139 billion. That’s 18.5 percent in two years. Has your salary gone up 18.5 percent in the last two years?

    Ironically, there have been newspaper articles targeting the less than $35 million in tax cuts as a fiscal problem for Kansas. The Wichita Eagle warned that cutting the business franchise tax and reducing the tax penalty on social security payments to seniors could place this state in fiscal jeopardy. Tax cuts are a problem while spending growth is ignored among the liberal Kansas newspapers.

    Obviously, these are fiscally liberal journalists who never bothered to read the budget. Now there was pressure from the liberal spending lobbies starting with the Kansas Supreme Court as well as the governor demanding massive hikes in state school spending. That part of the court’s edict will expand almost $200 million in one year or $450 per pupil. In addition, the rest of the spending lobbies from the state regents universities and social service welfare spending advocates are among the most prominent who perpetually dominate the budget process in Topeka. That why a liberal spending advocate like state senator Tony Hensley, D-Topeka, praised the 2008 budget on the senate floor before voting for it.

    Nebraska is looking at major reductions in a variety of anti-competitive state taxes and may use a sizable part of their budget surplus coming from the Bush tax cuts for some major, over $200 million in income and property tax cuts in a state with 60 percent of the Kansas population. Last year Oklahoma passed an even larger dollar amount of income tax cuts. In April the Tax Foundation (taxfoundation.org) reported that Kansas has the 15th highest total of state and local taxes as a percentage of income among the 50 states.

    Kansas went into this budget cycle with over $734 million as a beginning cash balance. That will soon be spent. The real challenge that awaits us is state revenues are growing at only a fraction of state spending, and this spending growth cannot continue without raising Kansans’ taxes.