Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas state government

Articles about Kansas, its government, and public policy in Kansas.

  • Report from Topeka, June 22, 2005

    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.

  • How children lose in the Kansas Legislature’s special session

    USD 259 (Wichita) public schools superintendent Winston Brooks plans to use the majority of the anticipated increase in school funding to reduce class size. Evidence cited in other articles on this website show that smaller class sizes don’t produce better educational outcomes for students.

    Because the conventional wisdom is that smaller class sizes are good for students, the extra money and smaller class sizes will be saluted as a victory for the children. Editorial writers, school administrators, teachers, and those who don’t care to confront facts will thank the Kansas Supreme Court and Kansas Legislature for saving the children.

    The sad fact is that this seeming victory, a victory which does nothing to help children, will delay desperately needed reform for another year. In all likelihood reform will be delayed even longer, as if the legislature accedes to the court’s demand this year, it may also do so next year, when the court has called for even more spending.

    Who benefits from smaller class size? The teachers unions do. Smaller class sizes mean a lighter workload for current teachers. More teachers (paying more union dues) need to be hired, as is the plan in Wichita.

    But as mentioned earlier, smaller class size doesn’t help the students. That’s the danger in spending more on schools. It seems like the additional money should help the schools, and those who procure the money are treated as heroes. This illusion of a solution delays the reform that is badly needed.

    What would truly help children? Overwhelming evidence points to school choice. As Harvard economist and researcher Caroline M. Hoxby said about the school voucher program in Milwaukee:

    From 1998-1999 onwards, the schools that faced the most competition from the vouchers improved student achievement radically–by about 0.6 of a standard deviation each year. That is an enormous, almost unheard-of, improvement. Keep in mind the schools in question had had a long history of low achievement. Yet they were able to get their act together quickly. The most threatened schools improved the most, not only compared to other schools in Milwaukee but also compared to other schools in the state of Wisconsin that served poor, urban students.

    Milwaukee shows what public school administrators can tell you: Schools can improve if they are under serious competition.

    Why, then, don’t we have school choice in Wichita? The teachers unions and education establishment are against it. They don’t want to face the same type of free market forces that the rest of us face. They are in charge of educating children, they tell us they are doing the best they can, that everything they do is for the children and only the children, but they oppose desperately needed reform.

  • The cthics case against Justice Donald L. Allegrucci

    I have filed an ethics complaint against Kansas Supreme Court Justice Donald L. Allegrucci. This complaint is on the agenda of the July 1, 2005 meeting of the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications.

    I happen to disagree with the ruling the Kansas Supreme Court made in the case cited in my complaint. I have been asked whether I would have filed the same complaint if I had agreed with the court’s ruling. The answer to that question is probably not. My level of interest would probably not be what it is. That troubles me, as we as citizens need to be watchful for these types of judicial transgressions, no matter what our political beliefs are, and not mattering whether we or the causes that we support benefit from the judge’s rulings.

    I have yet to see much newspaper reporting on this. The Associated Press wrote a story based on Karl Peterjohn’s column, and the Wichita Eagle and Topeka Capital-Journal printed it, although in Wichita it was pretty far back in the paper’s pages.

    The form I filed with the Commission asks for a twenty-five word statement of what the judge did that was unethical. This is what I wrote:

    Justice Allegrucci is married to the Governor’s Chief of Staff. The Governor has taken a position on a case before Justice Allegrucci’s court.

    For the details of the complaint, I wrote this:

    In the case Montoy v. State, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has taken a position. In an article titled “School finance plan delivered to state Supreme Court” published in the Lawrence Journal-World on April 7, 2005, she is quoted as stating “As governor, I believe the Legislature’s school funding plan is neither responsible nor sustainable. It jeopardizes the state’s finances, as well as jobs and economic growth throughout Kansas.” The legislature’s school funding plan is now before the court Justice Allegrucci serves on.

    Justice Allegrucci is married to Joyce Allegrucci, who serves as the Governor’s Chief of Staff.

    In the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, paragraph B states: A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.

    Through marriage, Justice Allegrucci has a family relationship to Joyce Allegrucci. Through employment and political considerations, Joyce Allegrucci has a relationship to Governor Sebelius.

    Canon 2, paragraph A states: A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

    In the commentary: A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. The test for appearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds a perception that the judge’s ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality and competence is impaired.

    Because of the family relationship to an important member of the Governor’s staff, we can never be sure whether Justice Allegrucci’s rulings are affected by this relationship. This is appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.

  • What’s the Matter with Kansas?

    By Alan Cobb, State Director of Americans For Prosperity, Kansas

    Many would describe that much of Kansas is in decline. Over 75 percent of the counties in Kansas have lost population just since 2000. Over half of Kansas’ counties have fewer residents today than 1900.

    Recently, the Associated Press reported that Kansas is in real danger of losing a Congressional seat during the next reapportionment because of anemic population growth. Kansas population growth from 2000 to 2004 was only 1.7 percent while the nation as a whole grew 4.3 percent. Sedgwick County’s growth was only 2.3% during this time. Kansas’ annual growth of less than one-half of one percent should startle anyone concerned about the future of our fine State.

    No matter how you measure growth, Kansas is struggling, particularly when compared to the other 50 states. Kansas is in the bottom ten among states in population growth, income growth and job growth.

    Unbelievably, this century Kansas has lost 16,700 private sector jobs while the government sector actually added 15,000 jobs.

    The same week it was reported that Kansas may lose a Congressional seat, the Tax Foundation released a study that stated Kansas has the 15th highest state and local tax burden. We are tied with New Jersey and higher than Massachusetts and California. Kansas has a higher tax burden than all of our neighboring states except Nebraska.

    Recently the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas compared every Kansas County that borders another State. Except for the Kansas counties bordering Nebraska, the Kansas counties fared worse than their neighbors in Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma when measuring economic activity, income growth and population growth.

    Of the top twenty states in population growth this century, all but two states, Utah and Hawaii, have lower tax burdens than Kansas.

    I have heard a Kansas legislator comment that that’s just the way it is; Kansas is a rural, Great Plains state and rural, Great Plains states aren’t growing. I do not believe that is true, but even if it were, I am not ready to accept that.

    What are we to do about our population predicament? First we must decide that the lack of economic growth is a problem. And we must be brutally honest about the solutions. Is more government spending and taxation the solution? Are more government owned and constructed buildings the solutions for Wichita or Salina or Lakin?

    Are we, as a State, willing to honestly assess our State’s strengths and weaknesses and make the necessary policy changes needed for growth?

    Without any changes to the path we’re on, rural Kansas faces a bleak future.

    I am not willing to accept the declining status quo as the best we can do, and I don’t think most Kansans are either.

    What are we prepared to do?

  • Kansas Attorney General Has it Right

    TOPEKA — Alan Cobb, director of the Kansas chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, today released the following statement in response to the briefs filed in the State vs. Montoy case currently before the Kansas Supreme Court:

    “As questions and concerns swirl about whether or not the Kansas Supreme Court can order a statewide tax increase, we applaud Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline for putting this issue to rest.

    In a brief filed yesterday with the court and in response to questions from reporters, AG Kline said clearly that the Kansas Supreme Court does not have the authority to impose taxes or raises the current level of taxation.

    From the summary of the brief filed by the Attorney General:

    “The Kansas Constitution Prohibits the Supreme Court from Raising Taxes and Prohibits any Expenditure from the State General Fund from Occurring Unless Authorized by Laws Passed by the Legislature.” (emphasis added)

    The bottom line is that the Legislature has the responsibility to tax and to fund schools appropriately. They’ve met that burden.

    The Kansas Legislature and the Attorney General understand that our state’s taxpayers suffer the 15th worst state and local tax burden in the nation as a percentage of income. That’s an even heavier tax burden than citizens in the notoriously high-tax states of California and Massachusetts must carry! Also, our ranking this year is twice as bad as it was 20 years ago, when we ranked a much better 31st.

    “The short-term solution to over-taxation in Kansas is for the legislature to continue rejecting any and all proposed tax increases, and the long-term solution is the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. If Kansas had implemented a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992, taxpayers would have received $1.1 billion in tax rebates and reductions and we would have squirreled away $1.4 billion in Rainy Day funds that would have offset the budget shortfalls that occurred during the recent economic downturn. And Kansas taxpayers would have a little more money in their pockets as they file their taxes this week.”

  • The Decline of Kansas Documented By Census

    By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Kansas is in a decline. This state is shrinking relative to its peers in the other 49 states. However, some might say, and with some degree of accuracy, that this trend is nothing new. It is clear that the size and impact of this decline is likely to shape this state throughout the first part of the 21st century.

    April 21 the U.S. Census Department issued projections for population growth showing that Kansas population will grow at less than 1/3 of the rate of the rest of the country over the next 25 years. This followed Census data showing that over 3/4 of the Kansas counties have lost population since the 2000 census.

    The relative decline of Kansas is continuing and this is most vividly demonstrated in the declining numbers of Kansans serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is a little known fact that over a 40 year period ending after the 1930 census, there were eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas. At one time, Kansans represented over two percent of the national population.

    Recently, Kansas slid and became just under one percent of the national population and if the census population trends occur, Kansas will soon see that number drop by 1/4 in the next 25 years. As the population has declined with the rest of the country so has the congressional delegation.

    Kansas lost members of congress following the 1930, 1940, 1960, and 1990 censuses and is shrinking like a Florida glacier. In mid-April an Associated Press report quoted Xan Wedel, a researcher at K.U.’s Policy Research Institute, saying the state was at risk of losing another member in the house in 2010. If you think the big first congressional district is large today when there are four members, let your imagination consider how large it will be if there are only three, or later in this century only two. If the census forecast is correct the decline in Kansas, as represented by our shrinking congressional delegation, is continuing.

    Kansas would be on track for a decline that could shrink this state’s delegation down to the size of Idaho or Rhode Island during the next 50 or 60 years. At the same time Kansas’ population declines, the states in our region that have placed limits on state and local government taxes and spending growth are growing faster. Colorado, which once

    lagged behind Kansas in congressional representation but now has seven, will grow more than 3.5 times faster than Kansas. Missouri and Oklahoma will grow 50 percent faster than Kansas while Arkansas will pass Kansas too. Arkansas is growing more than twice as fast as Kansas. Only higher tax Nebraska is projected to grow at a lower rate than Kansas among our four adjacent states at only 6.4 percent.

    Nationally, states without state income taxes will be growing much faster than the states that penalize income earners. The nine states without personal income taxes are projected to grow at twice the rate of the rest of the country. There is a wide variance between these nine states’ projected growth rates but Texas and Florida are both projected to gain three additional members each to their congressional delegations following the 2010 census. Florida is also projected to overtake struggling New York to become the third largest state in population in 2010. Texas, which is the number one state that Kansans are moving to when they leave, is already the second largest nationally.

    These census figures demonstrate that Kansans can and do vote with their feet. As business and industry move to more competitive parts of the country Kansas is being left behind and the political and judicial leadership in Kansas is busy trying to raise income, sales, and other Kansas taxes. The tax and spend formula for state government in Kansas is leading to an economic failure that will destroy our future.

  • Kansas Faces Challenges for Growth

    By Alan Cobb, Americans For Prosperity Kansas State Director

    Many would describe that much of rural Kansas is in decline. Nearly 60 percent of the counties in Kansas have lost population just since 1990. Over half of Kansas’ counties have fewer residents today than 1900.

    Just this week the Associated Press reported that stated Kansas is in real danger of losing a Congressional seat during the next reapportionment because of anemic population growth. Kansas population growth from 2000 to 2004 was only 1.7 percent while the nation as a whole grew 4.3 percent. Kansas’ annual growth of less than one-half of one percent should startle anyone concerned about the future of our fine State.

    No matter how you measure growth, Kansas is struggling, particularly when compared to the other 50 states. Kansas is in the bottom ten among states in population growth, income growth and job growth. While I do not like to scream crisis, we, as a State, clearly have urgent needs that must be addressed soon.

    The solutions to our growth problems will take time. There are no overnight fixes. Thus, we need to get started immediately.

    For most Kansas communities, if they do not grow, they die. We might like to think the quaint small Kansas town depicted in Hollywood never grows or shrinks, but stays the same. That isn’t reality.

    The changes and population decline are gradual but unmistakable.

    I have heard a Kansas legislator comment that that’s just the way it is; Kansas is a rural, Great Plains state and rural, Great Plains states aren’t growing. That is not the case, but even if it were, I am not ready to accept that. It simply isn’t a fact that Kansas can not grow.

    So, what are we to do about it? How can we encourage real economic development? How can we encourage population and income growth? Do we want population growth and economic development?

    There are those who don’t want growth and the problems associated with it. They want their town to stay the same as it has for years. They like the comfortable and familiar feel.

    Kansans move to places that provide economic and professional opportunities for themselves and their families. While the residents of a small Kansas town appear to enjoy their seemingly unchanging community, the most capable leave for places providing better economic possibilities and their former hometown slowly decays. These place Kansans move to are frequently in other states, but certainly are not in rural Kansas.

    What are we to do about this? First we must decide that the lack of economic growth is a problem. And we must be brutally honest about the solutions. Are government grants the solution? Is the new convention center for the county seat a key for reversing the fortunes of the community?

    We must take a hard look at systemic change to Kansas to being reversing the alarming trend.

    Recently the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas compared every Kansas County that borders another State. Except for the Kansas counties bordering Nebraska, the Kansas counties fared worse than their neighbors in Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma when measuring economic activity, income growth and population growth.

    Clearly the Colorado counties of Cheyenne and Kiowa are no different that Greeley and Wallace Counties in Kansas, yet the Colorado counties have experienced more growth than their Kansas counterparts. Are Texas and Beaver County, Oklahoma really any different than Morton, Seward and Meade Counties in Kansas? Why are the Oklahoma counties growing faster than their Kansas neighbors?

    Overall, more people are moving out of Kansas than moving in to Kansas. If not for our birth rate exceeding our death rate, we would actually have negative population growth. And without the growth in Johnson County, our State would not be growing at all.

    Why is that? Are we, as a State, willing to honestly assess our State’s strengths and weaknesses and make the necessary policy changes needed for growth?

    Without any changes to the path we’re on, rural Kansas faces a bleak future.

    I am not willing to accept the declining status quo as the best we can do, and I don’t think most Kansans are either.

    What are we prepared to do?

  • Tax funds finance Kansas school finance lawsuit

    Contributed by Kansas Taxpayers Network

    By Karl Peterjohn

    There might not be funds for public school classrooms but for 15 Kansas school districts there is money for financing lawsuits. Since the 1998-99 school year, $2,095,020 has been spent in public funds to pay for the school finance litigation and lawsuit.

    This outrage is a classic case of the school districts biting the state’s hand that fed the 300 Kansas school districts with over $2.7 billion in state funds. Of course, the state does not have any money that it has not taken from taxpayers so you and I pay our taxes to the schools and to the state paying for both the plaintiffs and defendants in this legal battle.

    A portion of that money is taken by these school districts and then used to sue for more spending that will require higher taxes. Sadly, Kansas already has the highest property taxes on business in our five state region as well as the second highest taxes on homeowners too so this litigation worsens our tax climate.

    This is not a new event. The school finance lawsuits stretch back into the late 1980’s. The lead attorney on the most recent lawsuit, Alan Rupe, has been involved in all of these cases going back to the 1980’s. The 15 school districts misusing their tax funds to finance these lawsuits are led by the Salina and Dodge City public schools. The other school districts financing this litigation are: Arkansas City, Augusta, Derby, El Dorado, Emporia, Fort Scott, Great Bend, Hays, Independence, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Newton, and Winfield (For a listing of the tax dollars spent for these lawsuits between 1998-to-2005 see www.kansastaxpayers.com).

    If the legislative conservatives were serious about addressing the litigation crisis in Kansas public schools these expenditures would be stopped. This misuse of tax funds for trial attorneys should stop immediately. Any school finance legislation passed by the Kansas legislature that does not address this abuse of taxpayer funds is a disgrace.

    Last year the Topeka public schools faced a financial scandal when it was revealed that roughly $1/2 million had been paid to pay fraudulent checks in central Asia. The schools had such lax financial controls that numerous bogus checks got paid. The schools continued to operate despite this long distance financial flim-flam. Sadly, the mainstream Kansas press outside of Topeka has largely ignored this scandal and treated it as an isolated event.

    This is another indication that there are plenty of funds available for financing Kansas public schools. The latest federal data indicate that Kansans, despite having lower than average incomes, are paying substantially more than the national average for our public schools. Kansans are paying more per pupil than for public schools in our neighboring states too. Higher expenditures mean higher taxes. Being a high tax state is one of the reasons that Kansas has suffered the largest reduction in private sector jobs during this century according to federal data.

    If the school districts can continue to litigate their way to higher taxes and spending by misusing tax dollars, the future of this state will be grim. Lawsuits promoting higher government spending and higher taxes will drive jobs and businesses to taxpayer friendlier states.

  • TABOR Criticism Analysis

    From the introduction to an analysis by the Tax Foundation:

    The state of Colorado is under assault. Opponents of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) are waging a well coordinated but misleading attack on Colorado’s reputation. This attack takes the form of a number of rankings and statistics that purport to show that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights has decimated Colorado. These rankings and statistics are based on the assumption that if Colorado ranks poorly on things like the adequacy of prenatal care and education spending, then Colorado is failing to adequately care for and educate its citizens, and that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights must be to blame. A closer look at the attacks shows that they fail to prove that the amount a state spends on health care and education determines quality, and they also fail to tell the whole truth about the rankings and statistics of the state of Colorado.

    The full article is here: An Analysis of Misleading Attacks on Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights