Voice For Liberty

Author: Bob Weeks

  • Privatization is good for Century II and Wichita

    Opponents of privatization of Century II, including the website www.savecenturyii.org, seem to think that the operating procedure of a profit-making business is to place so many restrictions on the use of their product, and to raise the price so high, that no one uses it anymore. The reality is quite the opposite. For a business to make a profit and survive, it must provide a product or service that people want to pay for, and provide it with costs less than its price. What could be wrong with that?

    A few examples from www.savecenturyii.org illustrate common misperceptions: “These private management companies charge rental and service rates so they can make a profit.” This is true. But underlying this sentence I sense two unspoken assumptions: First, that the rates the private management companies would be higher than the present rates. Might it not be possible that the new rates would be lower, if new management is more efficient or achieves greater volume? Second, the sentence implies that profit is evil. Compare that “evil” with the evil of supporting Century II users with taxpayer subsidies.

    Profit is the motivating factor that businesses have that governments don’t have. Consider again how companies earn a profit. It’s by pleasing the customer, not driving them away. If they do this job well, they get to have a reward.

    “In addition to paying rent, users are required to purchase services from the management company such as for box office systems and staffing, front of house personnel, security, etc., whether or not the user can provide them or does not need them at all.” This implies that the management company can set whatever policies they want, and that customers are forced to “take it or leave it.” But this is the way governments operate. Businesses sell to customers who have a choice. They have other sources to buy from, or they can refuse to buy at all. This applies, I think, in almost all cases to the customers of Century II, too.

    “There are many examples throughout the country where privatization has created hardships for local users and ill will throughout communities.” Paying taxes to subsidize Century II events, so that people can attend events for less than their true costs, also creates hardship and ill will.

    Privatization might lead to other benefits. I have heard complaints that it is impossible to schedule some types of events simultaneously because of lack of soundproofing. A private company might find it in their interest to invest in soundproofing so that there can be more events. Wouldn’t that be good?

    What supporters of the status quo seem to forget is that when Century II requires a subsidy, it means that the public has to pay taxes so that the people using Century II can use it for less than the its full cost. Or, perhaps the users know this, but think it is good government policy. It is quite ridiculous for everyone to pay taxes so that symphony and music theater tickets can be cheaper than they might otherwise be. (On the other hand, the relatively well-to-do patrons of these events are used to paying taxes to support others, so maybe this is a way for them to get back a little.)

    Here’s a quote from a Wichita Eagle story: “‘Typically, private companies, when they come in… make their money off the backs of local users,’ said Mitch Berman, executive director of the Wichita Symphony.” Remember that those who wish to use Century II presumably do so voluntarily, and even if Century II was private, using it would be voluntary. Currently, however, we all pay taxes, taxes we have little choice but to pay, to subsidize the rent Mr. Berman’s organization pays. This is taking money “off the backs” of local taxpayers, and it is absurdly hypocritical for Mr. Berman to compare voluntarily transactions with the power of government to tax.

  • Who lost in the school finance bill?

    Today (July 20, 2005) Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius signed the school finance bill. This bill gives Kansas public schools a lot more money to spend this school year.

    This, contrary to almost every news story you will likely read, is a sad day for Kansas schoolchildren. How can this be, you may be asking. How can spending so much more money on Kansas schools not be good? The answer is that all this money will do little to improve educational outcomes.

    Most people assume that the increased spending is great for children. What passes as common sense leads people to assume that throwing more money on a problem will solve it. Unfortunately, this false assumption that the problem has been addressed will put off meaningful discussion about useful reform until next year. Realistically, reform is probably put off even longer, as it seems the attention next year will be on the legislature vs. court struggle, as it was this year. Who is left out? Kansas schoolchildren. But they’re being told they’re the winners.

    Kansas schoolchildren lose because most of the money will be spent to reduce class size. I have written in the past on how smaller class sizes produce little or no improvement in educational outcomes. (See An Enlightening Encounter with The Wichita Eagle, How Children Lose in the Kansas Legislature’s Special Session, The School Productivity Crisis, and Base School Funding on Research, Not Feelings.)

    To reprise just one quotation, consider Harvard economist Caroline M. Hoxby’s research titled “The effects of class size on student achievement: New evidence from population variation”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115:4 (2000), 1239-1285, which can be read here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/effects.pdf. The conclusion to this paper states, in part: “Using both methods, I find that reductions in class size have no effect on student achievement. The estimates are sufficiently precise that, if a 10 percent reduction in class size improved achievement by just 2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation, I would have found statistically significant effects in math, reading, and writing. I find no evidence that class size reductions are more efficacious in schools that contain high concentrations of low income students or African-American students.”

    The irony is that the education establishment and teacher unions do not want to hear about the research on class size. You would think that our education leaders would be interested in hearing what an esteemed researcher from one of our nation’s leading universities has found from observing natural variations in class size. That they are not interested gives us a clue as to who their true constituency is.

    Today’s hollow victory by the education establishment, the teacher unions, and politicians who believe they are protecting children allows them to take credit for “saving” our children. The sad fact is that it is pretty much status quo for another year or two, except with a permanently higher base of spending on schools, spending which is a drag on our state’s economy. This does not help the state of Kansas.

  • Untold and Under Reported Stories From the Kansas Special Session

    KANSAS TAXPAYERS NETWORK
    P.O. Box 20050
    Wichita, KS 67208
    316-684-0082 FAX 316-684-7527
    www.kansastaxpayers.com

    July 19, 2005

    Untold and Under Reported Stories From the Kansas Special Session
    By Karl Peterjohn

    The Kansas legislature abjectly surrendered their fiscal powers to the demands of the Kansas Supreme Court at the end of their special session in July. This victory for this liberal activist court and Governor Sebelius has generated a lot of news articles and positive editorial commentary for all of them in the Kansas press. Sadly, a significant part of the story behind this constitutional and spending battle has either been totally ignored or under reported. Here are some important pieces of information that should not be overlooked in the wake of these transformational changes in Kansas government.

    First, let’s begin with the basics. Kansas’ General Fund will now officially top $5 billion for the first time. This is an important milestone when you consider that the state had its first $1 billion budget only 25 years ago in 1980. This spending growth is more than three times faster than Kansans’ wages and is over $1,850 for every Kansan each year.

    In addition, the special session means that the state’s All Funds budget that includes highway, Medicaid, and a variety of other non General Fund spending will now top $11.5 billion for the first time. This budget passed the $10 billion spending milestone only a couple of years ago in 2003 but is growing rapidly as welfare and medical spending is included.

    Despite all of the inaccurate information about “tight budgets” and even “budget cuts,” the growth of state government in Kansas is rapid and continuing. Many spending proponents were pleased to see the growth in state revenues during the first 11 months of the 2005 fiscal year. This 6.9 percent increase appears impressive until you consider the fact that this is well below the average growth in the other 49 states.

    The Wall Street Journal reported July 12 that federal revenues are 14.6 percent or $204 billion above the previous year’s level. Besides showing the success of President Bush’s 2003 tax cuts, this data is important to Kansans. This data clearly shows that the relative decline of Kansas compared to the rest of the country is continuing. This data warns Kansans about the economic peril they now face if they want their children to find jobs in the Sunflower state after graduation.

    The decline in Kansas is also showing up in the continued small declines in public school enrollment. In the last seven years there has been a small and continuing decline in student enrollment. That decline is a factor that is largely ignored in the debate over “budget cuts for schools,” while the reality is the exact opposite.

    The $290 million state spending increase in schools is going to mean a huge windfall for spending in Kansas public schools. Since the enrollment has declined to less than 442,000 FTE students, this is going to mean over $650 per pupil or over $13,000 per classroom with 20 students in it. This figure does not include additional local or federal tax dollars that are likely to increase too.

    This spending spree is the tip of the spending iceberg from the very liberal and appointed Kansas Supreme Court. The plaintiff school districts that funded the school finance lawsuit can begin their spending spree. The less visible balance for this spending spree is another $600 million this Sebelius and Democrat dominated court is demanding that will become vividly visible in six months. Hang onto your wallets or you can join the line of people, like former Governor Bill Graves, who used to be Kansans and now have moved to fiscally sane parts of the country where legislators vote on budgets and judges don’t legislate from the bench.

  • The wrong canon; the wrong Allegrucci

    In May 2005, Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, wrote an editorial that explained how Kansas Supreme Court Justice Donald L. Allegrucci needed to recuse himself from matters involving the Kansas school finance lawsuit. That’s because his wife, Joyce Allegrucci, is Governor Kathleen Sebelius’s chief of staff, and the governor has taken a public position on the case.

    After reading Peterjohn’s editorial, I decided that more action was necessary. I found out that the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications might be a forum that could deal with ethical lapses like Justice Allegrucci’s. I filed a complaint against Justice Allegrucci, and so did Peterjohn. You can read the details of my case in the article The Ethics Case Against Justice Donald L. Allegrucci published on The Voice for Liberty in Wichita. The basis of the case is the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, paragraph B, which states: “A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.” Furthermore, in the commentary to Canon 2, paragraph A: “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.”

    I thought that a judge ruling on a matter of importance to his wife’s boss qualified as the appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.

    My complaint was considered on July 1, 2005. In a letter dated July 12, 2005, the commission informed me that based on Canon 3E(1)(d)(iii), there was no case. This is curious, as I did not cite this canon. It says:

    E. Disqualification.
    (1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where:

    (d) the judge or the judge’s spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person:

    (iii) is known by the judge to have a more than de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding;

    “De minimis” denotes an insignificant interest that could not raise reasonable question as to a judge’s impartiality.

    I do not know whether the commission did any fact-finding, but evidently they concluded that Joyce Allegrucci, who is the governor’s top employee and who has managed all her political campaigns, doesn’t care very much about the outcome of a case that the governor cares very much about. This is not reasonable. It is laughable.

    There is still the issue of the Canon 2 appearance of impropriety, which was not addressed by the commission. I think that Joyce Allegrucci’s resignation speaks volumes about that. I’m sorry that she resigned. I didn’t file a complaint against her. To my knowledge, she has committed no infraction. It is her husband, Justice Allegrucci, who had the responsibility to disqualify himself.

    (By the way, I happen to disagree with the court’s ruling, but that is beside the point. The point is that we don’t know whether Justice Allegrucci’s rulings are affected by his family relationship. It may be that the Allegruccis are not getting along very well, and the judge might rule to spite his wife. Or, perhaps he is capable of making a ruling without letting the family relationship influence his judgment. But we don’t know, and we probably can’t ever know. That is why this is the appearance of impropriety.)

    I believe that press coverage of this matter is missing this point. Politicians are missing it, too. Consider this, as reported by The Wichita Eagle: “‘There’s no conflict of interest, absolutely none,’ said Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood. ‘Many people don’t understand what conflict of interest is. They perceive it as any situation they don’t like.’ He said Allegrucci wasn’t involved in the school finance discussions between legislative leaders and the governor’s office during the special session.”

    Sen. Vratil seems to think that we accused Joyce Allegrucci of committing an ethical violation. Instead, we accused her husband, Justice Donald L. Allegrucci, as it is he who violated the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct.

    Further in the same article: “Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, called Allegrucci’s departure a loss of a ‘talented staff member,’ but noted the governor won’t have to deal with the criticism of her staff being too close to the court in an [sic] re-election year.”

    Sen. Schmidt treats this matter as merely “inside politics.” It is true that people probably won’t remember this matter by the time of next year’s elections. Again, I don’t believe that Governor Sebelius or Joyce Allegrucci committed any ethical violations. It is Justice Allegrucci who should have recognized the impropriety of the situation and disqualified himself.

    In summary, we have a Kansas Supreme Court Justice who has committed an ethical violation. The Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications didn’t agree, and didn’t consider an applicable canon when making its ruling. The press and some Kansas politicians fail to understand the importance of this matter. Instead of our state using this situation as an opportunity to reinforce the importance of ethics through a careful review and discussion of “impropriety” and the “appearance of impropriety,” the wrong person has resigned and the issue appears to have been resolved. A scapegoat isn’t what Kansas needs to increase confidence in our government. We need a press that sees the issue as vital and a group of representatives that realize confidence is their ticket not only to reelection, but to respect.

  • Let profits save (or sink) Exploration Place

    What must a business do to make a profit? It must deliver something that people want at a price they are willing to pay. It must deliver that product or service with costs lower than revenues, if it is to survive beyond the short-term.

    If a business fails to do this it will become immediately aware, as it will be generating losses instead of profits. Since losses can’t be continued for very long before the business goes bankrupt, management has a very powerful motive to make corrections.

    There are some who believe that making a profit is evil or immoral, that to make a profit you must be ripping off the customer. But profits are a signal that the business is doing something right. It must be satisfying customers’ desires, and doing it efficiently.

    Governments, bureaucrats, and politicians, on the other hand, don’t have such a powerful motivating factor. They have, at least in their minds, a deep well of public money to spend. Through their power to tax they have the ability to keep money-losing institutions in place, no matter how inefficiently the institution operates, or how little demand there is for its product.

    The simple fact is, and there is really no way to sugarcoat this, the people of Sedgwick County do not value the product that Exploration Place offers enough to pay what it costs to produce it.

    Now if Exploration Place was privately owned, its owners would have the right to keep it in business and operating at a loss as long as they wanted or could afford to. But Exploration Place is asking the government to pay for its losses and keep it operating. That means that you and I — probably the very same people who thought Exploration Place didn’t provide a product we were willing to pay for — are asked to keep it in business.

    Examine the incentives in place. Exploration Place operates at a loss. Instead of confronting the urgent and undeniable need to change, they receive a handout from the government. Considering the recent history of our local governments and other money-losing institutions, this is likely the first of a series of payments to be made.

    Yes, I am aware that consultants are being dispatched to figure out how Exploration Place can change to avoid future losses, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that the right changes will be made. That’s because after changes are made — whatever they may be — Exploration Place will still undoubtedly lack the feedback mechanism of market signals that guide business managers to provide products and services that people actually value enough to buy.

    Government leaders and newspaper editorial writers tell us that we cannot afford to lose such a wonderful place. But if it’s so wonderful, why won’t its customers pay what it really costs?

  • An enlightening encounter with The Wichita Eagle

    Writing from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

    I recently had an issue with an article published in The Wichita Eagle, and my encounter with this newspaper was quite revealing.

    In a story titled “Schools get shopping lists ready” in the June 20, 2005 Wichita Eagle, reporter Josh Funk wrote this: “Research shows that having 15 students per class gives teachers time to offer individual help and fosters academic success, especially among low-income kids, said Mary Ellen Isaac, the district’s chief academic officer.” I believe that the quoted person is misinformed, but aside from that, this is reporting. Someone said it, the reporter quoted the source, and also identified the source.

    What I have trouble with is the second sentence of the article, where Mr. Funk wrote, in a single paragraph all by itself: “Proven reforms, such as reducing the number of kids in a classroom, top the list of things Wichita area school districts plan to invest in.”

    This statement is presented as an indisputable fact, when there are many distinguished researchers who would disagree with it. I don’t think that anyone Mr. Funk quoted in this article would disagree with it, and that, perhaps, is the biggest problem with this story: its unbalanced coverage of this topic.

    There is definitely no consensus that small class sizes produce better educational outcomes. You don’t have to look very far to find reputable evidence of this. For example, consider research by Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University. His paper “Evidence, politics, and the class size debate” is available at this link: http://edpro.stanford.edu/eah/papers/EPI.class%20size.publication.pdf. This article provides reasoned criticism of the Tennessee STAR experiment, which may be the evidence that Mr. Funk relied upon for his story. (We don’t know the source of Mr. Funk’s evidence, of course, as he doesn’t tell us, but that experiment is evidence often relied on by the educational establishment.)

    Or, consider Harvard economist Caroline M. Hoxby’s research titled “The effects of class size on student achievement: New evidence from population variation”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115:4 (2000), 1239-1285, which can be read here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/effects.pdf. The conclusion to this paper states, in part: “Using both methods, I find that reductions in class size have no effect on student achievement. The estimates are sufficiently precise that, if a 10 percent reduction in class size improved achievement by just 2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation, I would have found statistically significant effects in math, reading, and writing. I find no evidence that class size reductions are more efficacious in schools that contain high concentrations of low income students or African-American students.”

    Failing to mention, even in passing, that spending huge sums to reduce class size may provide little or no benefit to schoolchildren makes this news article read like a press release authored by Winston Brooks, the superintendent of the Wichita public schools.

    I attempted to contact Mr. Funk about this article, as I wanted to learn the source of his statement about class size. I emailed twice and left voicemail messages twice. Finally, after the third email, Mr. Funk called me. He listened to what I had to say about the problems with the article, but he disagreed. I did not learn the source of the claim made in the second sentence of the article.

    What is revealing about this encounter is that the last email I sent to Mr. Funk was also sent to a Mr. Kevin McGrath, whom I thought might be Mr. Funk’s editor. (I hate to complain to someone’s boss, but I was getting no response from Mr. Funk.)

    Mr. McGrath forwarded my email, along with a few remarks of his own, to Mr. Funk, but he also, I presume by accident, sent it to me.

    The most revealing part of Mr. McGrath’s letter that I inadvertently received is how he implied that my criticism of Mr. Funk’s article would be based on my belief that he is a “no-good liberal elitist so-and-so.” I do not know Mr. Funk, and I know nothing about his political beliefs or elitist background, if in fact that is the type of personal history he has. Furthermore, if my criticism of Mr. Funk’s article was based on his personal characteristics or political beliefs, it wouldn’t be very compelling or valid criticism.

    My criticism, instead, is based on defects in his reporting and the editing of the newspaper he works for.

    It is also enlightening to note that The Eagle brushes off criticism of their reporting and editing by discounting the beliefs of their critics. As long as they believe this about their readers and critics, we will never have a newspaper that gives the public the information they really need.

  • Report from Topeka, July 3, 2005

    Thanks again for this report from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    It was a hard, long slog for the 11 days of the Kansas legislative session that began June 22. Using the phrase, “hard, long slog,” is one that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had used in describing the war in Iraq.

    The hard, long slog of the Kansas constitutional crisis continues with a break for legislators until Wednesday July 6. By then, the final FY 2005 revenue figures should be in.

    Yet there is a phrase from the Vietnam war that is quite descriptive for the situation in Kansas.

    “We had to destroy the village to save it.”

    This phrase has been attributed to various sources and most seem to (dis)credit it to left-wing flak Peter Arnett who was last seen generating excuses for Saddam Hussein’s regime. Yet that phrase accurately describes what the Kansas Supreme Court’s latest edict: “We have to destroy public schools in order to save it.”

    The court’s July 2 edict threatens the closure of the state’s public schools unless its spending mandate is met. This edict represented a judicial hissy fit because the divided Kansas legislature did not meet the court’s July 1 date for increasing spending. The court issued an unusual Saturday afternoon ruling while the legislature continued to meet.

    This edict is odd because it will hurt the court’s position in this constitutional crisis. This is despite the fact that increasing spending by $143 million seems to be a goal which the bulk of the legislature is quite willing to meet, and then wants to spend more! Since the state does not have the revenues any increase in funding to these levels leads to a fiscal/gambling meltdown.

    The state does not have the capability to fund any increase in K-12 spending above about $86 million for the fiscal year that began last Friday (unless there is a surprise among the last tax collections coming in for the fiscal year). To increase funding to the $143 million (court’s level) or $147 million (house’s last offer) or $149 million (senate’s last offer) will require increasing taxes/fees/whatever or expanded gambling (the governor’s preferred option). All three of these options destroys the ability of Attorney General Kline to take a case into federal court’s concerning this state court’s outrageous edict since the legislature is on track to surrender their fiscal powers to the court. If the legislature succumbs this year they will have no basis for challenging the court’s $568 million in increased public school spending (the court’s figures, its actually a lot more) for next year.

    If the legislature approved a funding bill of only $11 million in additional spending, like the house’s initial offer last week, would have provided AG Kline with plenty of room to argue the legal case against the Kansas Supreme Court in federal court. Sadly, tax and spenders RINO’s like senators Jean Schodorf and John Vratil passed out of the senate with all ten Democrats and half of the GOP senators supporting a $160 million spending increase. This is fiscal follies that only the federal government, with their unlimited ability to print money, could even contemplate following.

    Sen. Vratil bragged to reporters last Friday that the senate had “compromised” by offering to cut the spending increase to $149.9 million and came “2/3” of the way down to the house’s last offer of $145 million in increased public school spending (this would be on top of the $142 million approved last April for a total that is now approaching $300 million or about a 10% increase). This was misleading to the press and public extended to other remarks he made in the conference committee. Sadly, the legislators who came to Topeka threatening to vote against a penny more for public schools have steadily retreated with the overwhelming vote supporting the school spending lobby in the senate and the very narrow majority that fiscal conservatives and constitutionally concerned house members have been able to maintain within the GOP caucus in the house as the final opposition to fiscal insanity. Eroding away the house Republicans are at least 17 GOP house members who are voting with all 42 house Democrats for any and all opportunities for higher spending.

    In the school finance conference committee Vratil said that the senate opposed any hard trigger that would require passage of a constitutional amendment for voters before the additional spending would occur. This was the opposite of what he had told his GOP colleagues in the senate a couple of hours earlier. This is a key for fiscal and constitutional conservatives in both houses. This statement generated outraged comments within his own senate caucus. Conservative Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe went public calling him and the rest of the GOP senate leadership as “liars” in press interviews she conducted Friday night.

    Fiscally responsible Kansans need to inform their legislators how they feel about the constitutional usurpation that is continuing in Kansas. Please feel free to forward or quote from this article.

    The decline and fall of Kansas and this state’s economy continues as Governor Sebelius, the Sebelius dominated Kansas Supreme Court, a majority of the state seem to trip over each trying to destroy the private sector in this state by irresponsible fiscal policies.

    Today, the Kansas press predictably blamed this impasse on conservative house speaker Doug Mays and the legislature. The liberal and left-wing editorial pages in this state are already starting to target legislators who are trying to prevent fiscal insanity at the statehouse. Today’s Wichita Eagle editorial (July 3) is a good indication of the nonsense being distributed to among the Kansas press. Sadly, there is a strong chance that portions of this editorial will end up in the news coverage of the Kansas press too.

    Karl Peterjohn
    KS Taxpayers Network
    www.kansastaxpayers.com

  • Report from Topeka, July 2, 2005

    Thanks again for this report from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The Kansas constitutional crisis expanded Saturday afternoon as the Kansas Supreme Court issued their latest school finance edict that threatened to shut down the public schools in this state because the legislature is not behaving properly under the court’s instructions.

    This is a sad day for the people of Kansas and their elected representatives when the appointed officials on this court, including apparently (the order was only signed by the chief justice and no other members of the court) two justices who have conflicts of interest in this case, continue to their assault on representative government and the separation of powers in this state. Kansas is truly in a constitutional crisis that is unique in this state’s history.

    What makes this situation fascinating is the continuing legislative special session. The legislature is deadlocked. At the moment there aren’t 63 house members who are willing to surrender their fiscal authority to the court so the school finance bills and test votes have failed there. The most recent failure was a 63-to-59 procedural vote conducted in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

    The house is in recess until 4 PM and the senate, which has easily and regularly surrendered their fiscal authority by usually 25 of its members, watches and waits for the house. The flip side of this stalemate are the constitutional amendments to limit the court’s activism and usurpation in this case. A 2/3 vote is needed to pass any constitutional amendment and the Democrats have the ability to block any amendment with a unified caucus. However, there are about a dozen GOP liberals house members lead by Tim Owens, Jim Yonally, and Ward Loyd in the house who are voting with the Democrats to prevent any amendments limiting the court’s usurpation from getting to Kansas voters. Nine of ten Democrat senators voted against the constitutional amendment defining legislative appropriation powers in the senate a week ago.

    The court order today will schedule another hearing July 8 in Topeka with the court threatening an injunction to close the schools. Someone might inform the court that it is now summer and even many summer school programs are finished until the middle of next month. What is fascinating is the reports that Governor Sebelius (who called this special session following the court’s June 3 interrim edict in this case) was aware of the court’s actions yesterday and this was mentioned by her to the various legislative leaders who met in her office late on Friday night according to various legislators. Legislators are talking among themselves about this violation of judicial decorum by someone on the court who shared this information that somehow reached the governor before the official announcement.

    The governor’s chief of staff, Joyce Allegrucci, is married to one of the justices, and this family connection has raised questions about Justice Donald Allegrucci’s participation in this case in light of the canon of ethics for Kansas courts which states in part, “A judge shall not allow familly, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.” Multiple complaints have been filed with the commission responsible for handling complaints against judicial misconduct concerning Justice Allegrucci. A closed door hearing was held in Topeka on July 1, 2005. Complaints have been filed by Robert Weeks of Wichita (see www.wichitaliberty.org) and myself. Allegrucci is a former Democratic legislator and unsuccessful congressional candidate and party activist prior to joining the court in the 1980’s.

    A second ethics complaint was filed against Justice Lawton Nuss who represented the Salina public schools. The Salina public school district is the lead school district financing the Montoy (school finance) lawsuit. Nuss joined the court in 2002 after being appointed by then Governor Bill Graves. The Montoy case goes back to the late 1990’s. No one would like to go to court and face a judge who used to represent the person who is now suing them. Justice Nuss should have recused himself and not participated in this lawsuit to avoid any appearance of “improper conduct” and “impropriety,” as called out in this canon of ethics.

    The improprieties of these two members of the court are significant but not as sizable as the constitutional and fiscal dimensions of this latest edict. The court is trying to mandate additional state spending of over $640 per pupil in addition to the roughly $6,000 a year the state is now spending for each of the 445,000 FTE public school students in Kansas this year alone. Passage of this edict requires a dramatic increase in state revenues and many legislators point out that this judicial edict fits nicely into the governor’s proposal for expanded gambling in Kansas. However, that is only for this year and this court’s edict for next year is roughly twice as large as this year’s!

    However, the usual battles over school funding and expansion of gambling are being overshadowed by the separation of powers and judicial usurpation of legislative powers by this court. Ultimately, the court will be dominating the state’s educational appropriations despite the fact that the legislature was never a party to the Montoy lawsuit. The public school portion of the state’s budget is already well over half of the state’s entire General Fund budget. The court has denied the legislature any ability to even appear before it. Ditto for citizens of the state who are expected to pay the bill for the court’s fiscal profligacy.

    After the court’s spokesman issued the order this afternoon, several legislators like Rep. Eric Carter, a lawyer from Johnson County, spoke about the court’s destruction of the constitutional and historic power of the legislature. Sen. Karin Brownlee, a Johnson County Republican agreed with Carter’s grim prognosis for representative government in this state. Instead of getting legislators to appropriate funds, a quick district court decision followed by a supreme court verdict has now become a viable path for government school spending.

    Sadly, no one on this Alice in Wonderland court has bothered to notice that the latest federal figures from the 2005 Statistical Abstract show that Kansas is already spending more per pupil than all of the surrounding states; that Kansas is spending more than the U.S. average; and that Kansans are paying for this spending with lower than average incomes compared to the U.S. national average. The court did not notice that Kansas school district employees are now regularly retiring in their 50’s under the “85 and out” provisions while workers in the private sector must work at least a decade longer for a normal retirement.

    National news attention is showing up concerning this crisis. There are several reasons for this national attention. Texas is having a special session on school finance right now in Austin. These school finance lawsuits are part of a national trend occurring in states as disparate as New York, Arkansas, Montana, as well as Kansas and Texas. If legislative authority is surrendered to activist courts, and the Kansas court has gone well beyond any ground that the U.S. Supreme court, despite its egregious and recent activism, has dared to tread, then the future of representative government is now in jeopardy by these appointed officials at the state level.

    So the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and National Review are just three of the non Kansas publications who have spoken out about the Kansas constitutional crisis. The Kansas: “Closed for Business,” sign has been posted since the massive spending edicts issued by the courts are being followed by the governor and her legislative supporters. Why would any business person with a lick of common sense come to crazy Kansas where the court’s rule and fiscal responsiblity in government is an oxymoron?

    Massive tax hikes will be needed to finance just the Montoy edict of June 3, 2005. The exodus of productive Kansans and the firms that employed them was already underway because of the already high property taxes and overall hostile fiscal climate across this state prior to the court’s decision. This state is facing a fiscal implosion of economic contraction and stagnation once the fiscal burden ordered by the court is placed upon the 2.7 million Kansans.

    Interesting enough there is a model for this type of mess. It occurred in the early 1970’s in Ohio when that state enacted its state income tax and began a policy of state fiscal expansion under the leadership of the liberal Democratic governor named John Gilligan. The private sector in Ohio shrunk and jobs disappeared under the tax and spend policies of Governor Gilligan. Ohio faltered and stagnated and that state has continued to lose congressional seats as Ohioans, like myself who initially left in 1973, departed for more economically competitive parts of the country. People can, and do, vote with their feet, regardless of the edicts and fiscal profligacy of the courts.

    There is a Kansas connection here. John Gilligan is Kathleen Sebelius’ father. Like father like daughter and those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In addition, like Kansas, Ohio has been burdened with school finance lawsuits.

    Sadly, the litigating for government spending model will not improve the public schools in Kansas. In the 1980’s a federal judge imposed his will upon the citizens of the Kansas City Missouri school district trying to improve their public schools. He made a hash out of that school district at a cost of over a $1 billion to taxpayers. Sadly, the Kansas court has forgotten this disaster and seems intent upon helping Governor Sebelius and the other tax and spend officials from both major political parties in Kansas, to repeat it.

    Please feel free to forward, post, or quote this article.

    Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director
    Kansas Taxpayers Network
    www.kansastaxpayers.com

    Karl Peterjohn

  • Report from Topeka, July 1, 2005

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

    The Kansas house begins their 10:30 AM session with a constitutional amendment to reassert their fiscal powers in a key vote for this special session. Last Sunday a similar amendment failed getting only 73 of the 84 (2/3) votes needed to be submitted to voters.

    Yesterday’s house vote on school finance tied the $140 million in additional funding to the passage of an amendment in the constitutional battle between the court and the other two branches of Kansas government. Yesterday, the governor declined to state her position on the constitutional amendment proposals but many legislators believe that she is holding house democrats away from any amendment.

    The vote last Sunday was critical since the senate had already passed this amendment and house approval would have allowed Kansas voters to have a voice in this crisis. Kansas voters continue to be largely disenfranchised in this process.

    What has been missing from the school finance debate is perspective. Sadly, the figures tossed about by the various sides do not reflect numbers that most Kansans can easily relate to understanding. Should government school spending be raised by $161 million or $86 million?

    The regular legislative session approved a $142 million increase that was roughly five percent of total state funding. Let me try to make this number more understandable. If this increase was spread evenly across the state (it will vary district-to-district) it would result in a per pupil increase of almost $320 a year!

    The court mandated another $143 million beginning today (the first date of the 2005-06 school year and the 2006 state fiscal year) that would raise this figure to over $640 per pupil. The cost of this spending will be over $620 for the average family of four in Kansas this year or just over $155 per person.

    The Rockefeller Institute reported recently that state revenue figures are growing at a rate of almost 12 percent for the first quarter of this year over the same period in 2004. State revenues have not grown fast enough in Kansas to support spending increases above the $100 million figure depending upon the final numbers for the fiscal year that ended only yesterday. In Kansas, this growth rate in tax collections is roughly half this rate. Kansan continues to lag behind the rest of the rest of the country and soaring state spending will be a growing boat anchor restraining this state’s economy.

    A couple of interesting insights in hallway discussions at the statehouse. A number of legislators are pointing out how similar the increased spending figures are to the projected state revenues from expanded gambling. It is interesting to note that Kansans would be sending an additional $3-to-4 million a week to the state to finance the increased gambling revenues. Critics of expanded gambling continue to complain that no one is projected the loss in state revenues from decreased sales and other excise tax collections if gambling is expanded.

    One of the largest school districts in Kansas, the Shawnee Mission School District has decided to drop its membership in the powerful school spending lobbying organization, the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB). The Shawnee Mission district’s representatives to the KASB have served as its president and had an assigned seat on the organization’s board of directors. The Johnson County school districts have been upset by the legal challenges to the 2005 school finance bill that provided additional spending authority to
    the Johnson County school districts. KASB lobbyists have been strong advocates for the spending growth that is hampering economic growth in this state.

    Fiscally responsible Kansans need to let their legislators know how they feel about the constitutional amendment and the soaring state spending. The legislative hotline’s 800 number is working: 800-432-2924. I believe that there is strong legislative support for putting specific restrictions in place to prevent the Kansas Supreme Court from ordering the closure of public schools too.

    Please feel free to forward this to fiscally responsible Kansans.

    Karl Peterjohn
    Kansas Taxpayers Network