Category: Kansas state government
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American Majority Candidate Training in Kansas
Recently I attended a campaign training event produced by American Majority. This event was targeted to candidates and their supporters for city council and school board offices. Dennis Wilson is the Kansas Board Chairman of American Majority. He just completed service as a member of the Kansas Senate. Addressing the audience, he said that individual…
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Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up
Last week I reported on a talk that Kansas Senator Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, delivered to some 300 citizens at Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita. One of the things Steineger believes is that Kansas has too many counties, a legacy from the days of travel to…
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A Few Questions for AFP’s Derrick Sontag
I and a few others met with Americans For Prosperity’s Kansas state director Derrick Sontag on Friday. Following are a few of the questions I asked, and Derrick’s answers. Q. Last year AFP had a model budget. Did that have anything to do with the relatively low increase in spending — compared to previous years…
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Kansas has the appearance, without the reality, of judicial accountability
Friday’s Wichita Eagle contained an op-ed by a University of Kansas law professor that discussed the method of selecting supreme court justices in Kansas. A Kansas blogger (The Kansas Jackass) noticed this piece and attempted to take Prof. Ware to task. But it seems like the Jackass is unable to grasp the meaning of one…
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Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government
On January 10, 2009, Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, spoke to some 300 citizens at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita. Steineger said that we should look at the current budget crisis in Kansas as an opportunity to redesign and reinvent Kansas government. He asked “why do we…
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Invisible Kansans Tell Their Stories
It’s one of the toughest issues for advocates of limited government to address — the plight of those who truly aren’t in a position to help themselves. The website InvisibleKansans.org tells some stories of people in these situations. But is the solution for these people more government? As it is, these people are — at…
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Budget reform tops AFP — Kansas legislative agenda
Here’s a press release from AFP — Kansas announcing that organization’s legislative agenda for Kansas. I’ll be reporting more about this after a meeting with AFP representatives tomorrow. TOPEKA — The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity — Kansas today announced its priorities for the 2009 legislative session. ?Our legislative agenda this year focuses on…
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First Amendment Defense Thorny Issue for Kansas Ethics Commission
The Kansas Meadowlark is covering a case before the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission that has free speech implications. The Meadowlark’s report is First Amendment Defense Thorny Issue for Ethics Commission.
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Analysis: The Sebelius Court
Somehow, notice of a few things slipped by. First is the excellent Kansas Supreme Court Blog. I don’t know who is writing this blog, but it contains a great deal of information about its narrow topic. Second: From this blog I learned that the lawyer that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius recently appointed to the Kansas…
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Kansas Has Too Much Local Government
Following is a press release from the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy regarding the high number of government employees in Kansas. This problem has been known for some time. In 2005, Alan Cobb of Americans For Prosperity noted that in the past five years “Kansas has lost 16,700 private sector jobs while the government…
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Here’s Why Kansans Need to Take Control
As an introduction to my post What Impact do Kansas Voters Have on Judges?, Todd Epp of Kansas Watch writes “Um, this lawyer suggests, hopefully none?!” My post mentions Kansas University Law Professor Stephen Ware‘s call for an end to the lawyer-dominated process of selection Kansas judges. Mr. Epp’s reaction — and he is a…
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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…