Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • Emporia’s Jim Barnett will run for Congress

    Jim Barnett, a physician and Republican member of the Kansas Senate from Emporia, will join the field seeking the nomination for United States Congress from the first district of Kansas.

    Barnett ran for Kansas governor in 2006 against Kathleen Sebelius. His running mate was Kansas Senator Susan Wagle of Wichita.

    But when Wagle — a proven fiscal conservative — ran for president of the Kansas Senate, Barnett did not support her. In fact, sources say he encouraged others to vote against her.

    So instead of a proven fiscal conservative leading the Senate, Kansas was stuck with the continued tenure of moderate Republicans: Senate President Stephen Morris, Vice President John Vratl, and Majority Leader Derek Schmidt.

    This was particularly unfortunate for Kansas as this was a tough budget year. The Kansas House ended up simply concurring with the budget that the Senate produced — a budget that we now know had mistakes and omissions. Already the governor is forced to make spending decisions that should be made by the legislature.

    Barnett’s lifetime rating from the Kansas Taxpayer Network’s legislative rankings is poor, meaning that he has been inclined to vote for increased taxation and spending. His message in today’s Emporia Gazette story was different, however, citing his “history of fiscal responsibility.”

    He also said that “There is no doubt that government has gotten too big” and that “we need someone who’s fiscally responsible.”

    Too bad he doesn’t believe that as a member of the Kansas Senate. He could have backed up his words with action.

  • Update on 2009 Kansas legislature

    Here’s a summary of the 2009 Kansas legislative session prepared for Sedgwick County Commissioners by the county’s lobbyist.

    (This is a Scribd document. Click on the rectangle at the right of the document’s title bar to get a full-screen view.)

    Sedgwick County Legislative Update, 2009-05-13

  • Watkins addresses Kansas budget, Republicans, schools

    Speaking at at the regular weekly meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club on May 22, 2009, Kansas House of Representatives member Jason Watkins addressed the Kansas budget, Kansas Republicans, and school spending.

    Watkins represents House district 105, which includes parts of west and northwest Wichita. He is Vice-Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which was the center of some fast-paced legislative action this year as it worked on the Kansas budget.

    Regarding the budget during the past legislative session, which ended in May: Watkins felt there was an opportunity for reform that the legislature should have taken advantage of. The injection of federal stimulus money, however, reduced the urgency of the Kansas budget crisis, and no reform took place.

    Kansas received about $1.8 billion in federal stimulus, with about $1 billion under the control of the legislature or the governor. The rest went directly to state government agencies.

    About $50 million, Watkins said, went to the Kansas Weatherization Office. That office has one man on its staff, and he told Watkins he had no idea how to spend all that money.

    True budget reform has been delayed, but is needed.

    Watkins said that there’s no doubt that the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) is the most powerful lobby in Kansas.

    In 2008, Watkins said he had four children in the public school system. “Based on what the KNEA and the other education lobbyists told us this year, my kids must have gotten a horrible education in 2008. … Because the cuts we were talking about making would have taken K-12 education back to 2008 levels.” But the spending lobby painted a picture of failing schools if these cuts were made. Schools could absorb no cuts, they said.

    As a result, Kansas was forced to make large cuts in spending on programs such as assistance for the mentally and physically disabled in order to “empire build” in the Kansas public school system system.

    Addressing the need for budget reform, Watkins said that the present system, where each year’s budget is based on the past year’s plus an increase, produces anomalies. He illustrated a case where an agency might be able to get some federal money if the state spends some if its own. It might be, say, a three-year program. So the legislature authorizes and appropriates the funds.

    Then three years later the federal money is gone, so the program ends because the state funding alone is not sufficient for continuation. But the money the state allocated is still in the agency’s base budget — even through the program no longer exists.

    We need either zero-based budgeting or performance-based budgeting, Watkins said. Every state that’s done zero-based budgeting, however, has backed away from it, he said. There must be some type of performance measure, however.

    Watkins also said Kansas needs a legislative budget office. Presently the legislature receives a budget from the governor and works from that.

    In 2012, Watkins said the Kansas budget will face a huge challenge, as that’s the first budget year without the federal stimulus money.

    The budget that finally passed this year is full of problems, Watkins said. The budget was not debated on the floor of the Kansas House of Representatives, as that body simply voted to concur with the bill that the Senate passed. A group of moderate Republicans decided to team with Democrats to accomplish this, he said.

    With Republicans controlling the legislature, how did that happen? Watkins said “We do have people in the Republican Party who are Republicans in name only.” Republicans can disagree on issues, he said, but they shouldn’t vote with the Democrats 95% of the time. There are a group of about 16 Republican House members that constantly vote with the Democrats, and that produces a number large enough to pass legislation.

    In responding to a question about new Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson, Watkins said that while Parkinson said he’s not going to run for governor is 2010, no one’s asked him whether he’s going to run for senate in 2010. The compromise on the coal plant that Parkinson agreed to may have laid the groundwork for a state-side campaign.

    A question asked how does the school spending lobby have so much power? Watkins told how his opponent last year had never even voted. The KNEA gave him $500 (the maximum amount allowed) for the primary election, and that amount again in the general election. Yet, Watkins said his opponent never campaigned.

    It’s also not just the KNEA. There are other allied special interest groups. If the Democrats need something, these are the groups they go to.

    Watkins said the school spending lobby has a powerful argument unless people are presented with the facts and figures. That is, of course: “I’m for kids. Why do you hate them?” Because we have a disengaged public, Watkins said, people go along with this argument, which helps to further the cause and power of the education lobby. There is no question this lobby is the “bully in the Capitol.”

    He also said that the media doesn’t want to fight the school system. He told how one spending advocacy group refused to speak out at a meeting because they didn’t want to get the “schools made at them.” This is more evidence of how powerful the school spending lobby is.

  • Special: Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission in need of reform

    Below, James Meier of Lawrence tells of the trouble (that’s an understatement) he had trying to file an ethics complaint, and of a catch-22 that needs fixing. This story has been told on a Kansas conservative mailing list. Meier prepared this version as a special for Voice For Liberty in Wichita readers.

    The subject of the “ethics” of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission has surfaced recently. It’s a much more complicated story with many twists and turns that hasn’t been sufficiently explained by traditional media sources. Here is a quick synopsis to better understand my own story of interaction with the Ethics Commission.

    In July of 2008, Kris Van Meteren examined the campaign finance records of state Sen. Dwayne Umbarger (R-Thayer). Van Meteren’s mother was challenging Umbarger in the August 2008 primary.

    In short, Umbarger had been using his campaign account as a sort of slush fund for his own personal expenses. Van Meteren showed the reports to the Ethics Commission’s Executive Director, Carol Williams. He was looking for an investigation, but after months of inaction by the Commission, Van Meteren finally filed an official complaint. Then he had the audacity to exercise his first amendment rights and speak to the press about his Ethics Commission complaint.

    Eventually the Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint against Umbarger. Of course, no one should know this because according to the Commission’s own rules, once a complaint is dismissed neither the person the complaint was filed against nor the person who filed the complaint can even acknowledge it even existed. So it’s still a mystery how the dismissal was leaked to the press.

    In any case, it’s easy to see the black hole this rule creates. A politician breaks the law, so a complaint is filed. When this happens no one can even say a complaint exists. As far as the commission and anyone else are concerned, it doesn’t exist. If the commission decides to proceed with the case, at that time it becomes a public issue.

    But should the Ethics Commission dismiss the complaint outright, it ceases to exist. So should the Commission be so inclined to protect certain politicians, they can quite effectively use their rules to keep anyone filing a complaint quiet. It’s a dirty politicians dream.

    Thus seems to be the case with Van Meteren’s complaint against Umbarger.

    After dismissing the complaint against Umbarger, the Commission in turn investigated Van Meteren for speaking about his complaint. They eventually fined him $7,500. The fine was overturned a few weeks ago when the Commission was notified by their own attorneys — the Kansas Attorney General’s office — that the current law violated Van Meteren’s first amendment rights. Thus a light is beginning to shine on the past actions of the Ethics Commission.

    In the course of the Ethics Commission investigation of Van Meteren, Executive Director Carol Williams spoke with the Topeka Capital-Journal and wasn’t shy about telling the reporter that the law may have been broken. But she wasn’t referring to Sen. Umbarger. No, she was talking about Van Meteren speaking with the media.

    “Williams said Van Meteren might have committed a crime by speaking with The Topeka Capital-Journal about his case. A commission investigator in Topeka is looking into a possible counter complaint against Van Meteren.”

    This is where I began to get very interested. According to Williams herself, once a complaint is filed, no one can even acknowledge that it exists. Even though Van Meteren had spoken with the press about his complaint, this didn’t justify Williams also independently verifying that the complaint existed. It was the second source the reporter needed to print that a complaint existed. In other words, Williams had violated the law according to her own interpretation.

    Of course, I hardly expected the commission to discipline their own director. So after the Attorney General’s ruling, I saw an opportunity to take matters into my own hands.

    So on Monday May 18, I drove to Topeka to file a complaint against Williams for disclosing an open investigation to the press. Even though any citizen can file a complaint with the Ethics Commission, the form is not available on their website and I was unsuccessful at getting a copy mailed to me. I arrived at exactly 4:30pm and found their office tucked away on the fifth floor of an office building a block east of the capital. The hours on their website stated they were open from 8am to 5pm. So I was a bit surprised when I went to open the door and found it locked.

    I knocked very loudly. Nothing. I pounded on the door and yelled for a good 10 minutes. Still nothing. I called their office and left a message that I had been there, that their website said the office hours were 8:00am to 5:00pm and that I wanted to file a complaint, then left for home. I later wondered if they thought I meant I wanted to file a complaint about them not being there, but after driving to Topeka for nothing I didn’t really care.

    So, Tuesday morning at 7:40am I get a phone call that I didn’t answer. It was from Donna at the Ethics Commission and their hours are 7:30am to 4:30pm. Turns out the hours on their website were wrong. But I could call back and they could help me with my complaint. So I called back at 9:00am and asked if they planned to be there the rest of the day because I wanted to file a complaint. Then I clarified that it wasn’t about their hours but an actual campaign finance complaint.

    Then Donna asks me when I wanted to come into the office. I said if I left right away I’d arrive sometime after 10:00am and asked what exactly their hours were. I wanted to know so I didn’t have to phone ahead should I decide I need something from their office. Then she said well, if you’re here this morning then you can meet with our investigator to which I replied, that would be fine but I didn’t need to speak to him to file a complaint, so if I missed him I’d just take the form and fill it out myself. She again said to come in and meet with an investigator and I figured there was little point in arguing about it over the phone. So I said okay and left town.

    When I got there, I said I was James Meier, I had called and I was there to get a complaint form. The same gal turned around and walked off without a word. I piped up and said, “That’s okay, I just need the form.” She never said a word, just held up her finger and walked off. I waited a few minutes and Bill Beightel, the ethics investigator, comes up and asks me if I have a few minutes. He has “no problem” giving me a complaint form (good for him since he doesn’t really have a choice anyway) but that he’d like to “explain” a few things to me.

    So by this time I’m getting quite curious so I sit down with him. First off I’m told that “normally” people bring a concern to them and then they do an “inquiry.” And then if they think there’s really something there that should be put before the Ethics Commission then they will fill out the complaint form.

    Then I’m cautioned that if I choose to fill out the complaint myself (which, I’m reminded, isn’t the “normal” process) then I should be aware that I need to fill it out sufficiently. The commission will only consider what I describe in the complaint and nothing else, so I really need to be sure I know what I’m talking about because, again, normally the “professional” staff takes care of that. That means that I have to be sure I know something about “their statutes.” I’m dead serious here, he referred to state law as “our statutes” at least twice and I think “our laws” once.

    In any case, he’s done and he just wanted to let me know about that before, you know, he gave me that golden, technically publicly accessible to anyone, complaint form. And, because he’s such a great guy, he once again offers to look into it “for me” and if he thinks there’s something there then he’ll file the complaint.

    It’s about this time that I consider telling him why I don’t want him to file the complaint. You see, I understand the black hole that the Ethics Commission has created by gagging anyone filing a complaint. If they happen to like the politician named the complaint, they dismiss it; notify the offending individual and the one filing the complaint, which as far as I know was always Commission staff until Van Meteren filed his complaint.

    So the staff is gagged. The Commission doesn’t talk, and the subject of the complaint certainly isn’t going to speak. The complaint has effectively been stuffed in a drawer forever, never again to be found. Even a state open records request would return nothing because any evidence found is considered confidential because the commission dismissed the case.

    But, now that the Attorney General’s office has lifted the gag order on citizen complaints, there’s a twist.

    According to state law, once a complaint is filed, it has to be considered by the Ethics Commission, whether they dismiss it or find sufficient evidence. If a citizen files the complaint, staff can’t ride shotgun for them and kill it before it gets to their desk, which was always possible before.

    Now, even though they have to look at it they can, of curse, decide there isn’t enough evidence to warrant a hearing. But, even if they don’t find probable cause, they have to notify the person who filed the complaint and the subject of the complaint that it’s been dismissed, thus circumventing the no man’s land where those complaints ended up before. That why I want to sign the form and not leave it to a state bureaucrat.

    This is precisely why I have to be talked out of signing my own complaint. If the commission dismisses it, I have to be notified and now that the confidentiality muzzle is off of the public at large. I can tell whoever I want about it. If staff signs the complaint, they’re notified it was dismissed and the public never knows.

    Anyway, I thanked him and told him I’ll just take it and fill it out and return it later. Then he asks me if I mind telling him what my complaint is about. I tell him, why yes, I do mind, and leave.

    When I get back, I give them the complaint and ask for a receipt, preferably a copy of the complaint with a received sticker on it. I ask them to note the time and the date. I’m told that the stamper doesn’t have the time on it (I must look like a complete idiot to them.) I ask if they would write the time on it. I’m ignored; they make a copy and hand it to me. I asked if I needed a received stamped copy for the attachments and they say no. I now realize that was a mistake to assume they’d give everything to the commission. I should have insisted, but they had seen who the subject of the complaint was by then and I was ready to leave.

    And that folks is how the state treats a member of the public exercising their constitutional right to petition their government and seek justice.

    I have a completely new found appreciation for what Kris Van Meteren has been through this past year.

    If you’d like to know more about the specific allegations against Sen. Umbarger and the case the Ethics Commission brought against Kris Van Meteren, these Kansas Meadowlark articles will be useful:

    “Free Speech” May Cost Kansas Citizen $7500
    More Info on Van Meteren “Free Speech” Ethics Case
    Van Meteren to appeal $7500 Fine for Free Speech in District Court
    Kansas Ethics Commission’s Response to Van Meteren’s Request for Judicial Review
    Attorney General Says Kansas Ethics Confidentiality Rules are Unconstitutional

    Additional supplemental information is available on KansasLiberty.com.

  • Kris Kobach campaign in Wichita

    Republican Kris Kobach stopped by Wichita yesterday afternoon in his trip across Kansas supporting his candidacy for the Kansas Secretary of State.

    Kobach’s main reason for running, he says, is ACORN and the voter fraud it spreads. “It is a political organization, but it is also a criminal enterprise. It’s a criminal enterprise that is either under investigation or has been successfully prosecuted in 14 states.” ACORN is to receive $400 million in the federal stimulus plan, he said.

    Kobach outlined several things he wants to do to reduce voter fraud.

    Kobach says we need to require photo ID to vote in Kansas. This has been approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    We also need to require voters, when they register to vote for the first time, to prove that they’re U.S. citizens.

    We also need to purge the voter rolls, eliminating those who have died, are not U.S. citizens, or have moved away.

    Purging the voter rolls of non-citizens will prompt a lawsuit by the ACLU, Kobach said, but it has lost these suits.

    We also need to change the method of prosecution of voter fraud. There have been documented cases of voter fraud, he said, but no prosecutions. Currently the Secretary of State’s office refers suspected cases to local district attorneys, but these cases are judged as less important than other crimes, and therefore aren’t prosecuted. He advocates having an attorney in the Secretary’s office that would prepare cases and assist local district attorneys in prosecutions.

    Kobach said that “if you actually start enforcing the law, people start following the law,” the point being that starting to enforce the law will make the difference.

    Kansas is one of the most vulnerable states to voter fraud, Kobach said. His aspiration is to make Kansas a model of election security.

    The Wichita Eagle’s Dion Lefler attended the event and contributes coverage in Two area lawmakers back Kobach secretary of state candidacy. His previous coverage is at Kobach to run for secretary of state. The Eagle’s Rhonda Holman voices her skepticism of widespread voter fraud in her editorial Beware of claims of voter fraud.

  • Find your Kansas elected representatives

    If you want to know who represents you in Washington and Topeka, here’s an easy way.

    The Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas (my alma mater) provides a service that lets you find representatives for a specific address, or for an entire county. It also links to profiles and maps for election districts.

    Click on Find Your Legislator to use this service.

  • Watkins to speak at Pachyderm

    This Friday, Kansas House of Representatives member Jason Watkins will speak at the regular weekly meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club.

    Watkins represents House district 105, which includes parts of west and northwest Wichita. He is Vice-Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which was the center of some fast-paced legislative action this year as it worked on the Kansas budget.

    All are welcome to attend Pachyderm meetings. Lunch is $10, or you may attend the meeting only for $3.

    At Pachyderm meetings, there’s usually plenty of time for the speaker to take questions from the audience. The meeting starts at noon, although those wishing to order lunch are encouraged to arrive by 11:45. The location is Whiskey Creek Steakhouse at 233 N. Mosley in Old Town. You can view a map of this location by clicking on Google map of 233 N. Mosley.

  • In Kansas, government grows while private sector contracts

    The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy has released research titled Government Growth Adds to Private Sector Burden. It doesn’t hold good news for Kansas.

    The inverse relationship between government and private sector employment does not bode well for the economy. “Economic research has consistently shown that the larger the government is relative to the economy, the slower the economy grows,” said Dr. Art Hall, Executive Director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas School of Business. “We’ve known about that empirical data internationally and now it’s showing up at the local level.”

    (This is a Scribd document. Click on the rectangle at the right of the document’s title bar to get a full-screen view.)

    Government Growth Adds to Private Sector Burden

  • Kansas wind energy boon deserves examination

    An op-ed in today’s Wichita Eagle (Energy standard a boon for Kansas) points to a coming boon for Kansas as the result of a wind turbine manufacturing plant locating in Hutchinson. This article, however, should be read carefully and critically before we congratulate that city and the state of Kansas.

    Written by Nancy Jackson of the Climate and Energy Project, the piece seems to hold a lot of good news until you start to look at the underlying facts. Then you realize that the implications of the course she advocates are higher energy costs for Kansans, with little or no benefit to the environment.

    Before we start basing too much of our energy policy on wind, we might want to consider what’s happened to a country that depends highly on wind. Denmark generates nearly 20% of its power from wind. As a result, electricity is expensive there. In The myth of the Danish green energy ‘miracle’ we find that “Data from the International Energy Agency shows that the cost of residential electricity in Denmark in 2007 was [United States] 34 cents per kWh — the highest in Europe.” The Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament calls wind power “a terribly expensive disaster.”

    A review of my residential electricity bills for the last year show that I paid — including all customer charges and taxes — about nine cents per Kwh. Let’s hope we don’t have the same “success” with wind power that Denmark has. We can’t afford it.

    Jackson’s claims of the benefits of wind power deserve some scrutiny. She claims a benefit to the environment, presumably due to reduced carbon emissions and pollutants from coal-fired power plants. The goal of reducing carbon emissions, however, is a goal not worth pursuing, as explained recently to a Wichita audience in Wichita Geophysicist explains climate science data. Additionally, the newer coal-fired power plants have greatly reduced their emissions of pollutants.

    The claimed benefit to our economy is illusory, too. Proponents of “green” energy point to massive job creation, which will happen if we start building thousands of wind turbines. These jobs, however, come at the cost of other jobs. The increase in electricity prices that accompany wind power cause other job losses, too. The article Academic Study Challenges Projections of Green Jobs provides more information.

    As to the claim that wind power increases our energy security, wind power replaces power generated by coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. We import none of the fuel for these energy sources, with the exception of a small amount of gas.

    We should also remember too that this company would not have selected the Hutchinson site without large subsidies being paid by that city and the state of Kansas. For that matter, wind power would not be used if not for large and continuing federal subsidy. Reporting from the Wall Street Journal states: “Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf ran the numbers and found that the effective tax rate for wind is minus 163.8%. In other words, every dollar a wind firm spends is subsidized to the tune of 64 cents from the government. The Energy Information Administration estimates that wind receives $23.37 in government benefits per megawatt hour — compared to, say, 44 cents for coal.”

    As to the support of Kansans for renewable energy, the polls that are used to drum up this support are full of questions with misleading and false premises. The post GPACE poll on Kansas energy has more information on this.

    There’s little doubt that some people in Hutchinson will get jobs in this new plant. That, however, is the only good news in this op-ed.