Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas legislature

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

  • Taxpayer-funded lobbying discussed

    Sedgwick County Working for You

    Taxpayer-funded lobbying was a subject of discussion at today’s meeting of the Sedgwick County Commission, with the commission passing by a vote of three to two a resolution expressing the commission’s opposition to a bill under consideration in the Kansas Legislature. Video is here or at the end of this article.

    The bill of interest is SB 109, described here. It states “No public funds may be used directly or indirectly for lobbying. No public funds may be used to pay membership dues to an association that is engaged in lobbying the state. Public funds shall not be used for the purpose of employing or contracting for the service of any person whose duty and responsibility includes lobbying.”

    But if we must have taxpayer-funded lobbying, let’s make the best of it. Communications to and from a local governmental body and its lobbyist are open to the public under the Kansas Open Records Act. The documents might be testimony the lobbyist will deliver, reports covering the status and impact of bills, and other matters.

    As these documents are open under the Kansas Open Records Act, I propose this: Instead of requiring citizens to ask for these records, possibly paying fees to obtain what they’re already paying for, why don’t local governments post these documents immediately on their websites?

    Citizens could then benefit from the activities of the lobbyists they’re paying for. They could learn more about legislation as it works its way through the process.

    Very importantly, citizens could judge whether the positions taken by the government lobbyists are aligned with their policy preferences.

    If the actions taken by taxpayer-funded lobbyists are truly in the public interest, you’d think that cities, counties, and school boards would already be making this information easily available. In any case, there should be no resistance to starting this program immediately. Today, as the legislature is currently in session.

    If any local governmental units feel that posting documents on a website is too much of a burden, here’s my offer: When your lobbyist sends you an email with testimony, legislative reports, or anything else, just forward the email to me (bob.weeks@gmail.com). I’ll take care of the rest.

    Here’s one such example: Kansas Legislative Session 2013 — Week 5: An update on the Kansas Legislature from Sedgwick County’s lobbyist.

  • In Kansas, arguing about the wrong school issues

    School blackboardSunday’s Wichita Eagle makes a state-wide issue (literally) out of something that could self-regulate, if only we would let it.

    The issue is what proportion of Kansas school spending finds its way “into the classroom” — whatever that means — and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s use of this statistic.

    The front page Sunday article (Governor’s numbers come under question) spent over 1,000 words on the topic. It covers where Brownback got the number he uses, the controversy over how to classify spending as “classroom” or other, and troubles surrounding an advocacy group that pushed for more spending going to the classroom.

    Why is this issue important? In Kansas, most children attend government schools that are funded and regulated by government. This means that how schools spend money is a political issue. There will be arguments.

    In the private sector, however, we don’t see these types of arguments. Do we argue in public about how much the grocery store spends on administrative overhead compared to other spending? Of course not. The managers and owners of the grocery store are intensely interested in this issue. The public is too, but only in how the management of the grocery store affects their shopping experience.

    If shoppers don’t like the way a store is managed, they shop somewhere else. Management may notice this and make changes that customers appreciate. If management doesn’t adapt, the store will likely close and be replaced by other stores that do a better job delivering what customers want.

    Or, some shoppers may like a high level of management in a grocery store — one with more personal service. Some like a bare-bones store where you sack the groceries yourself. This variation in customer tastes and needs leads to what we observe: diversity in the types of grocery stores shoppers can choose from.

    The point is that in the private sector, people get to choose what they like. They choose what’s best for them. But with our system of public schools funded and regulated by government, there is no choice. (Yes, you can escape the public schools and use others, but you still must pay for the government schools.)

    There’s a factor that leads to this diversity of grocery stores and self-regulation focused on meeting consumers’ needs. It’s market competition.

    But Kansas has no market competition in schools, unless you want to escape the system entirely and still pay for it. We have a very weak charter school law, meaning there are very few charter schools in Kansas. We have no vouchers or tax credit scholarships.

    If we had these instruments of school choice in Kansas, government schools would face market competition. They would have to start being responsive to customers. We could allow schools to decide for themselves how much to spend on management and things other than the classroom. Market competition would guide schools in structuring their management and budgets to best meet the needs of schoolchildren and parents.

    If we had school choice in Kansas, we would have a more diverse slate of schools for parents to select from. We could rely on the nature of markets to self-regulate schools like we rely on markets to regulate grocery stores.

    We could quit arguing about things like how much is spent in the classroom, and we could actually focus on teaching children.

    But the Kansas school education establishment doesn’t want that. That establishment fights every attempt to introduce even small elements of choice into Kansas. We’ll see this soon as several bills facilitating school choice are introduced in the Kansas Legislature.

  • Taxpayer-funded lobbying in Kansas

    Kansas CapitolA committee hearing on the subject of taxpayer-funded lobbying in Kansas drew many taxpayer-funded lobbyists who testified that taxpayer-funded lobbying is a good thing. In fact, in the words of the director of the League of Kansas Municipalities, “Muzzling the opposition is about as un-democratic as it gets.”

    That executive, Don Moler, being a taxpayer-funded lobbyist himself, has a direct financial stake in the matter.

    The bill of interest is SB 109, described here.

    How bad a problem is taxpayer-funded lobbying? Here’s what Phil Kerpen wrote:

    Taxpayer-funded lobbying is a self-perpetuating problem. … The perpetual big-government expansion machine must be shut down. State and local governments already have their interests represented in Congress — by the senators and representatives whose job it is to represent their constituents. The enormous diversion of taxpayer resources entailed in siphoning off tax dollars at the state and local level to pay for lobbyists who push for ever bigger government must stop. Tax dollars should be used to deliver necessary government services, not to lobby for bigger government.

    A proposal for Kansas governmental units using taxpayer-funded lobbyists

    What do lobbyists, including taxpayer-funded lobbyists, do?

    One thing they do is testify before committees, in both verbal and written form.

    Another thing they do is to prepare reports for the clients, advising them on upcoming legislation, analyzing how it affects them, and what the prospects for the bill might be.

    They also meet with legislators and their clients, which are your elected officials.

    Here’s a proposal that will help citizens make best use of their taxpayer-funded lobbyists:

    I see nothing in the Kansas Open Records Act that allows local governmental units in Kansas to refuse disclose these documents: testimony, reports by lobbyists to their government clients, and the lobbyists’ calendars (or billing records for contract lobbyists).

    Instead of making citizens ask for these records, possibly paying fees to obtain what they’re already paying for, why don’t local governments post these documents immediately on their websites?

    Citizens could then benefit from the activities of the lobbyists they’re paying for. They could learn more about legislation as it works its way through the process. Citizens could judge whether the positions taken by the government lobbyists they’re paying for are aligned with their policy preferences.

    If the actions taken by taxpayer-funded lobbyists are truly in the public interest, you’d think that cities, counties, and school boards would already be making this information easily available. In any case, there should be no resistance to starting this program immediately. Today, as the legislature is currently in session.

    If any local governmental units feel this is too much of a burden, here’s my offer: When your lobbyist sends you an email with testimony, legislative reports, or anything else, just forward the email to me (bob.weeks@gmail.com). I’ll take care of the rest.

  • Suitable education in Kansas

    Kansas Judicial Center in snowToday the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on SCR 1608, a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would remove the ability of courts to order the level of spending on schools. Specifically, the proposed amendment adds this language: “The financing of the educational interests of the state is exclusively a legislative power under article 2 of the constitution of the state of Kansas and as such shall be established solely by the legislature.”

    The key sentence in the Constitution reads “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” Proponents of increased school spending in Kansas interpret that to mean the state guarantees Kansas children a suitable education, and the state must spend whatever it takes to accomplish that result.

    But that’s not what the Constitution says. In the following audio excerpt from today’s hearing, Sen. David Haley questions Sen. Steve Abrams, who was testifying to the committee in his role as chair of the Senate Education Committee. Abrams clarifies what the Constitution actually says.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/steve-abrams-senate-judiciary-2013-02-13.mp3″]Sen. Steve Abrams responds to Sen. David Haley.

    Also providing testimony to the committee was Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute. He told the panel that the courts’ decisions, both in the 2005 Montoy case and the just-decided Gannon case, were based on a flawed cost study by the consulting firm Augenblick & Myers (A&M). And the courts knew this, as explained in Trabert’s written testimony:

    “A&M openly admitted that they deliberately deviated from their own Successful Schools methodology and delivered artificially high spending numbers by ignoring efficient use of taxpayer money. Amazingly, the Montoy courts still based their rulings on ‘evidence’ that was known to be worthless. And now the Shawnee County District Court is following that legal precedent in its ruling on Gannon.”

    Trabert also explained that there has been no school cost study that considered to cost of schools operating in a cost effective manner, including another study that courts and school spending advocates have relied on:

    To this day, no study has ever been conducted in Kansas to determine what it would cost for schools to achieve required student outcomes and have schools organized and operating in a cost effective manner.

    A Legislative Post Audit study conducted in 2006 is often cited as a basis for determining school funding requirements, but LPA made it quite clear (on page 2, where it is hard to miss) that “… it’s important to remember that these cost studies are intended to help the Legislature decide appropriate funding levels for K-12 public education. They aren’t intended to dictate any specific funding level, and shouldn’t be viewed that way. Finally, within these cost studies we weren’t directed to, nor did we try to, examine the most cost-effective way for Kansas school districts to be organized and operated.” (emphasis added)

    Opponents of the proposed amendment will testify tomorrow.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dave-trabert-senate-judiciary-2013-02-13.mp3″]Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute.

  • Kansas death penalty

    Jennifer Baysinger

    What are the issues surrounding the death penalty in Kansas? What position should conservatives take?

    When I was guest host on the Joseph Ashby Show, Jennifer Baysinger, who works with Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, called in. Listen to our discussion below.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jennifer-baysinger-kansas-coalition-against-death-penalty-2013-02-08.mp3″]

  • As lawmakers, Kansas judges should be selected democratically

    Kansas Judicial Center in snowWhile many believe that judges should not “legislate from the bench,” that is, make law themselves, the reality is that lawmaking is a judicial function. In a democracy, lawmakers should be elected under the principle of “one person, one vote.” But Kansas, which uses the Missouri Plan for judicial selection to its two highest courts, violates this principle.

    A recent paper by Kansas University School of Law Professor Stephen J. Ware explains the problem with the process used in Kansas. The paper is titled Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study and may be downloaded at no charge. The Kansas courts that use the judicial selection described in the paper are the Kansas Court of Appeals and the Kansas Supreme Court.

    At issue is whether judges are simply arbitrators of the law, or do they actually participate in the lawmaking process. Ware explains: “This realist view that statutory interpretation often involves ‘substantial judicial discretion’ and therefore constitutes ‘judicial lawmaking, not lawfinding,’ had by the 1950s, ‘become deeply rooted.’”

    A “‘balanced realism,’ to use Brian Tamanaha’s appealing label, recognizes both that judges’ policy preferences have little or no influence on many judicial decisions and that judges’ policy preferences have a significant influence on other judicial decisions. Empirical studies tend to support this balanced view.” In other words, there is some role for ideology in making judicial decisions. Politics, therefore, is involved. Ware quotes Charles Gardner Geyh: “In a post-realist age, the ideological orientation of judicial aspirants matters.” And the higher the court, the more this matters.

    Since judges function as lawmakers, they ought to be selected by a democratic process. In the Kansas version of the Missouri Plan, a nominating commission dominated by lawyers selects three candidates to fill an opening on the Kansas Court of Appeals or Kansas Supreme Court. The governor then selects one of the three, and the process is over. A new judge is selected. This process gives members of the state’s bar tremendous power in selecting judges.

    Ware presents eleven examples of judges on the two highest Kansas courts engaging in lawmaking. In one, a workers’ compensation case, the employee would lose his appeal if the “clear” precedent was followed. Justice Carol A. Beier wrote the opinion. Ware explains:

    But this is not, in fact, what Justice Beier and her colleagues on the Kansas Supreme Court did. Rather they did what Kansas Judges Greene and Russell say never happens. Justice Beier and her colleagues engaged in lawmaking. They changed the legal rule from one contrary to their ideologies to one consistent with their ideologies.

    Justice Beier’s opinion doing this started by criticizing the old rule, while acknowledging that it was, in fact, the rule prior to her opinion by which the Supreme Court made new law. Here again is the above quote from Coleman, but now with the formerly omitted words restored and italicized: “The rule is clear, if a bit decrepit and unpopular: An injury from horseplay does not arise out of employment and is not compensable unless the employer was aware of the activity or it had become a habit at the workplace.”

    Who decided that this rule is “decrepit and unpopular” and so should be changed? Was it the Kansas Legislature? No, it was the Kansas Supreme Court. It was judges, not legislators, who decided that this legal rule was bad policy. It was judges, not legislators, who changed the law to bring it in line with what the lawmaking judges thought was good policy.

    Beier wrote in her opinion: “We are clearly convinced here that our old rule should be abandoned. Although appropriate for the time in which it arose, we are persuaded by the overwhelming weight of contrary authority in our sister states and current legal commentary.”

    The result: New Kansas law, made by people selected through an undemocratic process.

    In conclusion, Ware writes:

    Non-lawyers who believe in the principle that lawmakers should be selected democratically need to know that judicial selection is lawmaker selection to be troubled by the Missouri Plan’s violation of this principle. Non-lawyers who do not know that judges inevitably make law may believe that the role of a judge consists only of its professional/technical side and, therefore, believe that judges should be selected entirely on their professional competence and ethics and that assessments of these factors are best left to lawyers. In short, a lawyer who omits lawmaking from a published statement about the judicial role is furthering a misimpression that helps empower lawyers at the expense of non-lawyers, in violation of basic democratic equality, the principle of one-person, one-vote.

    Prospects for Kansas

    In Kansas, the process for selecting judges to the Kansas Court of Appeals is governed by statute, and can be changed by the legislature and governor. Last year the House of Representatives passed a bill to reform the process, but it was blocked by Senate Judiciary Chair Tim Owens. He said “I think this is the first time I did not hear a bill because I thought it was so bad. This is a terrible, terrible bill that’s hated by the courts; it’s an attempt to take over control of the courts.”

    Owens, who ranked as the least friendly senator to economic freedom in the 2012 edition of the Kansas Economic Freedom Index, lost his bid for re-election in the August primary election. Many of the other moderate Republicans who voted against reform also lost their primary election contest.

    Owens, it should be noted, is an attorney, and is therefore a member of the privileged class that has outsize power in selecting judges.

    Sometimes legislators are simply uninformed or misinformed on judicial selection. An example is Jean Schodorf, who lost a re-election bid in August. In an interview, she was quoted as saying “We thwarted changes to judicial selection that would have allowed the governor to have the final say in all judicial selections.”

    The bill that the senate voted on, and the one that Owens killed the year before, called for Court of Appeals judges to be appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate. It’s actually the senate that has the final say.

    Newspaper editorial writers across Kansas are mostly opposed to judicial selection reform. An example is Rhonda Holman of the Wichita Eagle, who in 2010 wrote: “Some critics may have a beef with past court decisions, perhaps even a legitimate one — which is no surprise, given that judicial decisions pick winners and losers. But they also may be motivated by politics — which is a problem, given that the judiciary is supposed to be fair, impartial and independent. In the absence of a strong case for change, Kansas should stick with what works.”

    With the change in composition of the Kansas Senate, the climate is more favorable for reform for the way judges are selected for the Kansas Court of Appeals. The law governing how judges for the Kansas Supreme Court are selected is in the Kansas Constitution, and would require an amendment to alter the process. Such an amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Kansas Legislature, and then a simple majority vote of the people.

    By the way: For those who criticize the support for judicial selection reform as pure power politics, since Kansas has a conservative governor, remember this: When Professor Ware sounded the need for reform and convinced me of the need, our governor was the liberal Kathleen Sebelius. There was also a liberal senate at that time, one which would undoubtedly have rubberstamped any nominee Sebelius might have sent for confirmation.

    Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study
    By Stephen J. Ware

    Abstract: The “balanced realist” view that judging inevitably involves lawmaking is widely accepted, even among originalists, such as Justice Scalia, Randy Barnett and Steven Calabresi. Yet many lawyers are still reluctant to acknowledge publicly the inevitability of judicial lawmaking. This reluctance is especially common in debates over the Missouri Plan, a method of judicial selection that divides the power to appoint judges between the governor and the bar.

    The Missouri Plan is one of three widely-used methods of selecting state court judges. The other two are: (1) direct election of judges by the citizenry, and (2) appointment of judges by democratically elected officials, typically the governor and legislature, with little or no role for the bar. Each of these two methods of judicial selection respects a democratic society’s basic equality among citizens — the principle of one-person, one-vote. In contrast, the Missouri Plan violates this principle by making a lawyer’s vote worth more than another citizen’s vote.

    This Article provides a case study of the clash between the inevitability of judicial lawmaking and the reluctance of lawyers to acknowledge this inevitability while defending their disproportionate power under the Missouri Plan. The Article documents efforts by lawyers in one state, Kansas, to defend their version of the Missouri Plan by attempting to conceal from the public the fact that Kansas judges, like judges in the other 49 states, inevitably make law. The case study then shows examples of Kansas judges making law. The Article concludes that honesty requires lawyers participating in the debate over judicial selection in the United States to forthrightly acknowledge that judges make law. Lawyers who seek to defend the power advantage the Missouri Plan gives them over other citizens can honestly acknowledge that this is a power advantage in the selection of lawmakers and then explain why they believe a departure from the principle of one-person, one-vote is justified in the selection of these particular lawmakers.

    The complete paper may be downloaded at no charge here.

  • Bill would end taxpayer-funded lobbying in Kansas

    Kansas lobbyist expenditure report

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas Senate that would end or limit taxpayer-funded lobbying.

    The heart of this bill, SB 109, is “No public funds may be used directly or indirectly for lobbying. No public funds may be used to pay membership dues to an association that is engaged in lobbying the state. Public funds shall not be used for the purpose of employing or contracting for the service of any person whose duty and responsibility includes lobbying.”

    Taxpayer-funding lobbying is one of the worst excesses of government. Commenting on the revelation that TARP bailout funds were spent on lobbying, David Boaz wrote:

    It’s bad enough to have our tax money taken and given to banks whose mistakes should have caused them to fail. It’s adding insult to injury when they use our money — or some “other” money; money is fungible — to lobby our representatives in Congress, perhaps for even more money.

    Get taxpayers’ money, hire lobbyists, get more taxpayers’ money. Nice work if you can get it.

    Later in the same article he wrote: “Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for the very lobbying that seeks to suck more dollars out of the taxpayers.”

    Locally, Americans for Prosperity-Kansas wrote this last year:

    Taxpayer-funded lobbying reform has been a part of AFP-Kansas’ legislative agenda for a number of years. Back in 2007, we conducted a statewide open records request to find out just how many government entities and associations were using tax dollars to lobby the legislature for more tax dollars. We had a hard time getting answers. Many local governments were part of such associations that regularly lobby, but few were willing to recognize that it was tax dollars paying for those memberships, and tax dollars helping fund the organizations’ lobbying efforts.

    Fighting the endless cycle of taxpayer-funded lobbying has been a part of this organization’s mission for years, so we welcomed news this week that the Brownback Administration is trying to do something about it. The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services is changing language to its contracts in an effort to tighten restrictions on taxpayer-funded lobbying by state contractors.

    This is certainly an important step, but more can be done. AFP-Kansas will continue to push for legislation restricting taxpayer-funded lobbying in all forms. Unless we are able to achieve serious reforms, the culture of “more is never enough” under the capitol dome is sure to continue.”

    Taxpayer-funded lobbying can be very expensive in two ways: First, the cost of performing the lobbying, and secondly, the cost of the government spending that the lobbyists seek.

    And that lobbying can be expensive, successful or not. The lobbyist for USD 259, the Wichita public school district is paid $99,588 per year, according to records at Kansas OpenGov. Since she spends much time in Topeka (that’s where the money is), there’s surely much additional travel and lodging expense.

    Oh, and she’s not really a lobbyist. That’s a crude word to use to describe someone who’s only working for the kids, as the school district tells us. Instead, she’s Director of Governmental Affairs.

    Either way, we’ll all be better off if we don’t have to pay for government lobbying government.

  • Why don’t Kansas children have options?

    School

    School choice programs in some states are targeted at children with special needs, as in Oklahoma with its Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program.

    Children in Kansas don’t have the same opportunity that Oklahoma schoolchildren have.

    The following video illustrates the difference school choice can make to special needs students. Visit WhyNotKansas.com to learn more.

  • The real war on Kansas workers

    “What workers decide to do with their paychecks is none of the Government’s business.”

    Isn’t that a wonderful statement? It succinctly states the libertarian principle of self-ownership, which is that each person owns themselves and the fruits of their labor. Their paychecks, in this case. The author says that government has no business deciding how workers spend their pay, which I would interpret as meaning that government has no business levying taxes on income.

    End the War on Kansas Workers Petition

    But I don’t think that’s what the author of this sentence meant.

    Instead, the author of this statement wants more of Kansas workers’ paychecks diverted to government though taxation. That’s how the groups he’s represented are paid, and they always want more.

    This statement comes from a petition at SignOn.org started by Colin Curtis, a Kansas political activist who has worked for public employee organizations. It’s in response to a bill that provides, in part, “It shall be unlawful for any professional employees’ organization, as defined in K.S.A. 72-5413, and amendments thereto, to use any dues, fees, assessments or any periodic payments deducted from a member’s paycheck for the purpose of engaging in political activities as defined in subsection (c).”

    If this bill becomes law, public employee unions won’t be able to have government deduct these payments for them. They’ll have to fundraise like everyone else.

    But if all you read was the petition that Curtis started, you’d think the bill does much more: “It’s time for the Government to get off of workers backs, out of their paychecks, and to end these outrageous attempt to strip workers of their First Amendment rights simply because they chose to join a union.”

    A paycheck deduction isn’t a first amendment right. Not even close.

    But I do understand why public employee unions like Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union, are worried about this legislation. If their members had to consciously make donations for political purposes (instead of automatic deduction), teachers might start wondering if the union is really worthwhile.

    And I do agree with Curtis when he writes “It’s time for the Government to get off of workers backs.”

    I wish he and Kansas public employee union leadership really meant this.

    More about HB 2023
    In her newsletter, Kansas State Representative Amanda Grosserode explains this bill:

    I received a great deal of correspondence on this issue with most of it coming from outside the district. There was some confusion and misinformation about the legislation’s contents, which is to simply ban state or other units of government from making payroll deductions for members of public sector unions for the purpose of contributing to the union’s political action committee. For purpose of simple clarification:

    • Dues for membership in an employee organization (union) will still be able to be processed through a paycheck deduction.
    • Contributions to a political action committee (PAC) will not be allowed through a paycheck deduction.
    • The language that restrains political activity for a public employee organization is not new law. That language was expanded.
    • Political activity such as endorsements and contributions would be prohibited from the public employee organization which it is already prohibited from doing.
    • Endorsements, political contributions to candidates, and other participation in engaging in ballot measures are to be from the Political Action Committee arm and not the organization arm.

    Some misinformation that I have seen:

    • The bill does not stop any employee organization from being involved in lobbying for or against legislation. It does not stop individual employees from advocating for or against legislation.
    • Other organizations are unable to contribute to candidates or endorse candidates except through a PAC. This is very common. It is usually a federal tax issue that is involved. Most organizations have an educational and lobbying wing which is separate financially and by tax filings from the political action committee wing which endorses and financially supports candidate.
    • No individual’s first amendment right is restricted. Individuals always can speak out.

    My husband is a member of a public employee organization. This bill will not stop his dues being paid by paycheck deduction. This bill does not impact in any way his ability to advocate for or against an issue or legislation. It does not stop his organization from lobbying on legislation before the Legislature. It will only stop our family from contributing to a political action committee by way of a paycheck deduction.

    I voted Yes on 2023. It is inappropriate for the state or any unit of government to be in the business of making payroll deductions for political purposes.