Voice For Liberty

Tag: Politics

  • Sedgwick County Commission: Let’s not vote today

    At the October 31 meeting of the Sedgwick County Commission, Karl Peterjohn introduced a measure that would let the Kansas Legislature know that the commission supports improving the tax climate in Kansas, and specifically would limit property tax growth. But electoral politics forced a delay in a vote.

    In response to Peterjohn’s proposal, the coalition of one Democrat and two liberal Republicans that form the working majority on the commission maneuvered to delay voting on the measure until after the November 6 election. With the item appearing on tomorrow’s agenda, it’s very likely that the majority coalition — Commission Chair Tim Norton, Dave Unruh, and Jim Skelton — will vote against the proposal.

    Why the rush for delay? Norton was facing a vigorous challenge in the election. He couldn’t afford to cast a vote against property tax reform. With Skelton publicly supporting Norton, and Unruh doing so behind the scenes, the two Republicans supported their liberal Democratic fellow traveler in delaying the vote until after the election.

    But after the election, Norton is free to vote against property tax reform. Skelton and Unruh don’t face the voters for another two years, and they’ll be relying on the short memory span of most voters.

  • Tracking Sedgwick County election returns

    Updates of election returns for Sedgwick County races through a Google Docs spreadsheet. It will automatically update as I add data.

    Click here or watch below.

  • Kansas election preview

    It’s sort of a quiet election in Kansas this year. We’re not a presidential battleground state. We are solidly Republican at the presidential level, and we have just six electoral votes.

    We’re not electing a U.S. Senator this year. Our four U.S. Representatives are Republican and secure, as the Democrats fielded no challengers with realistic changes of winning.

    We have no statewide races like governor or attorney general. We do have a constitutional amendment to consider. All it does is allow the legislature to assess boats differently from other property. It’s thought that Kansas boat taxes are very high compared to surrounding states.

    There are some legislative races to watch, but the real action was in 2010 and in the August primary this year. Until recently, political power in Kansas was wielded by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, with either a Democratic or moderate Republican governor.

    In 2010 conservative Republicans gained a majority in the House, and are expected to retain that, although Democrats may take back a few seats.

    In 2012, all 40 senators ran for four-year terms. In the August primary eight moderate senators were defeated by conservatives, including the senate president. There are about five senate races hotly contested today, but the Kansas senate will have a conservative majority.

    Democrats across the state have been running on a few themes: That conservative Republican legislators are only rubberstamps for Governor Sam Brownback, that the income tax cuts passed this year will wreck the budget and require increases in property taxes, and that the cuts will also decimate school funding. Republicans often tie Democrats to Obamacare, whether that makes sense or not.

    No matter what happens today, Kansas will have a large turnover and many new faces in its legislature. Kansas failed to pass a redistricting bill this year, and a panel of federal judges drew new boundaries. The court created districts with no deference to the political considerations that legislatures consider. As a result, many incumbents were placed in districts with other incumbents, and many had their districts changed or redrawn considerably. The political class hated the court’s new maps, but I thought it did a good job.

    In Sedgwick County there are 28 district court judges are up for re-election, but only one spot that is contested. There were more judicial contests in the primary.

    An interesting contest is the decision as to whether Wichita will add fluoride to its water supply. With a population of 380,000 Wichita is the largest city in America that doesn’t fluoridate. A recent SurveyUSA poll had the No vote ahead 44 to 43 percent, with 13 percent undecided. Campaigns on both sides have been very active, and the pro-fluoride side has been advertising extensively.

  • Election night coverage from Watchdog Wire

    Tonight, starting at 6:00 pm EST, watch live election coverage with Tony Katz from Watchdog Wire, a project of the Franklin Center. I may even appear to offer coverage of elections in Kansas.

    Watch below or click on Citizen Watchdog Election Watch to watch in a new tab or window.

  • In Sedgwick County, a judicial candidate takes the low road

    Voters are accustomed to political campaigns that sink low with distorted facts, missing facts, innuendo, and outright lies. Judges, however, ought to be held to a higher standard, and in Kansas, the Supreme Court has rules for judges to follow in their campaigns. But the campaign for incumbent Richard T. Ballinger in Sedgwick County, Kansas, doesn’t seem to be interested in following these rules.

    In the Rules related to Judicial Conduct adopted by the Kansas Supreme Court, the title of canon four, covering political activity, starts with this admonition: “A judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the independence, integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.”

    Specifically, the rules state:

    Rule 4.1: Political and Campaign Activities of Judges and Judicial Candidates in General
    (A) A judge or a judicial candidate shall not: …
    (4) knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth, make any false or misleading statement.

    The comment associated with paragraph 4 illuminates:

    [7] Judicial candidates must be scrupulously fair and accurate in all statements made by them and by their campaign committees. Paragraph (A)(4) obligates candidates and their committees to refrain from making statements that are false or misleading, or that omit facts necessary to make the communication considered as a whole not materially misleading.

    Here’s one example of the ways the Ballinger campaign has acted in contrary to these rules in his campaign against challenger Zoe Newton: On November 2, Ballinger ran radio advertisements stating this about Newton: “more than 60 percent of her campaign contributions have come from her boss Wink Hartman, or Hartman’s companies, or a handful of Hartman’s business associates.” The ad goes on to claim that Newton, if elected, “owes a debt of gratitude to a select few.”

    The actual facts, however, are that based on my analysis of campaign finance reports through October 29, Newton herself has contributed 60.2 percent of her total campaign funds. We can see, therefore, that Ballinger’s claim violates the rule that requires judges to “knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth, make any false or misleading statement.”

    As far as owing a “debt of gratitude,” if a case involving Hartman or his business interests were to come before a Judge Newton, she would have to recuse herself. She wouldn’t be able to preside over the case.

    But that’s not the situation with the large number of Sedgwick County attorneys who have contributed to Ballinger’s campaign. Ballinger knows who his contributors are, and the contributors know who they are. But evidently, the rules in Kansas don’t require recusal or even notification to the parties to a case that there are political campaign contributions involved.

    Judge Richard Ballinger Facebook post, October 30, 2012.

    Another example: A Georgia political action committee ran radio advertisements critical of Ballinger. He ran advertisements criticizing “secret Georgia money,” and for a time, the source of that money was unknown. But the Wichita Eagle published an article where Wink Hartman acknowledged that he was source of the funding for the ads, a fact which Ballinger signaled awareness of by posting so on his campaign’s Facebook page. But the ads claiming “secret Georgia money” continued to run, making claims that were known to be false.

    Hartman’s response might not have been necessary if not for Ballinger’s claim made in a radio advertisement. Citing Ballinger’s long tenure as judge, the commercial — in a disparaging tone and manner — said that Newton “works for Wink Hartman.” Hartman is a well-known businessman and entrepreneur who ran for U.S. Congress in 2010. He adds value to our community through his successful business ventures. And since when is working in the private sector a bad thing? I’d argue that diversity of experience, including private sector business experience, is important to our stable of judges.

    Another example: On November 1, a radio ad in Ballinger’s own voice mentioned his cease and desist order issued by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications. That document may be read here. Ballinger says that happened seven years ago, when as you can see, the order was issued in 2006, which is six years ago.

    It might be that the events for which Ballinger was cited (“inappropriately fraternizing with subordinate employees”) happened in 2005, which would be seven years ago. The cease and desist order doesn’t say. But Ballinger certainly knows when he committed these violations of judicial conduct, and if he wants to criticize an advertisement for getting dates wrong, he should reveal the record of his conduct. Either that, or we have to argue over the meaning of the word “this.” We’ve been through that (“it,” actually) with a former president.

    Ballinger also claims, in the same advertisement: “… the Kansas Supreme Court reappointed me as chief judge with complete knowledge of the facts.” This, to me, is misleading. The same advertisement attempts a clarification a little later, when Ballinger states “I was appointed chief presiding judge of probate court.” Even this clarification does little to give voters accurate information, as the probate division, at least presently, appears to consist of only one judge — Ballinger himself.

    Further, I believe that according to Kansas statute, it is the chief judge of a judicial district who appoints presiding judges, not the Kansas Supreme Court as Ballinger claimed.

    Another example: A Ballinger advertisement mentions that he was overwhelmingly re-elected by voters in 2008. Upon hearing that, most people would assume there was a challenger that Ballinger defeated. But there was no opponent for Ballinger that year, which is not uncommon in judicial elections. Consider Ballinger’s statement in light of a comment to the rules: “Paragraph (A)(4) obligates candidates and their committees to refrain from making statements that are false or misleading, or that omit facts necessary to make the communication considered as a whole not materially misleading.” (emphasis added)

    I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether boasting of an overwhelming victory in an election with no opponent is materially misleading.

    Similarly, when voters make a decision about electing judges, they should remember that the Kansas Supreme Court holds judges to a high standard of conduct in their campaigns.

  • Kansas Republicans don’t need to do this

    In elections, campaigns may divert from useful discussions of the issues to engage in mudslinging and innuendo. Both parties do it, but an example from the Kansas Republican Party crosses a line and may actually hurt the candidate it was intended to help.

    The mail piece targets Keith Humphrey, a Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Mike Petersen for a spot in the Kansas Senate. As described in Wichita Eagle reporting, “Democratic Senate candidate Keith Humphrey … said the Kansas Republican Party should apologize for an ad it sent to voters that questions why he changed his name and raised questions about his businesses. Citing the Internet Movie Database and online public records, the ad says ‘Keith Humphrey doesn’t want you to know about his background … or that his name hasn’t always been Humphrey.’ … Humphrey said he was born as Keith Desoto and that his name changed when he was adopted at age 11.”

    The mail piece also asks voters to wonder about this: “Owns four different companies, some with no websites or phone numbers.”

    These issues, if we can even dignify them with that term, have nothing to do with someone’s fitness to serve in public office. Campaigning in this way causes people to turn away from politics and civic life, bringing out the worst in our political system. Democrats do this too, with notable examples targeting Michael O’Donnell in the campaign for the August primary. These, like the anti-Humphrey piece, were not sent by the candidates themselves.

    Kansas Republicans — Democrats too, for that matter — would do better to stick to actual issues related to policy when campaigning. There’s much, for example, to highlight about Humphrey that relates to policy. His campaign website’s issues page reads, in part, “The tax plan passed by Sam Brownback and our incumbent state senator increases taxes on working families while slashing funding for education and increasing taxes on working class families throughout the 28th Senate District.”

    Then later: “Unfortunately, cuts to public education over the last three years have gone too far.”

    Actual facts don’t support these claims, as shown in Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending.

    At a campaign forum in Derby, when asked about education funding and school vouchers, Humphrey cited only the base state aid per pupil figures, the same mistaken and unfactual tactics used by the education spending lobby.

    Then after explaining the importance of skilled labor, he said “As far as a voucher program or something of that nature, to me it goes beyond the family right into the community, if, again if we don’t support that skilled labor base, eventually we’re going to lose one of the greatest resources we have here in south-central Kansas.” I would judge that to be non-responsive, or perhaps not understanding the topic of the question.

    Finally, Humphrey was featured in a Derby Informer news story as a business owner skeptical of the Brownback tax reform’s ability to create conditions favorable for more job creation. He said that the tax reduction he expects to receive is not enough to allow him to hire another employee.

    That amount is also not enough to hire, for example, a new schoolteacher, something that Humprey seems to be concerned about. The point of tax reduction is to leave more money in the productive private sector, instead of sending to an inefficient and wasteful government. As a private sector businessman, I’d think Humphrey should understand that, but evidently he doesn’t.

  • Wichita-area legislators on government efficiency

    Who could be against more efficient government? Even those who score poorly on the Kansas Economic Freedom Index say they are in favor of efficiency and eliminating waste. Here’s an example from the campaign website of Nile Dillmore, who is running for re-election:

    “Nile rejects that ‘tax-and-spend’ is the most effective and efficient way to manage government! Nile supports cutting waste and inefficiencies and keeping our tax burden as low as possible.”

    But as is often the case in politics, legislators’ campaign rhetoric and promises don’t align with their actual votes. For example, in the 2011 session of the Kansas Legislature HB 2194 was introduced, which in its original form would have created the Kansas Advisory Council on Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships.

    According to the supplemental note for the bill, “The purpose of the Council would be to ensure that certain state agencies, including the Board of Regents and postsecondary educational institutions, would: 1) focus on the core mission and provide goods and services efficiently and effectively; 2) develop a process to analyze opportunities to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and provide quality services, operations, functions, and activities; and 3) evaluate for feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency opportunities that could be outsourced. Excluded from the state agencies covered by the bill would be any entity not receiving State General Fund or federal funds appropriation.”

    This bill passed by a vote of 68 to 51 in the House of Representatives and did not advance in the Senate. Wichita-area legislators who are running for re-election and who voted against this bill included Dillmore, Gail Finney, Geraldine Flaharty, Dan Kerschen, Dillmore’s current opponent Brenda Landwehr, and Jim Ward.

    In response to the vote on this bill, Dillmore was quoted in the Wichita Eagle: “Rep. Nile Dillmore , D-Wichita, pointed out that the Republicans cheered 44 days ago when newly elected Gov. Sam Brownback, in his State of the State address, repeatedly said ‘The days of ever-expanding government are over’” ‘What’s our response?’ Dillmore said. ‘Let’s create a commission for this. Let’s create a commission for that. Let’s grow some government.’”

    But this bill — and two others described below — proposed to spend modest amounts aimed at increasing the manageability and efficiency of government, not the actual size and scope of government itself. As it turns out, many in the legislature are happy with the operations of state government remaining in the shadows, despite claims made during campaigns.

    Another bill from 2011 was HB 2158, which would have created performance measures for state agencies and reported that information to the public. The supplemental note says that the bill “as amended, would institute a new process for modifying current performance measures and establishing new standardized performance measures to be used by all state agencies in support of the annual budget requests. State agencies would be required to consult with representatives of the Director of the Budget and the Legislative Research Department to modify each agency’s current performance measures, to standardize such performance measures, and to utilize best practices in all state agencies.” Results of the performance measures would be posted on a public website.

    This bill passed the House of Representatives by a nearly unanimous vote of 119 to 2, with Wichita’s Dillmore and Flaherty the two nay votes. The bill didn’t advance in the Senate.

    Another 2011 bill was HB 2120, which according to its supplemental note “would establish the Kansas Streamlining Government Act, which would have the purpose of improving the performance, efficiency, and operations of state government by reviewing certain state agencies, programs, boards, and commissions.” Fee-funded agencies — examples include Kansas dental board and Kansas real estate commission — would be exempt from this bill.

    In more detail, the text of the bill explains: “The purposes of the Kansas streamlining government act are to improve the performance, streamline the operations, improve the effectiveness and efficiency, and reduce the operating costs of the executive branch of state government by reviewing state programs, policies, processes, original positions, staffing levels, agencies, boards and commissions, identifying those that should be eliminated, combined, reorganized, downsized or otherwise altered, and recommending proposed executive reorganization orders, executive orders, legislation, rules and regulations, or other actions to accomplish such changes and achieve such results.”

    In testimony in support of this legislation, Dave Trabert, President of Kansas Policy Institute offered testimony that echoed findings of the public choice school of economics and politics: “Some people may view a particular expenditure as unnecessary to the fulfillment of a program’s or an agency’s primary mission while others may see it as essential. Absent an independent review, we are expecting government employees to put their own self-interests aside and make completely unbiased decisions on how best to spend taxpayer funds. It’s not that government employees are intentionally wasteful; it’s that they are human beings and setting self-interests aside is challenge we all face.”

    The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 40. It died in the Senate. Wichita-area legislators who are running for re-election and who voted against this bill included Dillmore, Finney, Flaharty, Landwehr, and Ward.

  • Sedgwick County advance voting

    According to my analysis of data I’ve received from the Sedgwick County Election Office, 74,477 ballots have been mailed and 39,444 people have voted, either by mail or through in-person voting at the election office or advance voting centers.

    For comparison, in the 2010 general election 136,398 people voted in Sedgwick County, and in the 2008 general election, 194,688.

  • Kansas Democrats mailing again, and wrong again

    It’s campaign season, and mail pieces are flying fast, replete with more Kansas Democratic errors.

    Examples come from two mailers from the Kansas Democratic Party targeting Joseph Scapa, a one-term Republican incumbent seeking to return to the House or Representatives.

    Here’s one: “SCAPA voted for the largest cut to school funding in Kansas history — schools are closing, class sizes are increasing and fees are going up on parents. Sub HB 2014 (HJ 5/12/11, p. 1570)”

    This is a repeat of a mistaken claim made on other anti-Scapa mailings, for which Kansas Democrats have apologized.

    Here’s something from another ant-Scapa mail piece from the Kansas Democratic Party: “The Brownback Agenda included the largest cut to public education funding in Kansas history in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations.”

    This claim is incorrect, too. As explained in Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending, the claims of education cuts generally consider only Kansas state spending on schools, neglecting federal and local sources of funds. In the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 schools years, federal aid soared as a result of the Obama stimulus program. These funds almost made up for the decline in state spending, meaning that total spending on Kansas schools declined only slightly.

    (You’d think that Kansas Democrats would want to remind us of the supposedly wonderful things the Obama stimulus accomplished, but evidently not when the facts are inconvenient.)

    Then, who was Kansas governor during the years that Kansas state spending on schools actually declined? Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson. They’re Democrats, I believe.

    Here’s something else from a mailer from the Kansas Democrats:

    JOE SCAPA is just another rubber stamp for Sam Brownback.
    JOE SCAPA VOTES WITH SAM
    BROWNBACK 92.33% OF THE TIME.*
    Instead of working to create jobs and improve education, Scapa has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for Governor Brownback’s irresponsible agenda.
    *www.KanFocus.com, Republican Support Rankings

    Most people don’t have access to KanFocus, a useful but expensive subscription information service. The rankings that the mailer refers to, according to KanFocus, “… show the percentage of votes on which each Representative voted with and against the majority of Republicans.”

    So it’s not a measure of how closely Representatives’ votes align with Governor Brownback, but with the majority of Republicans. Oops.

    Aside from that, Scapa ranked 56 out of 93 Republicans that cast votes in 2012. Then, consider that most of the Republicans who ranked “higher” than Scapa (meaning they voted less often with the Republican majority) are legislators who in most states would be Democrats.

    An accurate assessment, then, of Scapa’s voting record is that he is relatively independent from the Republican majority in his voting. Which is not the same as the Brownback agenda, as the Democratic Party mailer erroneously claims.