April 2005

April 28, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 25, 2005)

2006? Welfare costs...

Kansans got their first look last week at what the smart talk at the Statehouse pegs as the biggest issue of the 2006 legislative session–welfare and health care for the state’s poor.

The session that is wrapping up this week was all about elementary and secondary education and the Kansas Supreme Court order that the state make better provisions for financing what has become in Statehouse shorthand K-12, or kindergarten through 12th grade education–the public schools.

But the real issue next session is going to be welfare costs. And the first indication that the issue is going to dominate next year’s Legislature was the release of experts’ estimates that the state is going to have to spend at least $19 million between now and June 30 to pay for the basic health care and survival needs of the state’s poor and elderly and children who are in homes where there just isn’t enough money.

For the state’s fiscal year which starts July 1, the experts predict the state is going to have to spend $41.65 million more than was projected.

At the Statehouse level, those are big numbers. The state is predicted to spend $1.9 billion on Medicaid , nursing home care and welfare for Kansans this fiscal year, which ends June 30. The majority of that is federal money, about $1.3 billion, leaving the state to come up with state tax dollars of about $662 million. Next year, that one that starts July 1, the spending is expected to be almost $2 billion, with about $707.4 million of that being state tax dollars.

Welfare and whatever the Kansas Supreme Court says the state has to do about K-12 education are the twin money-gobbling issues for legislators next session. Welfare comes to the top of the list because compared to many states, Kansas is coming late to the game of wrestling with the issue. Why? Because Kansas has a remarkably high level of citizens with health insurance of some sort. Probably about 85% of Kansans have some health care coverage, much higher than the national average.

Around the Statehouse, where politics and finances blend to give an almost other-worldly view of life, old-timers remind lawmakers that the federal government, which finances most welfare costs through its Medicaid program, isn’t likely to be the source of much help.

Remember former Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour, of Mississippi? Remember that he helped elect President George W. Bush? He’s now governor of Mississippi, and he asked the federal government to help his state finance spiraling welfare costs and he got turned down. You think if a former national GOP chairman, friend of the president, can’t get some help from Washington, Kansas is going to miraculously see money flowing from the federal government?

Neither do most of the folks at the Statehouse, and they predict that federal aid to states to assist with welfare expenditures is going to shrink, not expand. Which leaves Kansas with the choice of increasing annually its welfare expenditures or finding ways to reduce or at least hold steady costs.

What’s what mean? Practically, in the Kansas Statehouse, it means that legislators are going to be asked to spend increasing amounts of scarce tax dollars on the poor, the old, the children, on people that most legislators don’t see on a daily basis around here. It means that decisions on where to spend existing money, or whether to raise taxes, are going to pit the poor against everyone else. That means K-12 education vs. welfare. It means higher education vs. welfare. It means state employee pay and benefits vs. welfare. It means, ultimately, tax increases vs. welfare.

If you think this session was difficult, wait until it’s a session when the most persistent reason for raising taxes is welfare... or the most available reason to not raise taxes is by shrinking the amount spent on welfare.

That’ll be the session to watch.

April 21, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 18, 2005)

Who will score?

The Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with its decision to "score" Kansas Supreme Court justices and Kansas Court of Appeals judges, has embarked on one of those projects that probably sounded better in the locker room than it’s going to look on the playing field of public opinion.

The concept is pretty simple. Business and industry types don’t like to be sued and they don’t like to have to hire lawyers and they don’t like to have to pay damages and they don’t like that their insurance companies keep raising rates because of lawsuits that are filed against them.

Business and industry types do like to make things and sell things and that’s what they’re good at. Anything that interferes with that make/sell equation is an unnecessary cost that makes the business climate bad, they’ll tell you.

So, the Chamber is going to score judges and justices on whether their decisions have expanded the possibility for liability for businesses or whether their decisions have reduced the liability of businesses.

The probable result is that if the scorecard finds justices who tend to expand the liability of businesses, the Chamber is going to want to "do something about it." That makes sense. That something might be campaigning to defeat justices and judges when they stand for retention to their jobs or pushing constitutional amendments that would allow the state Senate to confirm gubernatorial nominations to judgeships or making judges stand for popular election, just like the Secretary of State does.

Another of those "somethings" may be just to seek a couple seats on the Judicial Nominating Commission, which sifts and sorts and recommends to the governor nominees for appeals court and Supreme Court openings.

But what the Chamber risks, of course, is its members’ customers as well as the possibility that the Chamber itself might look a little foolish, losing prestige and clout with the Legislature and the moral high ground from which it operates to make Kansas more prosperous.

The key is that, notwithstanding scorecarding of judges, liability naturally expands. That’s progress.

Bullets are faster, instead of just hurting one person, they’re powerful enough to go through the first person and hit another–creating more liability. Snow-throwers are inherently more dangerous than show shovels. Propane barbecues are inherently more dangerous than charcoal barbecues. That’s life, that’s technological progress, with a cost in additional liability.

Targeting judges who make those distinctions turns making things/selling things to happy clients and customers into an un-equal equation. Anything that you’ll buy you buy at your own risk.

That targeting stands the real chance of turning clients/customers into adversaries, only this time, the clients/customers would be facing judges that because of the Chamber are more likely to lean toward "clients/customers beware..."

Now, the Chamber has some high ground: growing, booming business means more jobs. But that booming business is in peril if clients/customers are led to believe that because of the Chamber, they have less chance for a fair shake at the courthouse. And for every make/sell business that is worried about liability, there are more which have never been sued, which are willing to defend their products or services on a level playing ground that recognizes that life is more complicated, tools are more powerful, and putting a bigger motor on a snow-thrower comes with some risk of injury to its users or those nearby, and more liability.

Scoring judges? It might work out well for the Chamber. It’s a membership organization that wants its leaders to provide it red meat. But then again, it might not work out to be a public relations coup that will put the Chamber in the state government driver’s seat.

We’ll have to see how this plays out.

April 14, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 11, 2005)

Role of local government?

There’s an interestingly minimalist gun law now on the governor’s desk, one that is essentially the warning shot for some election-year gunplay you can predict next legislative session.

The "minimalist" gun bill essentially sets a fairly simple statewide standard for the transportation of firearms. It also repeals all locally adopted restrictions on transportation of guns that are more restrictive than what’s in the new bill.

What’s that standard? Simply that if you are going to toss a gun into your car or truck and legally drive it anywhere in the state, it has to be unloaded and in a case that fully covers the gun.

Now, that doesn’t sound too tough, does it?

If the gun is in a case, and you for some reason need, or are just inclined, to shoot it, you have to take it out of the case, load it up and you’re ready for action.

No, there isn’t any mention of whether that gun case should be hard or soft or locked or unlocked, or maybe just paper, with a zip-lock top like sandwich bags, or decorated like the gift bags that have almost replaced the art of actually wrapping gifts. Basically, we’re talking something to keep the dust or ketchup or stray French fry from getting mixed in with the hardware.

And this is, of course, just carrying the gun and its bullets (sold separately) around in the car or boat or truck. Once you get the gun back home, Wichita, for example, requires that the gun be unloaded and securely locked in a case or cabinet or drawer or something pretty secure. It also requires that if locking a gun away in something difficult to get into isn’t practical, that it be outfitted with a gun lock so that even if a curious child finds the gun, finds the ammo and loads it up, it can’t be fired.

Will that storage restriction hold up if a state law that deals with transporting firearms in vehicles isn’t as child-proof? Hmmm...

But the bill does something else that is probably worth considering. It’s superimposing the will of at least a majority of the Legislature on locally elected governments.

You can rest assured that some city council members or county commissioners have fought and likely (politically) died over the issue of regulation of what people can and can’t do with guns in their jurisdictions.

Anyone out there doubt that if a child left in the car while mom or dad goes into the convenience store to buy slurpies for the family unwraps, loads and shoots a gun, that a city council member somewhere isn’t going to want to extend the trigger locks to otherwise "fully enclosed" gun cases?

That won’t be possible, under the preemption bill that the governor has to decide whether to sign or veto, or even if she does veto it, possibly have her veto overridden.

Not that any of that is going to matter to, for example, to the hunter who comes to Kansas and drives the state from east to west to get to the land where he or she wants to hunt.

There’s a simple convenience that needs to be accommodated here for people who transport guns and don’t stop to read the ordinance book in every city they traverse. Are you wondering whether any out-of-state hunter who comes to Kansas, for its good hunting and hospitality and who spends money on motels, restaurants, those odds-and-ends that you always forget to take with you, are ever coming back if they’re stopped and have their guns seized?

Yes, there are a lot of angles to this state preemption of local ordinances. And the angles make it a good wedge issue for future gun bills. A good wedge issue for just how much local government Kansas wants. And, if transporting guns is a big deal in a community, whether it’s any other level of government’s business. And why are we paying local elected officials if the state can just preempt their decisions?

Seems like there is a side, or two, for nearly everyone on this issue.

April 7, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 4, 2005)

Still to-do?

The Kansas Legislature went home for its three-plus week break last week with a sizable hole in its to-do list... a tune-up of campaign finance laws.

The initial emphasis was on reporting of campaign receipts in the 11 days leading up to an election, which are now unreported until weeks after the election. That effort was to make sure that the public had the opportunity to know that a candidate received heavy last-minute campaign money from a special interest group, a tip-off to the candidate’s views on specific issues that interest the late contributors.

And, there was the effort to link a name and candidate to those automatic telephone calls that endorse candidates the weekend before the election. Some of those calls are "push polls" in which a caller tries to leave an unpleasant thought in voters’ minds about a candidate. You know the ones: "Would you vote for Joe Smith even if you knew that he wore plaid slacks to a Veterans of Foreign Wars candidate forum?" Now, nobody knows who sponsors those calls.

But the big issue that legislators weren’t interested in talking about is transferring campaign funds from a race for one office to another. That’s the issue that Statehouse hangers-on are watching for, because that may be the issue that smokes out candidates who talk about continued service in the Legislature when they’re actually interested in running for a statewide office, or even a municipal office.

In the fall of 2003, the Kansas Supreme Court held that transferring campaign funds from the race for which they were sought to a race for another office is illegal. The issue was a race by former State Rep. Carlos Mayans, R-Wichita, who wanted to use his House campaign money for his Wichita mayoral bid (which he won, but only after borrowing thousands of dollars to replace about $50,000 he transferred to his mayoral race). The Supreme Court said no transfers.

That no transfers rule so far hasn’t been touched by the Legislature this session, which means for statewide races, legislative candidates who want to move up to full-time work are either going to have to pass new laws to specifically authorize transfers or in all likelihood announce this summer that they are seeking higher office.

The Supreme Court said that moving campaign funds from one race to another was essentially a bait-and-switch.

While contributors may have sent money to a candidate they believe was "right" on fence law or education funding or abortion or fighting methamphetamines, those issues aren’t likely to be addressed by a mayor or county commissioner or commissioner of insurance. The money, the court held, wouldn’t be used on issues that the contributor believed they would be used on.

The no-switch rule means that a candidate can’t be cagey about his or her political aspirations. The candidate planning a switch of office would either have to return money which was donated for a different race or maybe work up some sort of checkoff card giving donors the chance to give their approval to a candidate switching to a different race. It’s cumbersome, time-consuming and generally something that most candidate aren’t going to be enthusiastic about.

The upside for current officeholders who may be challenged by legislators is that the creation of a campaign fund to be used against them by an opponent sharpens the level of public scrutiny of that challenger’s actions and votes on a wide range of issues. And it means that unless there has been some sort of permission granted by each challenger’s political contributors, the insurgent starts the campaign at zero dollars and has a lot of ground to make up against the incumbent.

Transfer of money, that’s the real issue in campaign finance for those already in office and looking upwards... and that’s the issue that so far has been mentioned only in passing and only in the Statehouse