August 2005
Aug. 25, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 22, 2005)When life begins...
A Kansas House resolution that most of us had forgotten about sprang to life last week when a lawsuit was filed that will essentially determine when life–protectable life under the Kansas constitution–begins.
The resolution dates back to 2002, before an election cycle when Kansas was preparing to elect a new attorney general because pro-choice Republican Attorney General Carla Stovall was not going to seek reelection. Pro-life legislators were looking for something that might give a pro-life attorney general candidate a boost.
The House passed, on March 21, 2002, by a vote of 70-50, a resolution that ordered whomever was attorney general in the spring of the year after the 2002 fall elections to file a lawsuit that would put the question to the court. It was an out-and-out order, a resolution passed by one chamber of the Legislature telling the attorney general to do something.
There was the usual discussion and explanation of votes. Some argued that the expense of the lawsuit would be incalculable–and, indeed, it wasn’t calculated. Some argued that the lawsuit was religious in nature and nothing that state law could determine. "The most basic of all religious beliefs is the question of when the divine spark of life enters the human body. No attorney general can generate a law which defines this," said others.
Another explanation by a House member: "It is unreasonable to expect a pro-abortion attorney general to successfully litigate a pro-life position. It is unnecessary to direct a pro-life attorney general to do so. This resolution is merely ‘feel good’ legislation."
And now, the lawsuit has been filed in Shawnee County District Court and it asks the court to prevent the state through its agencies from spending any money from any governmental source to perform elective abortions.
Abortions are not big business for the state, a few thousand dollars a year. But the issue of when life begins means that an abortion for any reason, whether because a pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or is necessary to save the life of the mother, inevitably eliminates the right of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the fetus.
The lawsuit which will wend its way through the courts probably for at least a year does hand pro-life legislators and their friends more chances to "on the record" or transcript, at least, pull in scientific information about the earliest stages of life.
And because courts don’t just toss off homilies and rules to live by, there had to be a plaintiff involved, and the plaintiff in the lawsuit is Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The lawsuit demands that Sebelius, and two guys who work for her, state by what authority her administration spends funds for elective abortions.
The governor’s lawyers are going to have to defend those expenditures as legal and constitutional, and the lawsuit fairly cleverly doesn’t waste much time wondering about whether not paying for those abortions would put the state afoul of federal Medicaid regulations. Medicaid is a big deal, because it pays for about 60 percent of the health care bills of the state’s poor. But the lawsuit doesn’t ask about that.
The real crux of the lawsuit is the word "men," which of course doesn’t just mean boys, but all Kansans. The resolution defines "men" as both unborn and born, from the moment of conception/fertilization of an egg that will, if things go well, become a baby.
Politically, and, yes, everything eventually comes down to politics, the lawsuit is a pretty good set-up of a pro-choice governor who, like most pro-choice people, would prefer that every pregnancy results in a baby who will be loved and nurtured and raised by two upstanding parents.
Everyone probably has his or her own idea of when "men" start. But not many have to try to explain it to a court in the year leading up to an election.
Aug. 18, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 15, 2005)School for grown-ups
It’s about time for school to start. For the kids and for a certain group of grown-ups, too.
It’s the Kansas Legislature’s interim committee season. It is when legislators make their first sorting-out of suggestions and ideas to determine whether they are workable, and whether they would make good public policy for the state. Not every legislator gets on an interim but some get on more than one. It’s a time-available deal for many.
A basic interim committee of the Kansas Legislature is a group of nine to 13 legislators, some from the House of Representatives, some from the Senate. An interim committee deals with a fairly specific subject area, and its members are people who tend to know more than the rest of us about certain topics.
They’ll spend days during the months before the start of the 2006 session of the Legislature in January studying topics that just might wind up as bills introduced into the Legislature next session. While an interim committee decision that a proposal doesn’t make sense taints it, it doesn’t mean that the bill won’t be introduced by a legislator, anyway.
There will be high-profile issues studied and some that are decidedly low-profile. But they’ll be examined, pondered, testified about and ultimately, the interim committees will make a recommendation to the full Legislature on whether the bills are worth fooling with next year.
High profile? Count on a proposal to study whether sexually oriented businesses should be licensed or subject to some special tax. That’ll be a hot one because the topic is sex and nobody’s not a dab curious about sex. It’s a good chance for politicians to decry sex businesses and it will be interesting to see where chambers of commerce weigh in. It’s sex, but it’s business too, and chambers of commerce are always griping about impediments to business. Also, it’s sex which means look for folks who believe they know what is moral and what isn’t for everyone to want to weigh in on a chance to wreck businesses that they don’t believe are moral.
Low profile issues? That’s where things get a little more interesting and there will be less grandstanding and trying to get quoted in the newspapers, which is probably good because the news media are going to pay more attention to high-profile stuff because it makes racier stories.
Take the Judiciary Committee’s "conflict of interest parameters for appointments of guardians and wards." Sounds pretty dull. But the nugget of the study topic is whether guardians who are appointed by courts to look out for the interests of people with severe mental disabilities coupled with life-threatening injuries or physical disabilities should have the authority to decide whether to stop life-preserving treatments for their wards. That’s a big deal, but it’s also technical.
Remember the Terri Schiavo case last spring? Turning off the food for a woman who was in what they call a "persistent vegetative state"?
What would have happened if Schiavo had lived in Kansas? That’s something that is surprisingly technical. Should a guardian be authorized to say, "stop the life-sustaining treatment"? Is it something a judge should hold a hearing about? If the ward is a poor person, should state or federal dollars be spent to sustain that life? If it is a rich person, should heirs be able to decide to continue treatment or end it to save money that they may inherit?
Those are the sorts of things that interim committees look at. There are a lot of decisions to be made, a lot of public policy to be considered. And those decisions are probably best made in the fall, when there’s a little less going on in the Statehouse, when hour- or 90-minute-long committees of the regular session aren’t continually nagging at lawmakers, shortening their attention spans and presenting distractions.
That’s what "school starting" in the Statehouse is about. A lot of issues and time for full immersion baptism in the topics.
Aug. 11, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 8, 2005)Warning: school finance fatigue
The state’s economy is picking up, the Legislature passed Supreme Court muster in financing elementary and secondary education during a regular and special session, and what you could call "school finance fatigue" is starting to settle over the Statehouse.
Legislators, frankly, have been run through the ringer on school finance and are a little tired of talking about it, and even reporters are getting a little tired of asking about it, except when there is virtually no "new news" apparent and there are still columns to fill.
School districts got an infusion of money for the about-to-start school year and administrators and teacher unions are haggling over raises, new and expanded programs, and where districts are going to find the schoolteachers to fill classrooms.
In some school districts, there are even going to be property tax reductions, a product of new state aid "buying down" the amount of locally raised school money, literally substituting state aid for money that used to be wrung from district patrons through their tax bills.
If all that sounds good, and most of it does, the real problem may be keeping legislators focused next session on school finance. As revenues to the state increase, it looks like some canny open-field running might enable lawmakers to get through the next legislative session without a general tax increase of any sort.
A 50-cent a pack tax on cigarettes? That’s really not even worth a lot of whining. The proceeds would go to health coverage for the poor; nobody wants the poor of the state and their children not to get reasonable and reasonably priced health care. And by the way state and local officials keep pushing smokers around–generally outdoors–only the most dogmatic of anti-taxers are likely to get very worked-up over a tax on something you wouldn’t want your children or grandchildren to do, anyway. Don’t look for "voted against cigarette tax" on many campaign brochures next year...
So, what’s the problem? School finance fatigue, plus a handful of studies, audits, "best practices" analyses and rising state revenues may well diminish the campaign value of just figuring out a way to meet school funding needs. At some point, the cost of K-12 gets determined, and a check has to be written. It’s going to be a lot like keeping current with child support payments. Nobody brags about that, but not making child support payments winds up in whispering campaigns and on campaign flyers in the next election.
Legislators on the campaign trail are going to find next summer that most Kansans expect them to keep schools open, to find the money without raising taxes–possibly through gaming–and to come up with something that is going to have some voter appeal. School finance is going to become a lot like the rent payment, you just do it.
Politically, the new state revenues that keep outstripping estimates may turn out to be a campaign disadvantage for legislators, turning a school finance marathon into a brisk walk that isn’t likely to have voters on the sidelines cheering. That’s a problem for the school industry in Kansas–keeping legislators focused on schools–and opens the door for spirited attempts to divert their attention to an election-year favorite... finding some tax on something that can be reduced or eliminated. That’s the main event in an election year.
Oh, lawmakers can do more nice things for soldiers or get tougher on sex crimes or tax pornography or straighten out collateral source rules, but those are all nearly free and don’t put money in people’s pockets.
Look for a session when legislators have rising revenues to deal with, a school bill to pay and the need to think up ways to so something that is going to galvanize voters with relatively short attention spans.
Or, look for school lobbyists to figure a way to continue to keep the school finance crisis hot..
Aug. 4, 2005
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 1, 2005)More fun than counting cows
"Paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars"–that’s the peanut of what was a significant but not well reported fight in the Statehouse during the wrap-up of the regular and special sessions of the Legislature. Those words sound fairly straightforward but they pack a punch.
"Paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars" is the phrase that one freshman state representative wanted added to the end of every TV and radio commercial or public service announcement that the state had a hand in, or at the bottom of every such newspaper ad.
We’re talking everything from warnings about investment scammers or West Nile Virus to job openings or reminders of elections coming up to the availability of important health programs and services for the state’s poor and their children–even Lottery advertisements, which aren’t strictly paid for by taxpayer dollars, but rather the dollars that gamblers have lost already.
This little drama played out during the regular session this spring when Rep. Kasha Kelley, R-Arkansas City, added a line to an appropriations bill that would have required all state advertising to note that it was paid for by tax dollars. The appropriations bill made it through the Legislature and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, somewhat surprisingly, didn’t veto the provision.
Instead, Sebelius had her Department of Administration–it’s really the governor’s department–figure out how to deal with the new provision she allowed to become law. The department came up with the concept that as long as the ads bore wording that they were paid for by a state agency, well, most of us would figure that state government was involved and somewhere along the line, there might be state tax dollars being spent.
The decision pretty much de-fanged the Kelley provision. Kelley was not amused. Ever notice how infrequently one hears the compliment, "what a nice set of gums you have?"
So Kelley followed up during the special school finance session with another amendment–this one very specific–with the "Paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars" requirement. That passed the House and Senate and this time, Sebelius vetoed the more definitive language, calling it a needless expense that would make ads longer and cost more.
But the issue that nobody really talked about is just how much advertising or the number of public service announcements or billboards across the state that would have to bear that tag line.
If everything had to bear the "Paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars" line, pretty soon the general public would notice. For many Kansans, a billboard or TV commercial informing Kansans that the State Fair is about to open, or that subsidized health insurance for children is available, or that mosquitos carry West Nile Virus, are worthwhile. But for thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of Kansans, all they’ll notice will be "Paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars."
Pretty soon, kids in their booster seats in the back of cars would be counting "one Kansas taxpayer dollar, two Kansas taxpayer dollars, three Kansas taxpayer dollars" until their parents get tired of hearing it and decide that there is too much stuff being "paid for by Kansas taxpayer dollars."
Fallout? Pretty soon people would start talking to legislators about why the state is spending all those taxpayer dollars on ads, and what legislators can do about it. Well, that’s pretty obvious... stop spending taxpayer dollars.
Soon, campaigning against spending taxpayer dollars shows up on political advertising which is paid for by someone else, and it winds up in brochures and on the radio and things start getting a little indiscriminate. Why tell people about West Nile if we can’t eliminate the mosquitos anyway? Won’t poor people find their way to a hospital emergency room when their kids get sick? Doesn’t anyone with money who is greedy enough to invest in an obvious or not-so-obvious scam really get what they deserve?
We’ll have to get back to you on this...