February 2004
Feb. 26, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 23, 2004)A civil liberties loss
There are lots of little niches you have to cover if you’re really serious about civil liberties–that everyone’s constitutional rights are protected.
It becomes even harder when you are dealing with a group of people who, collectively, probably don’t know all their civil rights and might be breaking a law, but aren’t caught fair and square. That’s the judgment call and it is a rough one because it’s in everyone’s best interest for people to obey the law, but there are these squishy limits out toward the end of the conversation–especially when safety and children are involved.
A relatively minor little fracas over those civil liberties came up in the Kansas Senate last week in a debate over child safety in cars. The bill basically says that children have to be properly restrained in cars so in the event of an accident they aren’t tossed about and hurt. Nobody doesn’t want children to be safe in cars. The bill dealt mostly with child safety seats and booster seats, which children of a certain size and age ought to use–and drivers of cars in which the kids are passengers should be responsible to make sure that they are using.
No problem. You take all steps possible to protect children and using the right safety equipment helps you do that. The state has an interest in that, we all do.
But the bill wandered into an area that was more than just taking care of children.
A provision gives law enforcement officers the right to stop a car if the officer believes there’s a good chance that the driver is a 15-, 16- or 17-year old and isn’t visibly wearing a seat belt. Adults, or at least those 18 and older, ought to be wearing seatbelts but state law doesn’t allow those drivers to be stopped merely because a passing law enforcement officer doesn’t see them buckled up. Now, they can be stopped for virtually any other traffic infraction, but just not wearing a seatbelt is not legally reason enough on its own for police to stop cars–unless, under provisions of the bill which passed the Senate, the officer has reasonable suspicion that the driver is 15, 16 or 17.
Right there, when a car is stopped, the whole game changes. Police can look around in the car, and anything that is in plain sight that is illegal is the basis for an arrest. Whether it’s something like a gun, which would give one pause, or a six-pack of beer or whatever, if it’s visible, you can get in trouble.
But there’s a moment when the officer asks the 15- or 16- or 17-year-old if he or she can look in the glove compartment or trunk–that’s when something happens that civil libertarians fear. It’s that a youngster confronted with an officer in blue, with radios squawking, badges shining and a red light revolving on the police vehicle in the rear view mirror, will say, "sure, officer."
Most kids don’t know that any search they consent to has the potential to yield evidence. Once a youth has been fairly well intimidated by the trappings of law enforcement, the teenager is likely to consent to that search.
Bear in mind that the intimidation factor of law enforcement officers is a good thing, generally. It deters suspects, or even a 16-year-old pulled over for an age check, from doing foolish things. That blue uniform is intimidating for a reason. It keeps people safe.
So, if the car gets stopped, the driver is under age 18 and not wearing a seatbelt, he or she can get a ticket, buckle up and drive away. If the driver is older he or she won’t get a ticket but still ought to buckle up and drive away.
But it won’t always be that simple and that’s a concern to some.
After all, we want the children buckled in safely and we wish everyone would wear seatbelts. But if you aren’t legally required to do so (and the Kansas Legislature has never made not wearing a seatbelt reason enough to ticket an adult driver barring some other violation) there is this little civil libertarian streak that says maybe you shouldn’t be stopped anyway.
There’s a trade-off to be made, and the Senate made it, probably erring on the side of protecting children who are passengers in cars. But there was a little loss of civil liberties there, too.
Feb. 19, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 16, 2004)Money makes the political world go 'round
All those old sayings about money being the mother’s milk of politics you’ve been hearing for decades are, of course, correct.
Kansas is about ankle-deep in that milk now, and the level is rising.
Members of the Kansas House and Senate (and a few challenger candidates who entered the race before Jan. 1) have $2.6 million in their campaign accounts. The state’s top 60 or so Political Action Committees (PACs), which raise money from members and then contribute it to political campaigns, had $1.6 million on hand Jan. 1, just waiting for the final gavel of the Kansas Legislature, when they can start handing it out to their favorite candidates.
Sounds like a lot of money and it is, but it’s worth remembering that House and Senate members also use their campaign accounts for expenses of holding office, which means, for example, writing letters and communicating with constituents, subscribing to all the newspapers in their district, buying memberships in chambers of commerce and such. Oh, and most times when legislators are sent off to conventions and seminars and meetings, they wind up paying some of their expenses out of their campaign funds, too.
There is a lot of money slushing around in the political world and that’s not all bad.
When, for example, a teacher union makes a campaign contribution to a candidate, you gotta figure that the legislator is sympathetic to the interests of schoolteachers who want the state funding to make sure that they can offer up the best education to pupils...and would like to earn a decent salary while doing it.
And, if the manufactured housing institute contributes to a candidate, you can bet that the candidate is sympathetic to making sure that people who like having houses delivered to their lots see eye-to-eye with the legislator involved.
State law prohibits those groups from making contributions, or legislators from soliciting contributions, while the Legislature is in session. That’s probably a good thing.
Would you want to see PAC directors with checkbooks open standing next to their lobbyists with proposed amendments to bills just outside the House or Senate chambers? We thought not. We also wouldn’t like to see legislators asking for campaign contributions before an important vote.
That doesn’t mean that lobbyists and PAC directors aren’t watching votes by individual legislators so they can make a decision at the end of the session whether the legislator was good or bad for them on specific issues. But it gives more of a "body of work" flavor to those contributions rather than a "well, he or she voted right on Tuesday" cast to a contribution decision.
With all this PAC money floating around (and yes, PACs are taking in money now to add to their funds for contributions this summer and fall), is it still important, or even necessary, for individuals to write out their $10 or $25 or $100 checks to legislative candidates? Sure is. Because it is those contributions from individual donors in the legislators’ districts that send a signal about whether a legislator can get reelected or a challenger is more likely to ultimately win the election. It doesn’t do a legislator any good to be appreciated in the Statehouse if he or she can’t get elected from the home district to come to Topeka.
All that talk you hear from people who want to spring out of political nowhere to get elected? And that money is ruining politics? It’s generally not all correct.
Unless you can get on the local news for pulling a child out of a burning barn, money is necessary for people to learn who you are and what your qualifications are and what you believe in. Everyone is for pulling children out of burning barns...
Feb. 12, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 9, 2004)How can you tell?
Every now and again a bill pops up in the Kansas Legislature that you hope is an effort to be especially nice to some group of people and isn’t just cheap, tasteless pandering.
The bill this time is making battery on an off-duty law enforcement officer a special crime with heavier penalties than just your average battery that comes from a fight with anyone else in the state of Kansas.
Now, that isn’t to say that anyone should ever get into a fight with anyone else. Fighting is one of those things we hope we all outgrow before we get big enough to be dangerous.
Fighting is one of those things that occurs naturally in nearly everyone’s life, though we hate to remember it. That’s what social skills are for, that’s why responsible grown-ups figure out ways to defuse controversies well before they turn into a real fight. That’s part of growing up.
But there are going to be fights in Kansas, and chances are good that what your mother and father told you is true–that both combatants are at fault when circumstances lead to an actual fight.
Bad enough, sure. But determining by state law that fighting with an off-duty law enforcement officer deserves some special and more harsh penalties is just unfair and nuts.
That’s why the bill introduced last session to make battery on an off-duty law enforcement officer a special crime is stalled in the Legislature. It’s not stalled because anyone believes it would stop fights. If it could, the bill would have been passed years ago.
It’s not stalled because it’s a good idea to fight with anyone, let alone an off-duty law enforcement officer. It’s stalled because it is not a good idea to set up one class of people who by passing a civil service examination will become somehow more noble or demand more protection than anyone else in Kansas.
Attorney General Phill Kline has made passage of the bill part of his legislative platform this session. Now, we have to understand that you get to be attorney general by getting all the law enforcement officers in the state to believe that you are on their side and against crooks. That’s the job description of an attorney general: to fight crime and criminals.
Fighting with on-duty cops, whether they’re uniformed or plain-clothed, with badges and guns and clubs and chemical sprays and all the gear that law enforcement officers pack when they’re on the job isn’t a good idea and it is a special crime. People who fight with uniformed, or at least on-duty, law enforcement officers need to do a little cooling off in jail.
But when it’s the weekend and law enforcement officers are off-duty and doing the things we all do, whether it is grocery shopping or picking up the laundry or walking the dog, well, then they are civilians, just like you and me.
Fighting with a civilian has its consequences. That’s what battery is, basically, fighting. But fighting with a cop who’s not on the time clock is absolutely no better or no worse than fighting with an insurance adjuster or a mechanic or schoolteacher.
And how in the world is anyone going to be able to differentiate between an off-duty law enforcement officer and an off-duty Realtor?
There are probably going to be some fights this legislative session that Kline wins.
Let’s hope this isn’t one of them.
Feb. 5, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 2, 2004)
The game is onWe waited for three weeks for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to assemble her proposal on expanded gaming in Kansas and she finally got one put together that from all indications would make gaming accessible pretty much wall-to-wall in Kansas.
It calls for up to five destination-style resort casinos, with adjoining hotels, restaurants, probably pools and spas, and the governor keeps making a big deal out of convention centers, which we guess are large meeting rooms where local Nazarene women’s groups could meet.
Look for five existing pari-mutuel tracks, the big three at Kansas City, Frontenac and Wichita, to have their own slot machines, and for Anthony Downs and the State Fairgrounds at Hutchinson to have access to state-owned slot machines or video gaming terminals, if they can figure out how to divvy up a maximum of 2,500 machines between them.
The little guys in the gaming bills every year, the fraternal organizations, would each get up to five video lottery terminals at their clubhouses.
The whole point appears to be that a lot of Kansans in a lot of places like gambling. Now they travel to the state’s northeast Indian Country casinos. That’s a long way and it’s not very convenient for the man or woman who wakes up with a tingling in his or her fingertips and has a hunch that $5 slammed into a machine will tell them whether it is the winning touch or whether they just slept with their hand dangling off the mattress.
So, the race is started.
The governor and quite a few members of the Legislature are interested in expanding the chance for you, and more importantly, folks from out of state, to do a bit of gaming in Kansas. And for the out-of-staters, it would be nice if they’d stay the night and maybe get a new set of tires, or maybe a washing machine or refrigerator to have shipped home. Not sure that’s going to happen on a grand scale, but it’s something to keep in mind.
The debate seems to come down to two real issues: Money and morals.
The morals part is pretty easily dealt with. For the past decade, every bill introduced into the Legislature has put gambling on a strictly optional basis. You don’t have to gamble if you don’t want to. You don’t have to gamble the children’s back-to-school clothing money or the rent check or any other money that a reasonable grown-up figures he or she can’t afford to lose.
Now, a big deal is made out of people who lose money they can’t afford to lose or who become addicted to gambling and such, but there’s really not much one Kansan can do to prevent another Kansan–or out-of-stater–from doing. Same with buying cars they really can’t afford, or buying top-of-the-line clothing when jeans would suffice.
The other problem seems to be money that the state would make from operation of casinos.
If everything worked right and quickly, by the time one or two fiscal years from now when the slot machines are all deployed and at least one destination-based casino is chock full of gamers and conventioneers, gaming might toss off about $100 million in revenue for the state.
That’s not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but it is something, and knowing the Legislature, it probably will wind up being spent on something.
The problem is that the money can’t be spent on anything very vital to the state. Now, money from casinos isn’t going to be turned in to Kansas with any distinctive markings, and neither is the sales tax on dirty magazines or X-rated movie rentals. But a lot of legislators don’t really get that distinction, so this may come down to a fight over how nobly the state can spend money that it really wishes came from some more conventional source. Maybe spend it on scholarships, as the governor wants some of it spent, or maybe for extra dental care for the impoverished.
We’re down to a game of perceptions here, of course. And we’ll have to see what legislators believe is perceived to be a good way to spend money that some of them would just as soon that the state not have in the first place.
That may be the real game behind gaming...