February 2009
Feb. 26, 2009
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers on Feb. 23, 2009)Transparency? H’mmm…
Every year has its buzzwords, the phrases that people say over and over again that come into the general vernacular that we use in daily life.
One of those buzzwords is “transparency.” The concept: Everyone sees what’s happening. Somewhere, generally on a website or in an office or somewhere, the public can find out what’s being spent by someone on somebody and for what.
It’s like letting everyone see the change in your pocket or the contents of your wallet, and while nobody wants their friends and neighbors or people with an Internet connection to know what’s in his/her wallet, it’s all different when it comes to government.
The transparency fans want virtually everything done by or for or with government to be accessible to everyone. That’s probably not a bad idea. It would be better if all that information was somehow given some context by…hey, how about reporters who work for newspapers which sell subscriptions to people who need some context for just what that transparent information shows, but that’s a different story.
But transparency probably makes sense. We don’t know whether the last time you went to a government office and saw coffee and cinnamon rolls if you would have thought to ask whether the rolls were paid for with your tax dollars or brought in by the guy who wants the contract to service the copying machines…someday, that’s probably going to be on-line. Just in case you care.But it got a little different last week in the Kansas Legislature, this transparency business.
The House, probably in an extreme demonstration of transparency, did a publicly recorded (that’s rollcall for you insiders) vote on an amendment that would require many special interest groups to report to the state where they get their money for those attractive ads and postcards that cite some candidate for public office for doing something, well, nice.
The campaign materials don’t specifically say “vote for” someone, or even mention whether the nice thing some candidate did is what the third party group is interested in…just that he/she is nice and ought to be thanked, though not specifically voted for…
That transparency in the House? It told the political organizations who voted for transparency and who didn’t. And it allowed those political organizations to target the transparency fans by lobbying to change their votes to prevent the public reporting of where their campaign money came from. Oh, it worked. The transparency bill was defeated the next day.
Transparency? It works a bunch of different ways, doesn’t it?
Feb. 19, 2009
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 16, 2009)Sports: The third rail
Get ready, we’re bringing you inside the secret society for a minute.
That’s the secret society of reporters, and the questions they ask of public officials and the response they get.
It is a little like fly fishing, tossing the bait, pulling it back, tossing it again, hoping to get just the right response—a bite, er, an answer…Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s probably a minor-league art form, putting the question just so…so that an answer produces real news, not just a quote.
Last week, the bait we were trying to get someone to bite on was school finance and the inevitable cuts that school districts are going to see this year and next.
You ask about cuts, and nearly everyone in elected office talks about “shared pain” and districts that have reserve funds to cover reductions in state aid and districts that don’t, and it becomes pretty dull.
Well, last week, I was trying to fly-fish the stream of press conferences in the Statehouse with the relatively simple question of whether with budget cuts looming, the state’s school districts should just stop playing sports.
There is no general knowledge in the Statehouse about what school districts spend on football, basketball, track, swimming or probably even debate.
But sports is an integral part of what makes a school district, or competition among schools in the same district, important to its patrons. Even folks who don’t have kids in school take some pride in their district being the best in some sport.
Ask about sports, and you quickly find out that no legislator is going to take the bait. You’ll see a legislator think for a second, maybe two, and then spit out the bait and go on to some other question.
Most legislators are too politically smart to suggest that districts—which now are talking about cutting field trips, janitors, maybe schoolteachers at some point—eliminate sports to save money. It’s that’s “third rail” of politics that would kill reelection chances, if voters in their districts didn’t start putting together recall petitions over the weekend.
Well, no legislative leader would take the bait/question last week. It’s a local decision that lawmakers in Topeka shouldn’t get involved in, they say.
And, cutting sports would probably be the end of the career of any local school board member. But, at some point, when districts are preparing their budgets for the upcoming school year, we’re going to hear about class sizes increasing, teachers not hired, cafeterias serving open-faced sandwiches to pare the cost of bread.
But, probably not about sports…
Feb. 12, 2009
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Feb. 9, 2009)Is this a good idea? Maybe
Every now and again, someone introduces a bill in the Kansas Legislature that has even old-timers scratching their heads, wondering just what it does and why it might be a good idea—at least to the person who introduced it.
It happened last week, with a relatively simple little bill that just took a new direction on an old topic.
The bill, by Rep. Scott Schwab, R-Olathe, but introduced through a committee so that except to insiders, there was no DNA on it, was too simple.
It just requires vendors to the state who bid on contracts of at least $5,000 to register as lobbyists. Just like the lobbyists who promote industries, lifestyles, food products…just like the folks you see in the Statehouse hallways with their little and relatively indecipherable name badges.
Now, why would Schwab want someone who, say, contracts to mow rights of way or paint a state building or get the contract to provide copiers in the Statehouse to register as a lobbyist?
Schwab says to a point, we’re all over-thinking this one.
By registering as lobbyists the bidders on state contracts have to report to the Secretary of State any money, any food or drink or entertainment that they spend with a state officer.
Maybe there’s a trick here: the lobbyist registration costs $50 if the lobbyist (contractor or bidder on a state contract, in Schwab’s world) intends to spend less than $100 on some state employee, but $375 if the lobbyist intends to spend more than $1,000 a year in pursuit of contracts. Maybe the amount the contractors or vendors would tell us something about just how serious the vendor is about getting a state contract.
Schwab says, and he’s right, that now, the lobbyist laws are the only way to make vendors with the state—or nearly anyone with a financial interest in anything the state does—report any expenditure on behalf of their effort to get a contract.
But, while the additional lobbyist fees would be a good deal for the state’s revenues, and a new cost to folks who want to sell things to the state or provide services to the state—you gotta wonder whether there’s a real need for this little enterprise.
Schwab says he doesn’t know. But the registration would give Kansans a peek into the complicated business of doing business with the state.
There doesn’t appear to be a big problem, or frankly any problem with contractors bribing state officials to get contracts, or to pad those contracts. Maybe there is, and we just don’t know it, or maybe there isn’t because the state has some relatively good “whistle blower” law that encourages state employees to tell people in authority about what they believe to be unethical business going on with the state.
Notice any new roads that are narrower than the contract called for? Or any offices with one coat of paint instead of two, or a mid-management state employee with some link to purchasing services showing up in a new Buick lately?
Not sure whether this little experiment will get passed into law, or whether we’ll find anything new about state contracting. But, at least the vendors would get those little badges that they can wear around and that maybe their kids can take to show and tell day at school…
Feb. 5, 2009
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers on Feb. 2, 2009)Protecting the vulnerable from the clergy?
There may be a test coming up in the Kansas House for just how serious lawmakers are about protecting the vulnerable from sexual exploitation.
Kansas lawmakers have recognized for years that there are people who, because of their positions of authority, can exert undue, unfair and abusive influence over others just because of their jobs.
And, it’s not hard to figure out why it makes sense for the government to heavily circumscribe that influence when it comes to sexual relations.
Think of law enforcement officers, prison guards, parole officers, schoolteachers. Those are people with power over others because of their positions. And…those are government jobs, which adds yet another facet to the specter of power that those people can misuse in ways that we don’t like to think about.
That misuse of authority, when proven, becomes the crime of unlawful sexual relations, and it’s an admittedly low-level felony, but it is a career-ruiner. Just as most of us, we hope, would like it to be.
But this session, the Kansas House has before it, or at least in a committee, a bill that would for the first time extend the provisions of that law to people who have influence but absolutely no link to government.
The new group? Members of the clergy.Hmmm…
Suddenly, the law that is so simple and straight-forward when it applies to government workers with authority over others becomes dramatically different when we think of the clergy “carrying out the clergy member’s pastoral duties,” according to the bill’s language.
Think of people seeking solace, wisdom, strength in times of personal or family tragedy who would refer to their faith, and of the people who at least on the local level represent that faith, and the concept of undue influence comes very clear.
The definition of clergy is “a currently ordained member of the clergy or religious authority of any religious denomination or society.” That’s a broad net; it moves well beyond the heavily reported and discussed scandals in the Catholic Church and even into nontraditional faith or belief groups—probably any group that can get a property tax exemption for its meeting place.
For a legislature that traditionally—and probably correctly—avoids what might be portrayed as interference in matters of religion, the bill represents a major change in government authority.
It’s also one of those bills that is likely to draw, or could draw, vocal supporters, while others will naturally fear opposing it because of the appearance of making light or little of coercive sexual activity.
The “we’ll handle it ourselves” approach separation of church and state obviously has failed in other states.
The bill won’t be among the headline-grabbers, like balancing the state’s budget or a new comprehensive transportation plan in terms of shaking up the economy or creating jobs or reducing unemployment.But…it’s one of those smaller bills, which now that the issue has been raised, is going to have to be dealt with somehow.