January 2006
Jan. 26, 2006
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 23, 2006)All politics is local
There are two politically good things that a legislator can do for his or her district.
The politically best thing is to bring new money, programs and jobs to the district. That’s how you get reelected.
The second-best political thing one can do is to is to hold onto what a district has. Under the Statehouse dome, we call that “hold harmless.”
This year’s school finance battle, with the Legislature under pressure from the Kansas Supreme Court to increase spending to improve the education of Kansas schoolchildren, may add a new category to the two politically good things.
Recent post audits of the state’s school districts indicate that hundreds of millions of dollars need to be spent on public schools. Most of that money needs to be spent in urban areas, where combinations of poverty, language and yes, even urban culture, mean that four school districts should be considered for around $200 million in additional state aid.
If you are a legislator from one of those four school districts (Wichita, Topeka, Kansas City, Kansas City/Turner) it would appear that your chances of bringing home significant new money to your home school district is good. If you live anywhere else, well, chances are also fairly good, if there’s a hold-harmless deal in place and if there’s enough money to spend to fully finance $400 million or so, that you’ll be able to report at the end of the legislative session that you’ve either gained a little ground or lost none.
But…the real question is going to be whether legislators from the 296 districts that aren’t targeted for special urban poverty money will stand by and watch hundreds of millions of dollars go to those four districts while their districts make do with “hold harmless.”
Practically it is doubtful whether the Legislature, which does have a little spare money to spend this year, will be able to finance even the urban poverty piece of the complicated school finance puzzle. And, of course, we don’t know whether the Legislature is going to address urban poverty or whether the Supreme Court is going to force lawmakers to acknowledge that four-district problem and start solving it.
But we do know that in an election year, not many House members are going to want to return home bragging about “hold harmless” when a handful of districts are getting big boosts in their appropriations from the state.
Education is of course a statewide concern and everyone wants all Kansas schoolchildren to get the best education we can give them. But at some point, all politics is local, and “hold harmless” is going to sound a little less like a victory for the voters at home when other legislators’ school districts are getting big increases in state aid.
Politically, things may get even murkier if the Legislature tries, and the Supreme Court OK’s, a multiyear school finance solution. Does the Legislature patch first the funding hole in those four big districts a dab at a time while non-urban poverty districts are “held harmless” for a number of years? Or does the Legislature divert money from urban poverty districts to smaller non-urban districts to keep their legislators happy--or at least marginally agreeable--for a number of years?
And if the Supreme Court goes along with a multiyear solution, is it going to allow that palliative care, sending money to small districts that according to the post audit, may not really need it?
Everything is getting complicated. There is good politics and there is public education and there is a court watching all of it. And while the court takes a dim view of political solutions, that’s what happens in the Statehouse. Finding the political will, or more bluntly, the votes, to fix a problem.
Jan. 19, 2006
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 16, 2006)Gambling 101
You’ll have to figure it out for yourself whether you are a fan of gambling in Kansas.
But you are going to be hearing a lot about gambling this legislative session. Some of it is going to be confusing and some of what you hear will sound just absolutely backwards. Welcome to gaming in Kansas.
In Kansas, there is the Lottery, which returns more than 50 percent of what is paid for every lottery ticket to the state. That’s the state-run enterprise. The odds are long but many people like the games--small chance that you’ll wind up rich but people like the concept. Most people who send their shirts out to be pressed or drive Buicks think it’s a fool’s game--with the long odds, they call it a tax on people who are bad at mathematics. At my house, we figure the odds are 50-50. You win or you don’t. That’s all the math some people do.
Then there are horse and dog racing tracks. The state doesn’t make much money on them. They are closely regulated and some bettors make money there. They study carefully the horses or dogs, compute their past performances and performances of the other animals in the race, and place their bets. Or some people just figure that a dog with a cute name or a horse that is pretty or has green on its saddle is a good bet or at least a fun bet.
And then there are casinos. In Kansas, only Indian tribes have casinos. The state doesn’t make any money from them but they are a tourist draw and provide jobs and in some counties of northeast Kansas, provide a major customer for electric utilities.
For Indian tribes with casinos, it’s clear that they want to keep casinos within the Indian community. There’s the “steal their land” business, the Trail of Tears, the “we took their buffalo” school of thought that the tribes deserve a monopoly on a high-margin business out of social conscience.
Tribes would like to keep gaming just like it is now…with maybe the chance for another casino or two outside of the northeast Kansas area so customers don’t have to drive so far or ride the bus as long to get to them. But they like and promote the idea that Indians ought to be running casinos because it’s a business that doesn’t sound, well, governmental, like meat inspection. And where would you put, say, a blackjack dealer in the civil service chart?
Oh, and keeping casino gaming a purely Indian business is why tribes make campaign contributions to anti-gambling legislators. They don’t want their exclusive business opened up to others. That just makes sense but there are still a few reporters around the state who see an Indian casino campaign contribution to a legislator and mistakenly figure the legislator is a gambling fan, when, in fact, the contribution is aimed at encouraging the legislator to not open up the casino business to non-tribal operators.
The Legislature’s options this session? One is to do absolutely nothing. That keeps the state with some fairly inconveniently located casinos (unless you live in Holton or Topeka where the closest casino is about a 20-minute drive on a nice, relatively new four-lane highway). Another option is to try to renegotiate compacts (that is what they call contracts in gaming jargon) with the tribes so that they kick back some money to the state. Don’t look for a lot of interest from tribes for that deal unless it is tied to more locations.
Or there’s, of course, allowing state-owned-and-operated casinos--actually subcontracting to people who know what they’re doing to run the casinos in what is essentially a franchise scheme. That’s where the real money for the state is.
Gaming in Kansas is just that simple--and that complicated--all at the same time.
Probably the only un-complicated part of gambling in Kansas is that it’s strictly optional. Gamble or don’t.
Jan. 12, 2006
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 9, 2006)Have you checked on your senator this year?
This may be the legislative session where members of the public might, if so inclined, want to check in now and again with their state senators.
Nothing fancy, just maybe inquire about their health or whether they are skipping meals or staying out too late. Maybe just a reminder about the proper posture when lifting heavy stuff.
Why check in on the Senate? Because it’s the House of Representatives that is going to be the wild child in the family of state government this session, and it is the House where visions of campaign brochures will be dancing in representatives’ heads. Most of the attention is going to be on the House.
The entire House of Representatives stands for election this year. Those who want to come back to winter in Topeka in 2007 must run again. Who wouldn’t want to attend receptions and, for the canny ones, spend a whole week eating and drinking and such without breaking the $5 bill that they put in their pockets on Monday?
But, there are a lot of hoops for House members to jump through to have you return them to the Legislature after the elections. And, they are confusingly different hoops for different legislators with different districts with different interests and different campaign strategies.
For House members, the key is getting the bills that are of high importance to their constituents passed into law or blocking bills that have bad effects on their districts and their constituents, or at least the percentage of their constituents they need to be reelected. It actually comes down to something that simple. Do a good job for a majority of the voters in your district and you get to come back to see the start of the 2007 Legislature.
So, this is going to be the year of the rollcall vote in the House--permanent, recorded in the House Journal, bona fide votes that a House member can campaign on, or at least show to lobbyists and Political Action Committees to generate campaign contributions.
That means that there are going to be some long-shot bills introduced in the House and frenetic activity to get them heard by committees, and maybe passed out of committees with a recorded committee vote and put on the big board in the House for that rollcall vote.
Now, actually, a House member’s responsibility ends with the rollcall vote. He or she can testify and cajole and wheedle in the Senate, but once the vote is over, House members are practically ready to move onto the next issue.
Also worthwhile is watching the House for good ideas that don’t cost the state any money, either proposing programs that cities, counties, school districts or other local taxing units have to pony up the cash for or, more subtly, programs that don’t cost the state any money in the upcoming fiscal year.
Look for the cities and counties and others to watch pretty closely any nice-sounding programs considered by the Legislature that will show up on your local property tax bill. But you might want to pay attention yourselves to bills that propose starting those nice-sounding programs next year which means the state won’t have to spend money or juggle the budget to include them until after the election.
Now, is it just the House where we expect those woo-the-voter ideas to spring up? Of course not, but it’s the House where there’s the most reason for them to pop up, the House where even ill-conceived ideas have the most direct effect on the upcoming campaign season, so it’s naturally where you want to look first. It’ll be three years before senators are on the ballot.
Jan. 5, 2006
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 2, 2006)Eyes to the future
Yes, the 2006 session of the Kansas Legislature is ready to start, and yes, there will be education issues, taxes, probably a morality bill or two, and a budget to adopt.
But the real insiders who hang out at the 3rd floor atrium Rail at the Statehouse are going to be watching the players, not the legislation. That’s because the entire House of Representatives is up for reelection this year, along with the governor and statewide officers. Yes, there will be a legislature this year and the year after that and the year after that, so insiders look at leadership and attempts at leadership that may give a hint as to the direction of the state in the future. That’s why the people are worth watching. Bills pass and fail and are amended by ensuing legislatures. It’s the trends that insiders watch.
Most interesting development will be the quiet campaigning for the most powerful job in the Legislature—Speaker of the House.
House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, is retiring, which means he will not only be trying to replace the divot he creates by leaving—scouting up a Republican to hold his House seat which, by the way, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius carried with nearly 61 percent of the vote in 2002—but wondering who will be the next speaker.
The Speaker has the power to unilaterally appoint members to committees, and name their chairs, along with deciding which bills go to which committees.
Now, that sounds like just orderly government, but by knowing the members of the dominant party, the Speaker can virtually assure a bill will pass out of committee and be sent to the floor of the House for debate. Send a bill to a committee chaired by a hand-picked representative who doesn’t like it, and it may never get a hearing or it might get amended-up to be almost unrecognizable. If it emerges from committee, it might be sent to another committee or languish on the debate calendar until the session adjourns.
If a Speaker sends a bill he/she likes to a committee that is chaired by an appointee who likes it, too, chances are excellent it will at least make it to floor debate and likely to the Senate.
Insiders are going to be watching to see who looks “Speaker-like” in the upcoming session, ready to take the job after the elections this fall.
There are the usual suspects in the Speaker race for the 2007 session. And, a few you aren’t hearing much about, but who could, given the right election outcomes, emerge from the dark to win the Speakership.
Who’s being talked about for the most powerful job in the Legislature?
There are perennials Rep. Kenny Wilk, R-Lansing, who has run the Appropriations and Tax committees, and longtime Judiciary Chairman Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson. There’s House Majority Leader Rep. Clay Aurand, R-Courtland, who is also pretty Libertarian but interested in the job.
In the pack, though quiet for now, is House Appropriations Chair Rep. Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, who has never run for a leadership office and therefore carries the label “undefeated.”
There might be a new candidate or two, and we’ll be watching to see who makes waves this session on which they can surf into the Speaker’s office .
Sure, there’s law to be made, budgets to be cranked out, schools to be financed, but the old hands around the Statehouse are going to be looking into the future, and trying to figure out who is the next boss