June 2003

June 26, 2003
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 23, 2003)

Pregnancy a crime?

There’s a very good chance that after the shouting quiets down, Attorney General Phill Kline’s decision that abortion providers must report as victims of criminal activity girls who are unmarried and under the age of 16 on whom abortions are performed will turn out to be even more confusing than it appears on its face.

That’s not going to stop the shouting for the next couple of weeks, but pull back just a bit and look at what his opinion says, and it appears that Kline has created a new crime: pregnancy in girls under age 16. That’s a whole new angle to achieve what may be Kline’s goal–to put pressure on the abortion industry that channeled $100,000-plus to his political opponents in the 2002 election cycle.

Hmmm, the crime of some pregnancies.

Black letter of the law: Kline is right. An unmarried, under-age 16 girl who is pregnant is evidence of a crime. Under current state law, there is no way legally for an unmarried girl under age 16 to become pregnant. Something wrong has happened–either a real and serious sex crime or very poor judgment. But it is a big leap from something that we wish didn’t happen–poor judgment among kids with raging hormones–to making it a crime.

The time for crimes to be investigated is well before an abortion is considered, or even a pregnancy is determined, and in the vast majority of cases, it is. You read about it in the newspapers, far too frequently. Abortion providers have nothing to do with that.

And, if a pregnant girl under age 16 decides to give birth, well, Kline isn’t very interested in that criminal pregnancy. He says something about not having the resources or time to track down those cases. That’s social work, or the job of local law enforcement agencies. Kline is interested in abortion providers whose licenses could be pulled if he learns that a report has not been made.

Kline maintains that reporting abortions on under-16-year-olds will give the state some method to crack down on incest and violence against young girls. But he’s willing to let social service agencies and local law enforcement officials sort out those cases, not exactly the stance one would imagine that the state’s top law enforcement officer would take.

Looking at the entire issue of pre-age 16 sexual activity, Kline takes the high ground in opposing it as a matter of law, and manages, when allowed, to paint everyone who doesn’t agree with him as encouraging, or at least not caring, about young girls and sex. Now, that’s not a very appealing proposition to endorse: youthful sex. That’s not going to look very pretty on a campaign brochure, and Kline opines that if legislators aren’t with him, they need to change a law or two to specifically allow sex with girls under age 16. That’s not much of a choice in an election year legislative session coming up, is it?

The opinion overlooks that sorting out what may be youthful exuberance and what is the illegal activity that nobody wants to see can’t be done by the Legislature. Instead, it is going to be done by social workers, child care workers, the sex crimes division of the local police or sheriff’s office. Count on those investigators to be less concerned about whether an abortion provider makes a full report than Kline is.

That may be the reason that Kline is going to see less action from this opinion than he may be expecting. He has so narrowed his interest in the issue that it is more a conservative political issue than a child- and fetus- protection issue.

Count on two things happening from the Kline opinion. First, there will be a test case brought before a court...and the issue there is going to be does a health care provider have to report not just injuries to a young girl, as they do now, but evidence of criminal activity. The issue becomes do abortion providers or health care workers have to report crimes in order to keep their licenses.

Second, look for the parents and loved ones of children who are sexually active, at an age that is younger than they would like, to make some decisions around the dining room table about what their goals are and how to achieve them. If it is to bring to justice a sex criminal who has hurt their daughter or relative, they will have taken that step weeks before an abortion is considered. And if the family and the girl don’t believe a crime has been committed, look for a lot of embarrassment and frustration and suspicion of government to arise when they get pulled into a political witch-hunt.

June 19, 2003
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 16, 2003)

On or about Oct. 1...

Something very strange is going to happen to newspapers in Kansas "on or about Oct. 1."

What’s that?

Well, by state law, "on or about Oct. 1" school boards are directed to "cause to be delivered to a newspaper in the district for printing or publishing, at the discretion of the newspaper, a statement showing the name, position and salary" of the school district’s top administrators and principals.

Railsters figure—correctly—that the paragraph inserted into a bill that does a lot of odds-and-ends stuff for school districts is there because some legislators believe that school district administrators are making too much money. Oh, we’re also figuring that those legislators aren’t reading enough about it in their local newspapers.

But the Legislature can’t order newspapers to publish the salaries of school administrators and the Legislature can’t force newspapers to publish anything else. That’s the U.S. Constitution at work there.

It won’t be the first time that a government has wanted to tell newspapers what it wants them to publish, but it’s one that Kansans will be able to put on a scorecard.

The trick is that by telling everyone that newspapers are "on or about Oct. 1" going to be getting information that a majority of the Legislature believes is important, lawmakers are doing the next best thing.

You grown-ups remember when the car dealership used to soap up the windows days before the new models came out and had a countdown to the unveiling of the new cars? Well, the Legislature has done almost the same thing with its announcement that newspapers are going to have brand new information about school administrators’ salaries. It has created a deadline for what it believes is news and created expectations that it will be in the paper...or someone needs to explain to readers why it isn’t.

Many newspapers report salaries of top school district administrators. Many don’t. It’s an editorial judgment call made by the folks who run the newspapers.

Newspapers that report those salaries–hopefully if they think their readers want to know, they get the information well before Oct. 1 by just sending a reporter out to the school district office and requesting what is a matter of public record anyway–really don’t get anything special except, we guess, a spare copy of the salary list.

But newspapers that don’t think their readers care, well, they will "on or about Oct. 1" have this stuff handed to them, and a lot of people are going to know that the information was handed to them.

That’s about as close as requiring something to be published as the Constitution and statutory law allow.

Surprisingly, no newspapers appeared to be upset by this during the legislative session, but we’re thinking that some publishers now may start to wonder what else the Legislature may "cause to be delivered" to them to be "printed or published at the discretion of the newspaper."

The school district administrators? To a large degree, they are just the hammers that legislators are using to force information they want the public to read into the newspapers. Sure, school district administrators make generally nice salaries. Probably more than a number of legislators and school district patrons. And everyone is nosy or there wouldn’t be any newspapers in the first place.

But, this "cause to be delivered for publishing...at the discretion of the newspaper" stuff is a little disturbing.

What if the Legislature had decreed that, say, the (claimed) weights of driver’s license applicants were to be delivered to the local newspaper "on or about Oct. 1"–or that the dates of marriage and birth dates of subsequent first-born children were to be combined from state records and delivered to the local newspaper?

There’s more going on here than just publishing school district officials’ salaries.

We’ll see what happens...on or about Oct. 1.

June 12, 2003
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 9, 2003)

Just in time...

A fast injection of cash into the State General Fund will avert what looked like a sizzling little political drama for Kansas government. Darn, drama is always good in the sometimes summer-lazy business of Kansas government.

The setup was ripe with potential: Sagging state revenues, an administration that is determined not to end Fiscal Year 2003 (ends June 30) with no money in the bank, and Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagnon willing to delay tax refunds to big businesses to make sure that the state didn’t slip into deficit, ending the fiscal year at zero cash or even in the red.

That setup was made more interesting because the administration had just weeks ago belittled a Republican legislative leadership plan for next year to conserve state funds by delaying tax refunds to individuals, businesses, just about anyone who had a positive balance in their accounts with the state.

You can picture the political slug-fest that some Statehouse observers were waiting for: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration actually delaying refunds right now for Kansas taxpayers, while Republicans pointed out that she was doing just what they suggested, only a year early.

For the news media, it looked juicy and easy to cover because, of course and for good reason, tax liabilities of individuals and businesses in Kansas are strictly confidential. So, what happened? Well, our ring-side seat for a heavyweight boxing match turned out to be merely good seats for a melodrama.

The federal government which decided last month to pass a $350 billion tax cut plan included in its provisions $20 billion to be distributed to cash-short states. Kansas’ share of that largess is about $150 million, with some $90 million going into the thirsty general fund and $60 million headed to the state’s Medicaid program for health care for the poor.

And, because the federal budget is in poor shape, too, the feds decided to split some of that general fund aid, half in the current federal fiscal year and half in the next fiscal year, which for the feds starts Oct. 1.

So Kansas was just sent a preposterously simple one-page form to complete and fax back to Washington to receive half the general aid, some $45 million, within a mere two days. In most small towns, that’s about the time it takes to have a suit dry-cleaned.

Upshot? Revenue Secretary Wagnon, who was ready to make the politically unpopular decision to delay tax refunds suddenly finds that it will be unnecessary. It would have been a bold move, one fraught with political hailstones, but the $45 million from Washington averted the necessity to do it.

State Budget Director Duane Goossen, who charts the state’s fiscal health, says that even with dropping revenues, it won’t be necessary for anyone’s tax refunds to be delayed. Corporations going over their books and deciding they have parked too much money with the state will be able to retrieve that money this month, not next month.

So what do we have? A Cabinet secretary who was prepared to defend the state’s ending balance by doing something unpopular–and which she criticized Republicans for even suggesting. Now she’s been told to return to the locker room. She won’t be needed in this game after all.

And we have Republican leaders, whose feelings were hurt by Democrat Sebelius’ rejection of their refund delay plan, ready for a "we told you so" festival when it turned out that their idea was not only reasonable, but necessary due to poor economic times. Then, the federal government rides to the rescue.

And, maybe the best part, nobody gets their tax refunds delayed.

But, boy, did we miss the chance to watch a pretty spirited political fight.

June 5, 2003
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 2, 2003)

A big deal?

For all the controversy over the Kansas National Guard, whether it has some crooks and whether it is made up of hundreds of "ghost soldiers" as House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, alleges, most of us are trying to figure out whether this is a controversy that amounts to anything substantial.

Indications so far are that it doesn’t.

First, of course, there were a couple of officers in the news. One was accused of inflating his ranks and the ranks of friends to make more money, and another was accused of taking money.

Now, those are pretty serious charges, and luckily Kansas and the United States both have court systems to handle allegations. It seems like those problems will take care of themselves, doesn’t it? That same judicial system tends to iron out problems when a neighbor’s tree falls on your roof, or someone holds up a convenience store, so we’re betting that those Guard officials get what–if anything–is coming to them if they are guilty.

And, while we’re thinking about those two, there are about 8,000 employees in the Kansas National Guard. If two are proved to be crooks, well, that’s not a bad percentage. Think about a town of 8,000. If it had just two run-of-the-mill crooks, who would pay property taxes for a police department? Nope, we’re not worrying much about that.

Now, the other issue, one raised by Mays while there is blood in the water over the two Guard officers, is more confusing.

It seems that on the day your enlistment is over, and if you don’t want to stay in the Guard, it can take six months or more to finally get off the roster. Six months seems like a long time. Most people who have ever quit a job or been fired get their walking papers a lot faster than that. But, in "Guard time" six months can turn out to be just 12 actual days. Remember, it’s one weekend a month in the Guard, so a month is just two days. Yes, that’s a puzzler.

Now, while your paperwork is being processed, you are still listed somewhere as a Guardsman. But you spend one Saturday a month at the mall, or playing golf or something, and you aren’t getting paid. In fact, if you are in the middle of an enlistment period and don’t show up some Saturday, you don’t get paid for that, either. So we’re not seeing the problem there. Sure, you’re on the books somewhere, but you’re off duty. It’s not like the Guard caters lunches and winds up buying more food than is necessary.

One allegation being made is that the Guard is carrying people on the books, but not paying them, to make the Guard appear bigger than it really is.

Hmmm....So far, we’ve not had trouble getting enough Guardsmen out to help with tornado damage cleanups, and the military hasn’t had any real problems getting enough Guardsmen to send overseas for any specific purpose. Sure, sometimes one unit has to lend troops to another unit, but it’s not like the uniforms are different so they look funny while drilling.

Still not seeing the problem here that develops from slow paperwork in formally separating Guardsmen from the enterprise.

Could this all be political? Well, let’s take a look. Adjutant General Greg Gardner is an Air Force guy, and about three-quarters of the Guard is Army. Now, that might cause some rivalry, but presumably the Guard is made up of grown-ups who would set that aside.

Maybe Mays’ point about the numbers of Guardsmen being inflated due to slow mustering-out is a big deal. But we’re betting that the people in Washington who check the attendance rosters and see who actually showed up for drill before they send money to the state to pay them have a good idea just how many Guard members there are in Kansas.

Is this a way to trap Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat of course, on the "wrong side" of a military issue, a "man’s issue?" It might be. She’s supportive of Gardner, but she’s not married to him. If it turns out that he has done something wrong, or allowed something wrong to be done, Gardner will quickly become just some guy she fired before lunch.

Guess we’ll have to wait until Attorney General Phill Kline is done with his investigation into whether this is anything or not. We’re just hoping he’ll do the investigation from his desk, because he’d probably better keep his eyes on the road while his nephew is driving him around...