June 2004
June 24, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 21, 2004)Election-after-the-elections
There are already strong rumors that the election-after-the-elections in the Kansas Legislature this year may be far different than the usual Democrats confirming the Republican decision on who runs the House and Senate.
It is the leadership election, and it takes place a month after the November general election when we find out who has been elected to the House and Senate. Those November elections determine the number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the Legislature. But that’s just the start of the real nitty-gritty of legislative power. It’s deciding who gets the leadership posts that is the key.
Now, there is very little chance that Democrats will wind up with a majority in either chamber. Make that no chance. The numbers just aren’t there.
But there are now two flavors of Republicans, the social conservatives–antiabortion, pro-concealed carry, no new taxes no matter what–and what the press keeps calling "moderate Republicans" who are generally pro-choice, against people carrying guns under their coats and may vote for higher taxes if a strong enough case can be made that the money is desperately needed.
It’s the schism among those Republicans that Democrats are watching. Because while Democrats have generally let the majority party select leaders of each chamber, this may be the year that they don’t.
The reason? There may be enough conservative Republicans who generally don’t agree with much of anything that Democrats want done that conservatives can control virtually everything that happens in the Legislature. That’s not a good thing for a party that has a Democratic governor and wants to support her plans, her legislation, her budget. But, it’s excellent for a party whose leader doesn’t live at Cedar Crest, the governor’s mansion, and intends to virtually run the state from the Legislature.
So what are the possibilities?
If moderate Republicans in the Senate are outnumbered by conservative Republicans, look for Democrats to get involved in that final leadership vote that is taken among all members of the Senate. Look for the politics to get really complicated, with before-the-final-vote agreements worked out for Democrats to take a real role in leadership, maybe wind up with a committee chairman or two, or to increase the numbers of Democrats on some committees to give them more clout.
The House is pretty conservative now, though Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, has generally allowed the chamber to debate and vote on bills that he and most of the conservative Republicans in the House don’t care for. There has been Republican-Democratic cooperation, but the real concern is that, if the House winds up with so few moderate Republicans that even an informal moderate Republican/Democratic coalition won’t yield a majority 63 votes, conservatives control the chamber with an iron fist.
Depending on the November election outcome, there may very well be a coalition government in either the House or Senate for the 2005 session, the one that officially starts the clock on the 2006 gubernatorial election cycle.
Coalition government in Kansas? How would that work?
Well, if conservatives control the GOP caucus, we’ll never find out unless Democrats decide that they want to get into the leadership bargaining game by voting with moderate Republicans.
What would Democrats get out of that? Probably some committee chairmanships, or at least a few more members on each committee, and a louder voice in legislation that the chambers consider. Bills that died in committee may come to the House and Senate floors for debate. Oh, and a new complexity to politics and its job, government, that Kansans have ever seen before...
June 17, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 14, 2004)No opposition
There are four Senate districts and 51 House districts in Kansas where there is no major party opposition for that seat.
The incumbent, or new major party candidate, is the odds-on favorite to win election or reelection in those districts (minority party candidates haven’t fared well in Kansas elections in the last 30 or more years).
There are going to be some people whining about the lack of a campaign, a lack of choices in representation like something has gone wrong.
Well, folks, nothing went wrong.
What that apparently means is that in 10 percent of the 40 Senate districts, either the voters are satisfied with the representation that they are getting, or the people who aren’t satisfied are too lazy to do anything about it. And, do you really want someone who is lazy to be representing you?
In 51 House districts, and that’s about 40 percent of the 125-member House, the voters in those districts are either happy with their representation, or, again, too lazy to file for office to change it.
We’re figuring that the election really occurred day by day in the House and Senate when the candidates who are now unopposed apparently either voted the way their interested constituents wanted or didn’t vote wrong enough that the action came to the attention of even disinterested
constituents.We’re trying to think of the downside of that.
Elections and campaigns are entertaining, you find out a little more about the candidate, and you get either refrigerator magnets to cover the chips caused by trying to put the chafing dish in the icebox without opening the door, or maybe just a nice palm card that makes a handy bookmark.
If you have kids, there’s a chance they’ll catch some candy tossed by a candidate in some neighborhood parade.
There are worse things than campaigns and some candidates will tell you they ’ve lost 10 pounds or more knocking on doors. One Johnson County Democrat was even clever enough to use a round-faced photo of himself on his brochure, so that when potential voters see a just-short-of-gaunt face on the candidate in person, the candidate can say he’s lost weight campaigning. It makes a nice story, and if campaigning causes weight loss, there may be more candidates in 2006.
Not having a campaign doesn’t mean that a candidate is entirely off the hook for putting on some sort of show, either. There aren’t a lot of elected officials who like to be branded as "campaigning only when needed" and there are constituents who will remember that a candidate still showed enthusiasm for meeting voters even when he or she didn’t have an opponent who could be favored merely by checking a box on the ballot.
So, you might consider a campaign effort by an unopposed candidate a character test.
Surprisingly, most voters tend to remember candidates who, when unopposed, don’t bother with a campaign. It’s something like answering constituent mail promptly, or showing up at the early Rotary meetings or the Lion’s Club luncheon when there are other things that the candidate could be doing.
It’s about being workmanlike in representing a district, and while some of the 51 House members and four Senate members may not find it convenient to get out amongst their constituents when the voters really have no other choice on the ballot but to vote for them, we’re betting that the vast majority of the unopposed will actually stage campaigns... remembering that constituents will remember if they don’t.
June 10, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers June 7, 2004)Primary voters
While all this noble-sounding talk about increased voter participation and spreading democracy is rising to the ceiling like smoke in a barroom, there are some real, hard, political facts that most Kansans with real lives and interests probably ought to catch up with this week.
This is the week, of course, after Republican State Chairman Dennis Jones, of Lakin, decided that the GOP in Kansas would allow unaffiliated voters to participate in Republican primary elections on Aug. 3.
It’s all based on an Oklahoma court case about primary election voting. The 10th Circuit Court in Denver made a decision months ago, but the outcome is that Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh has asked the chairmen of the Kansas Republican and Democratic parties to decide whom they want to vote in their party primary elections.
The options are no change, with just registered Republicans and Democrats voting in their respective primaries, or opening the field to registered but unaffiliated voters, or just letting any registered voter of any party show up and ask for the ballot that he or she thinks is the most interesting. That last possibility is of course ruled out. Democrats don’t want Republicans voting in Democratic primaries and Republicans won’t want Democrats voting in Republican primaries. Because both parties are at least semi-organized and know who each other are, the possibility of Democrats, for example, writing in the name of a local kiddy porn parolee as the GOP candidate is just too great. Organized mischief is the fear of both parties.
Although there’s going to be a giant fight over it, here’s why Jones wants unaffiliated registered voters to be able to vote in the Republican primary and why socially conservative Republicans, like Attorney General Phill Kline, don’t.
Chances are good, very good, although there is no "chairman" of unaffiliated voters for reporters to hunt down and interview, that unaffiliated voters are largely more moderate in their political and social beliefs than are the bulk of activist, get-out-and-vote-in-August Republicans. Republican primaries generally determine who is going to be in the Kansas House and Senate the next year. Republicans who don’t pay attention to primaries—hobby voters—generally figure that they are Republicans, too, and whomever the August-voting Republicans chose as their party’s nominee for the general election is probably a pretty good Republican. And, unless there’s been a photo of the GOP primary winner in the paper robbing a convenience store, they can just vote the party label and call it a job well done. And, remember, many of those November Republican voters are there just to vote in the presidential election, and really don’t know what’s going on further down the ballot, or much care...
Diluting the voter pool for the August primary gives moderate and liberal Republicans a chance to appeal to likely more moderate unaffiliated voters, pick up votes that the conservatives will miss, and send a moderate slate to the general election. That’s the upside for moderates.
For conservative Republicans, generally anti-abortion folks who may make opposition to gay marriage their No. 1 or No. 2 bullet point on their brochures, they’d like to keep the voter pool small, just among same-party friends. That just makes sense. Nobody smart enough to come up with the filing fee wants to be voted on by people who don’t agree with him or her.
The trick for conservatives is to talk about "Republicans nominating the best among themselves to carry the party banner in November." Sounds pretty noble, pretty logical. For moderates, the chant is "opening up the process, encouraging greater participation" and so on. Sounds pretty noble, pretty logical.
So while the dust is flying this week, and the noble, logical arguments are fluttering around, this is still a party with an interesting little civil war among its factions taking place right in front of us.
Democrats? Whether they open their primaries to unaffiliated voters isn’t a big deal, politically. Because, remember, Democrats pick up seats in the Legislature when Republicans nominate too-conservative candidates, or candidates who appear to be too conservative.
Just ask Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius about that...
June 3, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers May 31, 2004)Hiding assets?
One of the things that states are supposed to do without question–just bite the bullet and write the checks–is to take care of the health needs of the poor who can’t care for themselves.
Kansas like most other states does that with the Medicaid program, where the federal government shoulders part of its responsibility, too, by contributing about 60% of the cost of caring for the poor, with the state making up the other 40%.
The problem, though, is that the 40% state match is literally eating the state budget alive, and the cost of that match is growing faster than any other segment of the state’s budget.
Well, the Legislature, before adjourning for good this year, took an important step toward making sure that it’s going to have the money to spend for health are for the legitimately poor in Kansas. And, what it did, was to take some of its first steps to make sure that people in Kansas who legitimately are poor and who nobody wants to see without health care or nursing home care actually are legitimately poor.
That sounds fair enough. The state and federal government will take care of the poor. But, there’s no reason for anyone to spend taxpayer money on care for people who aren’t poor, or who go to sometimes elaborate lengths to appear poor so they get free care. There’s even a little niche of the legal and investment trades which specialize in hiding or renaming or encumbering assets so that people who aren’t poor, but have good advisers, can appear poor to get free state assistance.
What did the Legislature do? It responded to schemes by people who want to appear poor enough for state assistance and at the same time hide assets, or transfer those assets to their friends and family.
What are some of the schemes? One is to create "life care contracts"–with friends or heirs who aren’t licensed health care providers–in which the friends and heirs agree, for a fixed fee paid up-front, to provide services for the person who wants to get state-paid care. There have been cases of tens of thousands of dollars being paid to relatives to do things like mow the yard, collect the mail, help with laundry, and run out for food or medicine for the rest of the life of the care recipient. Some of that is stuff that a friend or relative probably ought to do anyway, but it is also a way for a care recipient to write a big check and then look poor enough on paper to qualify for free health or nursing home care. That isn’t right, and the Legislature fixed that. No more lump-sum payments in advance, there has to be a contract involved and the services provided under that "life care contract" have to be at fair market value rates.
Another plan is for Medicaid recipients to consume thousands of dollars of state-paid services, while retaining their assets–generally their homes.
The Legislature expanded the authority of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to recover money spent on a client who died by slapping a lien on their homes, ensuring that proceeds of its sale go at least partially to repay the state for its charity care. That sounds reasonable. Or, another way, it sounds unreasonable for a person who has consumed thousands of dollars of state resources in the final years of their lives to still have a home to will to heirs. Everyone would like a little estate to be able to pass on to the children. That’s part of caring for offspring that is part of parental nurturing. But that bequeathing ought to happen after all the legitimate bills of the parent are paid... and the state has a legitimate place in that line to be paid first before an estate is split up among children and grandchildren.
The new law, well, it wasn’t sexy and it didn’t get into a lot of newspapers around the state. But it’s one of those things that on its face makes sense, may make it harder for people who don’t legitimately need state-paid assistance to get it by hiding assets or giving away money in order to impoverish oneself to qualify for state care. The presumption is that it will make the state money go farther for those who really need help, and who Kansans either want to help or should want to help.
It was a little deal, but a move in the direction to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely.