October 2008
Oct. 30, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Oct. 27, 2008)Only a couple more elections
Kansans are two, maybe three, elections away from finding out who is going to be running the Kansas Legislature next session.
What?
No, it’s just starting when Kansans vote on Nov. 4 for their members of the Kansas House and Kansas Senate.
That’s just the public’s role. The real key to who runs the House and Senate will come in early December, when newly elected but not yet sworn-in members of the 2009 Legislature gather in Topeka to elect their leaders.
Now, we all read and hear about the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, the big dogs of the Legislature who can almost single-handedly determine what the Legislature does each session. In the Senate, the president heads a committee that elects members to each committee; in the House, the Speaker alone appoints committee members.
And, yes, you can determine which bills will get to the House or Senate floor by stacking the committee with members who will vote the way leadership wants.
Those leaders are elected by members of their party’s caucus. Practically, Republicans are going to have a majority in the House and Senate. There will be some Democratic increase in numbers, but count on it, Republicans are going to be in the majority in both chambers. This is Kansas, after all…
But the real election that is going to determine what the Legislature does will come in the GOP caucuses in the House and Senate.
The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House virtually control what bills will be considered by committees, which will be sent to the floor of their chambers for debate, and in most cases, which of those bills sent to the House and Senate floor will be debated.
In the House, the Speaker appoints chairs of committees and his party’s members of those committees. In the Senate, the president has a committee to assist (a decision to reduce the president’s power made decades ago) in those appointments.
Lots of power in those leadership positions. And you don’t get to vote on that, you just vote on the people who are going to vote on who gets that much power.
And, that’s where the real politics of the session begin. The persistent split in the Republican Party, the “social conservatives” and what everyone calls the “moderates” in the GOP caucus in each chamber, essentially split up, and whichever faction of the party has the most members of its caucus then selects its leaders. Democrats elect minority leaders and such, but the big game is the GOP caucus, where because of the Republican tilt, will nominate the Speaker and the President.What? Notice the wording change? Yes, each party’s caucus nominates the leaders.
Those nominations must be voted on by the entire House and Senate.
And that’s where Democrats and the losing side of the GOP philosophical war actually can change the leadership. Say conservatives nominate a conservative House Speaker. And, say, moderate Republicans and Democrats decide—for the first time in memory—that they want someone else. That can be accomplished on the first day of the session when the members of each chamber vote to elect, as an entire chamber, their leadership.See the possibility of a surprise? See the possibility of the losing side of each chamber’s GOP caucus trying to line up Democratic support for what would be that third election?
What could the offer be? Handing Democrats an extra vote on committees? A committee chairmanship or two? Nicer offices?
Now, will the leadership of each chamber actually be contested right up to that possible third election, which in the past has been merely a formality?
Nobody knows now. After the election, we’ll have a hint, and after the early December caucus votes followed by tentative committee assignments, there will be more evidence. Will this be a three-vote leadership contest?
We’ll see…
Oct. 23, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Oct. 20, 2008)Don’t forget the Libertarians
While the vast majority of Kansas voters will choose between the Republican and Democratic candidates for a lot of offices on the ballot, there are some minor party candidates sprinkled through the districts and probably of more interest, some Libertarians.
Libertarians, you see, hold a dab of interest for both Republicans and Democrats who know even a smattering of what their respective parties stand for, whether you can tell it or not from the campaigns waged under those two broad political banners.
Republicans tend to talk as if it’s a virtue that they are for smaller government, less regulation, that sort of thing. Practically, at least at the state level, it’s mostly talk. Libertarians do the same talk. They’re basically for leaving people alone. Less stuff to do, less government. Some stuff government ought to do—we keep thinking of meat inspection—Libertarians can go either way on. But, if you like the small government stuff, Libertarians are there, too.
For Democrats, the primary interest in Libertarians might be that Libertarians tend to show a little ankle on issues, and can woo some Republican votes…which means more votes remain for Democrats. There are Democrats in the Kansas Legislature who owe their election to Libertarians winning what would otherwise be Republican votes.
Libertarians tend to not be afraid to say that they aren’t really hung up on drug use penalties. Smoke dope at home, don’t hurt anyone else, don’t force it on people, but if you want to get stoned and have no effect on anyone else, well, who cares?
Same deal with abortion. It’s a decision between a woman and whomever she wants to bring into the conversation, but it doesn’t involve government. Once children are born, rights attach.Just involving government in fewer aspects of most Americans’ lives tends to reduce the amount of public employees needed, probably meaning they get paid better or budget and taxes can be reduced, and life will be a little tougher on some of us, but probably not pioneer-days rugged.
If any of that sounds good to anyone, there are Libertarians on the ballot in some districts. They won’t win, of course, but they loosen up some political thought which generally is along the lines of voting as your parents did, or rebelling against your parents and voting for the candidate who survived the primary in the other party.
There’s this feeling among Libertarians, though, that at some point, Kansans are going to learn a little more about the party—maybe some of those candidate forums some day will include Libertarians—and voters will learn enough about them to walk on the wild side and maybe elect one to the Kansas Legislature.
In the era of instant gratification, it might take years and years for that to happen, but it surely will. At some point, in the same district, Republicans and Democrats will both nominate dogs, and voters will elect a Libertarian.It just takes one to receive the over-the-top coverage by the press, and pretty soon everyone’s talking Libertarian, or Republicans and Democrats start, when it’s politically advantageous, to be “libertarianesque” on an issue or two.
And you get the idea that would please Libertarians…
Oct. 16, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Oct. 13, 2008)Identifying uninsured motorists
It’s taken three years, but finally it appears that a state task force is about ready to put together a proposal that would, if it works right, make it less likely that we’ll be in an auto accident with someone without a dime’s worth of insurance.
That task force, cleverly if not economically, called the Electronic Motor Vehicle Financial Security Verification System Task Force, has been aiming at simply identifying cars on which there is no liability insurance. With liability insurance, the other driver can pay medical bills if you’re injured and repair your car if it is damaged in an accident.
It means your insurer doesn’t have to come up with money to pay for damages caused by someone without insurance.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it. After all, you have to show proof of insurance to get a license tag for your car. No insurance, no license and you can’t drive a car without a license plate, of course.
But, because it’s possible to buy auto insurance a month at a time, some people just buy a month’s worth to get their tags, and then just stop paying their premiums. Some people don’t renew.
Figuring out who is insured and who isn’t is the problem. Now, the “electronic” in that task force’s name might someday mean that if your insurance isn’t in force, your car won’t start. That likely would be the best deal. But the task force is finding that we are probably years away from that very simple way to keep uninsured cars off the road.
For now, it’s concentrating on insurers reporting to the Kansas Insurance Department when their customers’ policies have been terminated. And that means when law enforcement officers stop a car for any reason and ask for your license and registration they can return to their patrol cars, radio in some information and find out whether you have insurance.No insurance and you don’t drive away. And that’s one less uninsured vehicle that might hit your car or my car.
Ideally, that means that your insurance company doesn’t have to figure into your premiums the possibility that it is going to have to pay for medical expenses or just car repair that their customers didn’t cause.It doesn’t get much better that than that.
But it’s becoming clear that there are scores of little technical problems in the way. Insurers have to report quickly when their coverage ends, and new insurers have to report when new coverage begins. It’s got to be reported in a way that computers somewhere in the state have that information in a form that can be read at the county courthouse where license plates are issued and to police who need to know at a car stop whether the vehicle is insured.
Oh, then there’s not just keeping track of Kansas-licensed vehicles, but vehicles from other states that venture into Kansas.
Will the task force get there? Probably, but it’s not going to be simple and it’s not going to be quick.
It is something that you’d ordinarily never hear about and someday, when the roads are covered with insured vehicles and uninsured vehicles are parked where they can’t do us any harm, we’ll wonder how it happened.
Well, it’s starting to happen now.
Oct. 9, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Oct. 6, 2008)Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
On the last day of each month, Statehouse insiders eagerly await two pieces of paper that detail how much money Kansas has received from taxes in the previous month and for the fiscal year-to-date.
The information comes, naturally, from the Kansas Department of Revenue and it’s a peek into not only how state finances are doing but to a large degree on how Kansans are doing economically.
It’s a way to track what Kansans are making at their jobs, how their employers are doing and what Kansans are buying on which the state collects taxes. It’s also a way to see how close the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, a bunch of the state’s savviest fiscal gurus, has come in estimating revenues for the future. That’s important because it is the estimate that sets the target for the governor’s budget each year and those monthly updates have an effect on how the Legislature approves or disapproves, or maybe just switches around, what the governor proposes.
Late in the afternoon on Sept. 30, for example, Revenue released figures showing Kansas took in $573 million. Not bad, you’d say, except that the estimate from the consensus group was that the state would take in $589 million in September. That’s $16 million short of estimates, and that September shortfall gobbled up about $15 million in unexpected above-estimate money the state received in the first two months of this budget year, which started July 1.
OK, what do you learn when you drill down through the numbers?
Well, you learn that corporations paid about $7.3 million less in taxes than expected, meaning they earned less money than had been predicted.
And you learn that individuals (actually, employers through their payroll withholding for your income taxes) paid in about $15.5 million less than predicted which means either there are fewer people working or they are working for less money than was predicted.
Oh, and also that the state share of sales tax receipts, at $142.6 million in September, was only about $600,000 more than predicted. Statistically, that half-percent in sales tax revenues above expectations is almost insignificant.
With a little less wages, judging by income tax withholding, and level or near-level spending on things that sales taxes are paid on, you can see a little squeeze going on.
That’s the sort of thing that you learn from the monthly tax revenues report. Things are getting tighter in Kansas, apparently.
Overall revenues? Well, oil and gas severance tax receipts were up because prices for those minerals are high; taxes on liquor and drinks at private clubs were down, indicating that there’s less partying going on.
Cigarette taxes, maybe from possibly nervous smokers, were up, though, at nearly $11 million in September, 22 percent above estimates.
Figure into your diagnosis of the Kansas economy that gasoline prices are up, taking more of Kansans pay (those taxes go to the highway agency, and are not counted in state tax revenues because they never hit the all-purpose State General Fund). People might be paying down credit cards (again, no tax on that use of money) or maybe they are just saving the money or what’s available after buying necessities, food, gas…oh yes, and smokes…
Oct. 2, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 29, 2008)What’s on the horizon?
If you were amazed that most of this spring’s Kansas Legislature was devoted to efforts to override vetoes by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of a pair of coal-fired power plants at Holcomb, well, you might be amazed again next session.
Besides the jobs and investment in Kansas that would be created during the construction phase, power plant fans maintain the project is vital to meet electricity needs, initially with just a dab of the estimated 1,400 megawatts of power in Kansas but eventually a larger percentage of its output.
Even supporters of the plant are calling it a short-term solution to energy needs of the Midwest, one that surely will be eclipsed in a decade or two with wind energy, with solar energy, maybe energy from crops and at some point nuclear power.
But an obscure interim committee last week staked out ground on the reason that Secretary of Health and Environment Rod Bremby rejected necessary permits for the plants’ construction—carbon dioxide emissions.
The proposed plants—and remember that every new plant built in the United States becomes the cleanest-ever coal-fired plant because it is built with the newest technology and environmental protection features—were estimated to produce about 11 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. The carbon dioxide initially would waft into the sky over Kansas before becoming part of the billions of tons of carbon dioxide that blanket the Earth.
Those are big numbers, and carbon dioxide can’t be good for Kansans or Americans or humans or we wouldn’t spend the time and money necessary to measure it.
But last week, that obscure committee that parses the rules and regulations that state agencies produce waded into a recent letter that Health and Environment sent to operators of large boilers in the state. The letter was to remind those boiler operators that they are supposed to register with the U.S. government, but also sought information on the boilers for state purposes and indicated that ponying up the information voluntarily would avoid the possibility of “civil enforcement action” to get the information.
Lawmakers concerned about the authority for Bremby to nix the power plants over their emissions of carbon dioxide—it’s not in state or federal law—immediately leapt to the conclusion that Bremby is gathering information about other sources of carbon dioxide, probably with an eye toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions from things other than massive coal-fired power plants. Say, school buildings, hospitals, manufacturing plants, office buildings and food processing plants across the state.
That suspicion by lawmakers changes the debate considerably. It’s not just a plant out west; it’s boilers in nearly every House and Senate district in the state.
Nobody’s really a fan of carbon dioxide, but it is one thing to worry about 11 million tons of it from one source and another to worry about smaller amounts rising from each legislator’s district.
That’s your best indication that this power plant issue isn’t over yet.
It could be settled as soon as election night, or shortly after, when the coal plant fans total up the votes from newly elected members of the Legislature and figure whether they can just run another bill to override Bremby’s decision on the Holcomb plants. Or, it might take a campaign against Bremby’s meddling with smaller sources of carbon dioxide emissions dotting the state now. That’ll require some fairly sophisticated footwork by the power plant fans but it’s probably doable, and it means that in all likelihood, there’s at least another legislative session that is dominated, or near-dominated, by the coal plant issue.