April 10, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 7, 2008)

When politics met policy

Somewhere at the intersection of sound public policy and getting reelected there are choices to be made. This legislative session, two very different choices have been made and it’s a puzzlement which is right.

The issue is health care. Everyone in the Legislature and the governor and probably a lot of Kansans are interested in Kansans getting good health care. It’s not just about a warm feeling in your heart knowing no Kansans are needlessly sick or not getting the health care they need to work, play and enjoy life. It’s also about making sure people are healthy enough to work, to take care of their families, and to get that early pre-emptive care to make sure that illnesses don’t get more serious—and more expensive to treat.

But the problem for this legislature is that there is probably enough money available to take care of part of the Kansas population which needs health insurance. The nice thing is that Kansas would have to spend just a fraction of the cost of health insurance, because the federal government through Medicaid pays the lion’s share of the cost for those who qualify.

The tricky question is: On whom does the Kansas Legislature spend its taxpayers’ money? The Senate has decided to spend money on the state’s HealthWave program, for children from birth to age 18.

The House has decided to assist very poor Kansas grown-ups through a premium assistance program in which the poor pay a little money and the state helps them pay the rest of their insurance premiums.

Neither of those programs sounds like a bad idea. But the question is if you can afford just one, which one?

That’s where politics intersects with sound public policy.

Politics, of course, comes down to getting reelected in November, when both the 40-member Senate and the 125-member House are on the ballot.

Does the Legislature spend money on children or on adults?

Help adults, and maybe they can take care of themselves and their children. Help children, and, well, you help children, but it feels better in your heart, doesn’t it?

Politically, you never go wrong being seen by voters pulling a baby buggy off the railroad tracks. We all grew up on the “it’s for the children” tag line.

The Senate is pretty confident it is doing a good thing and a politically attractive thing by helping the children.

The House doesn’t want to ignore the children but it sees expanding health care to adults as very important, and so far the House and Senate negotiators on the heath-care bill haven’t been able to hammer out a deal. Nobody’s backing off.

The whole picture gets fuzzier because there’s little doubt that the federal government is going to have money in the game with the health insurance expansion for adults, while President George Bush has twice vetoed appropriations to put more federal money into insurance for children. That’s a real issue among the supporters of the adult aid and a selling point that they’re making in the Statehouse. The children’s supporters in the Senate figure that there’s a new president on the way next year, and whoever it is, there is going to be money appropriated to assist the state in expanding health-care plans for children.

Who’s right? Both the House and Senate are right, of course, but this appears to be a budget year in which the state can’t afford for both to be right.

This is one that may be decided by the reelection campaign ahead and the lack of subtlety that makes a good campaign ad or brochure.

Let’s watch the Legislature’s wrap-up session that starts April 30 to see what happens.

April 3, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers March 31, 2008)

Looking ahead…

There’s nothing like an election year to get Republicans fretting about what would happen if some of their leaders got better jobs—like, maybe a vice presidency or a seat in Congress.

Now, besides the giddy GOP hope…the galvanizing fear is that if U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., got tapped to become the runningmate of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.—and if he wound up getting elected vice-president—Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius would appoint Brownback’s successor to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate.

And, there’s a smaller but no less anxiety-causing concern among Republicans that should Republican State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins win the primary election against former U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun and in the general election battle for the 2nd District congressional seat defeat U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., Sebelius would choose Jenkins’ successor as state treasurer.

The Kansas Senate last week, at least from a Republican viewpoint, fixed that.

Now, remember that for the Democrats in the Kansas Senate, and probably Kansas Democrats in general, having their governor appoint a successor to Brownback, maybe, and Jenkins, maybe, isn’t a problem at all. The gubernatorial appointees would, by coincidence, each serve out the remaining two years of term of office that Brownback and Jenkins would resign to take their new jobs.

But succession in the post-9-11 era is an issue of national import and the bootstrap for the non-emergency tinkering with state law. Federal law requires in the event that at least 100 members of Congress are unable to serve—and the thought here is some sort of terrorist attack (the toll probably wouldn’t be that high if, say, the Rapture occurred)—Congress needs to be reconstituted quickly so government can continue unabated.

Before the national attention, Kansas governors just appointed a successor—recall, former Republican Gov. Bill Graves appointed his lieutenant governor, Sheila Frahm, to succeed former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., when he resigned to seek the presidency.

The thought of a Democratic governor appointing a Democrat to succeed Brownback, who won election as a Republican fair and square in an election, well, that just didn’t seem fair to Republicans.

And, we’re certain that even if Sebelius tapped her lieutenant governor, Republican-turned-Democrat Mark Parkinson, for the Senate seat, that wouldn’t set well with Kansas Republicans, either.

There’s an element of, oh, quiet concern among some Republicans, mostly moderate Republicans, that the vacancy-filling plan they approved last week, which calls for quick statewide conventions by political parties to choose their candidates for a general election to elect a successor senator—or state treasurer—pretty much guarantees that the conservative wing of the GOP selects the nominees.

Practically, while Democrats seem pretty satisfied with their Democratic State Committee—the statewide leadership council of their party—the Republican State Committee is clearly dominated by members of the 10-year-old Kansas Republican Assembly, the well-right-of-center political group which has members who represent a daunting majority of the state GOP committee.

It means moderate Republicans have virtually no chance to win nomination as the candidate for the back-filling of vacant U.S. Senate or state treasurer offices at the hurry-up statewide elections to follow the conventions.

***

The final question? Whether a governor, should the bill pass the House and Senate, sign the bill into law. It would, in cases where there isn’t a national emergency, have the governor give up power to appoint a U.S. senator or a state treasurer.

For all the legislative plotting, it sort of becomes an intelligence test for the governor, doesn’t it? If you were governor, would you give up two key appointments?