(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Jan. 26, 2015)

Martin HawverWhile we’re waiting for Gov. Sam Brownback to decide just what he wants to do with property tax authority for school districts, there are some less fractious bills being introduced by Kansas legislators as they near the deadline for bills that they thought up themselves.

We have until Feb. 11 for those individually sponsored bills to be introduced, and they are starting to trickle in. Like the measure that someone should have thought of years ago, or some that probably…well, you wonder what was going on when they were thought of at all, let alone introduced into the Legislature.

Take a pretty bright idea, thought up by Republican Rep. Travis Couture-Lovelady, of Palco, whose district is mostly two-lane highways.

The bill: It allows you to you to exceed the speed limit on a two-lane highway with a speed limit of at least 50 mph, by 10 mph while passing a slower vehicle. Apparently Couture-Lovelady isn’t the only one who has been trapped behind a cruise-controlled car doing a solid 63 mph in a 65 mph zone, and wondering whether you can pass it without getting in trouble…or staying in that opposite-traffic lane for longer than you want.

That brief 10 mph exemption from the speed limit gets you past the slower car quickly.  Not a bad idea.

But then someone thought up—and we believe it was Secretary of State Kris Kobach—a straight-ticket ballot for general election voters. The concept? It’s quick and convenient for voters who would otherwise spend time sorting out candidates of one party or another, voting for all of their favorite party’s candidates, and then rechecking to make sure he/she didn’t miss one somewhere along the way.

For those straight-ticket voters, the party choices would be Republican, Democratic and Libertarian and well, we’re figuring that they would save enough time that some might just leave the kids in their car seats while the parents go inside the voting place to perform their duties as citizens. Might take less time than running into the convenience store to pick up a carton of milk…

Another of those ideas by someone elected to the House of Representatives is to prevent cities and counties from passing any regulations on sales, ownership, storage, carrying or taxing of guns or ammo. Oh, and if your city or county has any of those regulations, well, they disappear on July 1. Not sure whether that means you could buy a gun and that carton of milk from that convenience store on election day while your child is still strapped into the car seat while you straight-ticket voted or not, but that might be something we learn during hearings.

And that property tax issue? Whether by scrapping the state’s admittedly complicated but constitutional—though under-funded—school finance formula Brownback intends to alter the property tax authority of school districts?

Well, it’s still being worked out. Practically, the amount of state funding alone for local school districts isn’t enough to operate the schools and teach the kids, but there’s growing understanding that the plan will at least maintain property tax authority for local school boards.

How much local taxing authority? And how the proceeds from those local taxes can be used? How much authority are local boards going to get to make up for the reduction in state money with local property taxes?

And, will any additional local property tax increases trigger politically dangerous-at-the-ballot-box reaction either at the local or state legislative level, possibly derailing for some that convenience of straight-ticket voting?

No word yet.