The Kansas City Star, Dec. 10
Kansas GOP chairman should pick a job: Lead the party or run for office
The Kansas Republican Party faces a bit of a problem involving next year’s race for secretary of state.
Scott Schwab, a state representative from Olathe, is a candidate in the GOP’s 2018 primary for the job. So are state Rep. Keith Esau, also of Olathe, and Kelly Arnold of Wichita.
Arnold does lots of things - he’s a financial planner and is the Sedgwick County clerk. But he also serves as the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. And he plans to keep the job while he’s running in the GOP primary for secretary of state.
Schwab is understandably upset. “The Kansas Republican Party chair running for office, while retaining his post as chairman, not only compromises integrity but is a disservice to the process statewide,” he said in a statement.
Arnold is apparently unconvinced. “I will not be resigning the seat I was elected for,” he told The Star. “It is not a new occasion for an elected party officer to run for a contested seat.”
Schwab has the better of the argument.
This isn’t a legal matter - state law doesn’t prohibit party chairs from running for office. But it’s a question of appearances, at least for Kansas Republicans who will pick a nominee for secretary of state.
Political parties generally maintain neutrality in primaries. Indeed, Kansas GOP bylaws prohibit party committees and paid staff from endorsing or supporting any candidate in a contested primary.
Arnold says he isn’t paid as GOP chairman. But it’s hard to escape the impression that the party apparatus could put its thumb on the scale for its sitting chairman at the expense of other candidates, including Schwab and Esau.
That impression could linger into the general election if Arnold is the nominee. The Kansas GOP’s website now includes a lengthy biography of Arnold, but says little about the other candidates.
The secretary of state in Kansas plays an important role in elections. In fact, incumbent Secretary of State Kris Kobach will help supervise the Kansas governor’s race in 2018, and he’s a candidate for the job.
That’s a sticky situation, too, but one common in most states and perhaps unavoidable.
Arnold, on the other hand, can step away from his chairmanship without serious harm to the party or the state. If he loses the primary, he can seek the chairmanship again.
Again, this is an intra-party squabble. If Kansas Republicans are uncomfortable with Arnold’s dual roles, they must tell him to pick one job or the other.
If he chooses not to do so, Republicans can judge him accordingly. We’re pretty sure Scott Schwab will bring it up.
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The Topeka Capital-Journal, Dec. 9
Brownback still isn’t doing his job
He has transferred major responsibilities to Colyer, but he won’t be honest about it
Gov. Sam Brownback’s nomination to be the U.S. ambassador for religious freedom is still stuck in the Senate. Even though Brownback is still technically the governor, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer is developing the state budget (perhaps the governor’s most important responsibility), he recently appointed Gina Meier-Hummel to be the new secretary of the Department for Children and Families and he’s set to make another high-level appointment soon. But Brownback still insists that he’s the one in charge: “It’s not a co-governorship.”
Does Brownback really think he’s fooling anyone? All he has to do is ask a few lawmakers if he wants to see how confused most Kansans are about who’s running the state government. Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Carolyn McGinn says she “can’t really pick up the phone and get any real decisive answers to anything in particular.” Salina Rep. J.R. Claeys describes the situation as “super strange” and says he doesn’t know if he should engage with Colyer or Brownback: “Is the handoff complete? I have no idea.” Even Senate President Susan Wagle seems baffled: “I really don’t know who’s going to deliver the State of the State.”
This isn’t leadership. The Legislature is facing a series of major issues in 2018 - such as the possibility of a constitutional crisis over school financeand $9 billion in unfunded pension liabilities - and lawmakers shouldn’t have to wonder who they can talk to about ideas and concerns.
If Kansas doesn’t have a “co-governorship,” why is Colyer making crucial decisions about the budget and high-ranking personnel? Why is he the one who appeared in Wichita to announce a $1 billion expansion of Spirit AeroSystems that’s projected to create 1,000 jobs while Brownback stayed in Topeka to light the Christmas tree? Was Washburn political scientist Bob Beatty wrong when he said, “Jeff Colyer is going around the state acting as governor”?
When former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was nominated to be the Obama administration’s health and human services secretary, she didn’t dump her responsibilities onto then-Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson. This is what makes her criticism of Brownback particularly salient - she rightly points out that he “seems to have chosen not to act as governor and not to resign” and echoes an argument we made two weeks ago: “If he doesn’t want to act as governor, then he should resign.”
According to Colyer’s spokesman, Brownback is still “in the driver’s seat” and there’s still “one governor at a time.” Of course Colyer is publicly deferring to Brownback - he’s still loyal to his boss. But is Brownback being loyal to him? Colyer is facing an extremely difficult primary, and he knows it’s vital to downplay his relationship with a governor who has a 24 percent approval rating. But how can he do this when Brownback is still “in the driver’s seat”? Moreover, Colyer shouldn’t be allowed to evade tough questions about how he’ll lead the state by arguing that “we have one governor at a time.”
House Minority Leader Jim Ward was right when he called Brownback an “absentee governor.” It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to do the job anymore, and we already know he’s been shifting major responsibilities to Colyer (a man Kansans didn’t elect as their governor in 2014). But here’s what’s even worse: He won’t tell us the truth about it. Unless Brownback intends to start doing the job Kansans elected him to do, he should resign.
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The Lawrence Journal-World, Dec. 10
Tax lid protects taxpayers
State legislators are right to defend a recently implemented state law that imposes a lid on property tax increases despite continued opposition from cities and counties.
The law was passed in 2015 but only took effect this year. It ties property tax revenue increases to the rate of inflation. Setting a rate that generates more revenue than the rate of inflation requires voter approval.
While the law has flaws, it offers important protections to Kansas taxpayers.
But local government officials disagree. They told an interim legislative committee last week that the tax lid is too restrictive.
“We think (the tax lid) is an infringement on the very idea of representative democracy,” said Trey Cocking, deputy director of the League of Kansas Municipalities. “Our members were elected to make these decisions, and we obviously think these decisions are best made at the local level.”
Cocking said cities throughout Kansas face increased costs for things like employee health insurance, and the tax lid restricts them from keeping up with those costs. Melissa Wangemann, general counsel for the Kansas Association of Counties, said an exception to the law should be made for rising employee costs. A bill introduced in the House during the 2017 session would have provided that exception, but the bill died in committee.
“The lowest quote I have heard from my counties for health care was a 7 percent increase in 2018,” she said. “This year’s consumer price index - the measurement for the tax lid - was 1.4 percent.”
Lawmakers were largely unmoved by the testimony of the associations representing cities and counties.
Lawmakers rightly noted there are already a number of exceptions to the lid. And Republican state Rep. Ken Corbet, of Topeka, wisely pointed out that in regard to rising health care costs, most of the taxpayers who are being levied with property tax increases also face rising health care premiums.
Douglas County taxpayers understand all too well the impact property tax increases can have. This year, the combined property-tax increase coming from the county, city and Lawrence school district was a combined 6.66 mills. The new property tax lid, which does not apply to school districts, didn’t prevent homeowners from seeing their overall property tax bill increase by nearly 11 percent.
Of course, city and county governments are going to face unanticipated cost increases. All businesses and organizations do. But tax increases aren’t the solution.
The property tax lid promotes efficiencies by encouraging local government to look first at other alternatives - cutting spending, for example - before simply raising taxes. While the law should be tweaked to reduce the number of exception, overall the lid is working as it should on behalf of taxpayers.
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