TheChat: For once, everybody is happy in Kansas

Good morning.

▪ “I am not conflicted on the bill that was just passed by huge votes.” — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, saying he would sign the school-finance bill that legislators passed Friday night, ending their special session in just two days.

▪ “I'm proud of my fellow legislators for the work they did, but it's still disappointing that the Supreme Court brought about this situation by holding Kansas children hostage.” — Kansas House Speaker Ray Merrick, a Stilwell Republican.

▪ “Regardless of who came up with the plan, what matters is that we put Kansas kids first today.” — Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat.

▪ “Democrats came out front on this issue from the very beginning. Our goal all along was to bring people together to find a solution to keep our schools open.” — Kansas House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, a Kansas City, Kan., Democrat.

It’s rare to find so many lawmakers from both parties so pleased with the passage of any piece of legislation. Maybe it was everyone just breathing a collective sigh of relief that lawmakers had dodged a huge bullet here. A shutdown of public schools might’ve doomed incumbent lawmakers from Kansas City to Liberal in this election year. One other key here: They did this FAST. A prolonged special session surely would have led to voter frustration just weeks before the August primary.

▪ “We learned in our investigation that consumers don’t get clear information about what they’re paying for and why, that many times they’re overcharged and those overcharges are never refunded to them.” — Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, on a U.S. Senate investigation that found that more than 10,000 Missourians were overcharged last year by cable companies.

The damage to Missourians: more than $500,000 in refunds owed to them by Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications.

▪ “Missouri Right to Life made frequent and repeated attempts to obtain a completed candidate survey from Mr. Greitens and requests for a meeting with the candidate. Those attempts were unsuccessful.” — Dave Plemmons, chairman of Missouri Right to Life’s political committee, announcing that the group was not endorsing Eric Greitens for governor.

The group is backing the three other Republican gubernatorial candidates: Peter Kinder, John Brunner and Catherine Hanaway.