Capitol Watch: Making and dismantling laws and fixing a ‘stupid’ name

The second act of the Kansas legislative session used to be called the “veto session.” It was intended to be a short stint in Topeka during which time the Legislature would consider bills the governor had vetoed.

After awhile lawmakers took to calling it the “wrap-up session,” a time to finalize any odds and ends not completed before the three-week spring break.

This year, the “heavy lifting session” might be the best way to describe what happens when lawmakers return on Wednesday. They must somehow find a way to close a $400 million budget deficit.

There are probably a few betting pools already speculating on the date of the Legislature’s actual adjournment. We’ll throw in our guess: Friday, June 5, at the midnight hour.

Time management

Missouri, meanwhile, worked at a fast clip to send a budget early to Gov. Jay Nixon.

The reason: If the Democratic governor vetoes all or part of the budget, Republican legislative leaders want to have time for an override vote before their session adjourns on May 15. Otherwise they’ll have to wait for a special veto session in September.

Thankfully, the General Assembly rejected most of the extreme measures proposed by Kurt Schaefer, the GOP Senate budget chairman from Boone County. Schaefer had wanted to cut $140 million from social programs and shift that money into higher education and other programs. He ended up settling for a $40 million shift.

Schaefer did achieve a victory with an overly hasty expansion of managed care for Medicaid patients.

Legislators found $84 million to put into the funding formula for elementary and secondary education, which is more than Nixon had recommended. Hold the backslapping, though; the school formula will still be more than $400 million short of what state statutes require.

A wild ride

Just like that, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is the champion of the Uber nation.

He vetoed a bill that the Legislature said protected the public and lenders by requiring state-initiated background checks and proof that drivers have comprehensive and collision insurance. The regulations are unfriendly to the emerging ride-hailing industry, Brownback said.

This is a governor who desperately needs friends, and he could do worse than to court the legions of Uber drivers and passengers.

But the veto put Brownback on a collision course with the Legislature.

The Uber bill was passed with rare bipartisan support. Legislators were ticked off that Uber’s fan base had crashed the Capitol computer servers with a torrent of emails. And their regulations make sense.

Brownback’s veto infuriated Rep. Scott Schwab, an Olathe Republican who chairs the House Insurance Committee.

“This governor’s made some poor decisions, but this one takes the cake,” Schwab said.

Schwab, who like Brownback is a conservative Republican, accused the governor of turning his back on public safety. He predicted the Legislature would override the veto.

Uber doesn’t seem worried. Right after Brownback’s announcement, it announced it was expanding to Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan and Leavenworth.

You can fix stupid — in a name

A group of citizens in the Wichita area decided to form a political action committee to express their disgust with Kansas politics. Their name: “It’s Time to Fix Stupid.”

But a roadblock appeared in the form of a letter from the state Ethics Commission.

“The name of your political action committee, It’s time to fix stupid, must be changed or expanded upon to clearly reflect your interest,” the letter instructed.

Kansas law requires the name of a political action committee to either reflect an affiliation with a larger corporation or organization or, if unaffiliated, to indicate who’s involved or the cause it is advocating.

“Fix stupid” was deemed too general.

R.J. Dickens, a Wichita television personality who is the committee’s chairman, exulted that news reports about the letter had brought a flood of traffic to the group’s website, itstimetofixstupid.com.

Meanwhile, The Wichita Eagle checked the names of other PACs and found a few that seemed out of compliance. One was “Prairie Fire PAC,” the fundraising PAC set up by Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Carol Williams, executive director of the Ethics Commission, told the newspaper she’d be sending Kobach a letter, too.

If only other problems in Kansas could be so easily fixed.

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Capitol Watch: Making and dismantling laws and fixing a ‘stupid’ name."