Letters: Voter suppression, politicians’ bigotry, Brownback roasted

Voter suppression

It seems to me that requiring an official government identification and all voter suppression laws are designed to keep people of certain parties and certain classes from casting ballots.

It’s discouraging to realize that such tactics by those in power haven’t waned since Reconstruction. If you truly believe that producing an official ID will prevent voter fraud then I propose that we also require an official government ID to mail any package at the U.S. Postal Service.

If, as voter ID proponents proclaim, an illegal immigrant (more likely a Democrat) can cast a fraudulent vote without producing an ID, then it stands to reason, that anybody without an ID can mail a terrorist bomb or materials through the U.S. mail and are able to do this much easier than casting a fraudulent vote.

The Unabomber episode is but one example. What prevents this from happening at post offices in 99.9 percent of all cases is vigilance within the Postal Service. Such activity is deemed a federal crime and a felony with stiff punishment attached.

Voter fraud in a national election also is a federal crime and a felony with a stiff punishment as well. In light of this, if the Postal Service and the federal government thought that such existing laws are enough of a deterrent to prevent abuse, perhaps those states that enact voter suppression laws should as well. After all, no one would argue that the damage done by voter fraud is done by illegal voters slipping by precinct workers.

It’s time to drop the facade and let those who wish to express their rights be allowed unfettered access to the polls.

Tom Davis

Merriam

Legal bigotry

High-level, conservative politicians can have sex, phone sex and sexting whenever they want. They make the laws for the rest of us to follow. They can be married or not.

Yet they can decide about women’s health care rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues of getting fired or discrimination in shopping where they want, or using a bathroom all in the name of preserving Christian values.

With all of their knowledge of history, don’t they recall that our Founding Fathers set up the laws of this land based on separation of church and state?

I personally am tired of their ilk ignoring laws that have recently been passed to protect the people they want to exclude.

P.S. I am Christian.

John McBride

Prairie Village

Brownback roasted

If you didn’t see Seth Meyers talking about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, you should Google “Seth Meyers Incinerates Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.” The video would be hilarious if it weren’t so true and so sad for Kansans.

Wili McKinney

Lenexa

School financing

In 1992, a statewide 20 mill property tax levy for school districts was enacted, eliminating a different levy rate for each school district. The 20-mill school property tax was no longer a local tax. Johnson County property taxes for schools became state revenue for use as dictated by the Legislature.

The new statewide property assessment system made the 20-mill levy an equitable property tax effort for financing schools. Because of different assessed valuations per pupil among school districts, a school finance formula was needed that met a constitutional requirement of suitable finance for schools and distributed state funding of schools both equitably and adequately.

But, in the formula, state financial support was still treated as aid. The revenue from a locally collected 20-mill levy in property-rich districts that exceeded what was needed for suitable school financing had to be sent to the state to reimburse it for excess “aid.” Property-poor districts kept all locally collected property tax revenue, creating the impression that property tax dollars from rich districts were going to poor districts.

Disingenuous politics fostered the myth that Johnson County school taxes were going to poorer school districts. All revenue from the state mandated 20-mill levy should go to the state in the first place, not just the “excess” portion.

The illusion of the 20-mill levy as a local tax should vanish. State financing of schools should no longer be called “aid” because it is the primary source of school finance and the state has the basic responsibility for education.

If the Legislature met its responsibility to provide suitable finance for schools both equitably and adequately, local option mill levy budgets could be used for their original intent: educational enhancements and not be pawns in a legislative chess game.

David Warren

Leawood

Confusing TV ads

Whatever happened to the preliminary introduction on television programming before the commercial? At one time the speaker said, “We will interrupt this program to bring you a commercial.”

Now the viewer is hit with the commercial in the middle of an actor’s lines and without a warning, leaving the viewer confused until he connects the fact that it is not part of the program. Soon the advertisement is over, and again the viewer is confused until he realizes the program is once again moving along.

Ella McCue

Overland Park

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Letters: Voter suppression, politicians’ bigotry, Brownback roasted."