‘It’s kind of a swampy mess’: Kansas GOP divisions show on constitutional amendment

Rep. Melissa Rooker was frustrated.

With just minutes to go Saturday night for a critical vote on a school finance fix, the Statehouse was in disarray. Conservatives in the Senate were giving bitter speeches decrying the funding plan while others desperately pushed to pass it.

At stake was a funding increase for the state's K-12 education system, one intended to satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court.

"Is there any question left as to why I will not support changing the Kansas Constitution?" said Rooker, R-Fairway. "We absolutely need a backstop against this kind of legislative shenanigans."

The school finance plan passed, but the divide among Kansas Republicans on education funding, and what the state Constitution should require, is far from settled. With every seat in the House up for grabs in this year's election, some see the amendment push becoming an election issue.

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a conservative Republican from Overland Park, said the amendment push "is a sincere effort."

"For the people who want it," countered Rooker, a moderate, "it's sincere. It has no chance and they know it, they can count. So they sincerely want it, but they will get their postcards against people who oppose it and so be it."

Denning and Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Republican from Wichita, caused a panic last week when they demanded that the Legislature vote to amend the Constitution before senators could even debate a school finance plan.

That threat, which played directly to the fears, and hopes, of bases to the right and left, lasted just over 24 hours.

The proposed amendment, which declares “the power to establish adequacy of financing for education as exclusively within the legislative power of the state,” would limit the Kansas Supreme Court's role in education funding. Conservatives have long lambasted the court.

But if a constitutional amendment was to have a chance, particularly in the Senate, it was more likely to pass in 2016 or before, said Sen. Lynn Rogers, D-Wichita.

"I've reminded a lot of people, I've said, 'You got to remember who brought you to the dance,' " Rogers said. "The education community is really the people that stood up in 2016. And I think the only thing (the move to amend the Constitution) has really done is it's really motivated the education community to understand the consequences of another bad election."

Despite not having the numbers to advance the proposed amendment, conservatives seem undaunted.

"The people of Kansas need to help us to end the ongoing litigation cycle and we need to give them an opportunity to express their opinion and help us out," said House Speaker Ron Ryckman of Olathe, a conservative Republican.

The constitutional amendment, which narrowly made it through a House panel, would need to pass both the House and Senate with a two-thirds majority — 84 votes in the House and 27 in the Senate. It would then go to a statewide vote, its fate left to Kansans at the ballot box.

If Democrats are united in their opposition to the amendment, the GOP has a very narrow opening to pass the measure and put the final decision to voters. Lawmakers are to return to the Capitol on April 26.

"It's kind of a swampy mess for some people," said moderate Republican Rep. Brenda Dietrich of Topeka, formerly the superintendent for the Auburn-Washburn school district.

Conservative Sen. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, said he couldn't say whether it was a sincere effort or not.

"I think it's something that we should try, but I mean, I don't think it's going to pass," he said. "I just don't think it has the votes."

Rep. Randy Powell, R-Olathe, who supports the constitutional amendment, said it's time to settle the argument and let it go to the voters.

But conservatives like Powell don't seem to have a backup plan if the amendment effort fails, as is expected.

"Then Gannon lives on," Powell said, referring to the ongoing Kansas Supreme Court school finance case.

Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University, said he was puzzled by the conservative-led effort, which comes a year and half after moderates and Democrats effectively gained a ruling coalition in the House.

“If you were going to go for this, it would have been for 2013 to 2015, not the year where Brownback’s gone and the new moderates (are in),” Beatty said. “Do they really think this is going to happen?”

Beatty said he initially suspected that it was an election year strategy, but as Wagle and Denning threatened to block debate on school finance without passage of the amendment, he said he began to believe it was a sincere effort by GOP leaders who may have overestimated support for the idea.

“I think they got a bit in the bubble there,” Beatty said. “Why would they go that far? It seems like they didn’t need to go that far to shore up that conservative base, and going so far as to claim you’re going to hold up the legislative session on this issue was either sincere or a severe miscalculation.”

Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, who identifies as a moderate, said he respects the Constitution and opposes the amendment.

He’s already bracing for what his opposition could mean.

Becker said he could see his district, and those of others who aren't in favor of the constitutional amendment, being flooded with postcards in the coming weeks to "try to stir things up that way, trying to get me to flip."

"But that's not going to happen," he said.

This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 3:45 PM with the headline "‘It’s kind of a swampy mess’: Kansas GOP divisions show on constitutional amendment."