Yet again, Jefferson City wants to take away Kansas City’s voice with its own police
We’d like to ask the Missouri legislature for a favor in its final week: Please keep your hands off the Kansas City Police Department and Kansas City taxpayers.
It’s a big ask. Lawmakers from outside Kansas City like nothing more than to meddle in the department’s affairs, to the detriment of the 500,000 people who actually live in the city. Sadly, that interference does nothing to make the city safer or more efficient.
That doesn’t matter to the interlopers, of course. They prefer a police department unchecked by the people and unaccountable to anyone. And they love spending your money.
The latest example came Monday. The state Senate took up a measure to simply require Kansas City officers to live in Missouri — not in Kansas City, Missouri, mind you, but just in the state, within 30 miles of the city limits.
That’s the deal Kansas City-area legislators agreed to a year ago. Instead, in a classic bait-and-switch, the unelected police board recently decided to allow officers to live in Leawood and Shawnee and Lenexa, too. Anywhere in the Kansas suburbs.
“At least let Missouri citizens be patrolling the streets of Missouri, with the only police department that a city in this state doesn’t control,” said state Sen. Greg Razer, who introduced the Missouri-only proposal as an amendment to a larger crime bill.
Monday, Razer and state Sen. Barbara Washington, both Democrats, urged colleagues to adopt the amendment. They were opposed by Republican state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville, whose interference with Kansas Citians’ right to self-government continues to shock the conscience.
Mayor Quinton Lucas and virtually every elected official in Kansas City have objected to Kansas City police officers living in Kansas. No matter: Tony knows best. Joined by fellow goofball non-residents such as state Sens. Rick Brattin, Bill Eigel, Mike Moon and Bob Onder, the Razer amendment failed.
That should anger every Kansas Citian. But it gets worse: In its final week, Luetkemeyer and his fellow right-wingers may try again to require Kansas City to fork over 25% of its budget to the state-appointed police board.
The current requirement is 20%.
Earlier this year, Luetkemeyer pushed his 25% bill through the state Senate, where it has been gathering dust. There’s now a belief that he, or someone else, may attempt to attach the measure to some other piece of legislation before Friday’s adjournment.
It’s impossible to overstate how offensive such a bill would be. It’s blatantly unconstitutional. It violates the Hancock Amendment, which conservatives once championed as a limit on government spending.
It usurps Kansas City’s limited right to determine its own tax and spending policies. And it would do nothing to stop crime. It steals from Kansas Citians.
Luetkemeyer has offered a constitutional amendment that would legalize the 25% requirement and discard part of the Hancock Amendment. That would require a statewide vote, which would be a clarifying moment: Luetkemeyer— office number: 573-751-2183 — could explain to every resident of the state why he knows more about police than they do. That would be fun.
But it should not be necessary. Kansas City-area state senators should consider filibustering any measure from the House, or amended Senate proposal, implementing the 25% funding threshold. Lawmakers of good faith in both parties, justifiably horrified at the interference in Kansas City’s affairs, should join in the effort to kill the bill.
Kansas City has lived under the knee of Jefferson City for decades. In its final hours, lawmakers who believe in self-government and local rule should help lift that knee just a few inches, and let Kansas Citians breathe.