Recent Kansas Editorials

The Kansas City Star, May 24

Concealed weapons likely are coming to a Kansas institution near you

Hey, Kansans: Brace yourselves. Your state is about to change in a consequential way.

Barring the unexpected, concealed weapons soon will be allowed in state hospitals, psychiatric institutions and on the state’s public university campuses.

That’s happening in just 38 days unless pro-common-sense lawmakers pull a rabbit out of their hats and muscle through a new law. But that looks increasingly unlikely as the Legislature struggles with big issues in its ongoing wrap-up session.

C’mon, admit it: Many of you didn’t think this would really happen. You didn’t think your freshman son or daughter could wind up sitting next to another student who’s legally packing heat in a giant lecture hall where intense arguments erupt out of nowhere.

You didn’t think visitors to emergency rooms where tensions can run sky-high in the aftermath of shootings could be carrying handguns beneath sweatshirts. And you didn’t think - who in their right minds would? - that lawmakers would permit guns inside state psychiatric institutions.

But on July 1, that could all come to pass. The only barrier would be a decision by lawmakers to spend tens of millions they don’t have for security upgrades, such as metal detectors and armed guards, to keep guns out. That’s what is required to exempt an institution from the new law. Just don’t look for it to happen on college campuses. They’re simply too big. They have too many entrance points.

The University of Kansas Health System has vowed to spend the money itself. But what a waste when other health care needs are so pressing.

Last week, what may have been the last attempt to change gun laws sputtered to a halt in the state Senate. Lawmakers debated a series of exemptions to the law only to see those efforts evaporate when the Senate sent the legislation back to committee. In legislative terms, that’s often seen as a death knell for a bill this late in a session.

To be sure, the anti-gun crowd may not be done. A massive lobbying effort by voters would help, but it’s probably too late.

Here’s the thinking that the anti-gun crowd is up against: “For me, it’s about the rule of law,” said state Sen. Dennis Pyle, a Hiawatha Republican, during that Senate debate. “It’s also about God-given rights and, you know, my God-given rights for self-defense don’t get dropped when I enter a campus or enter a hospital.”

In a scared world, the gun crowd is winning. More guns are the answer.

It’s even winning at KU, where last week the Board of Regents set aside the campus’s own policy that called for gun owners to be in possession of concealed handguns at all times. The National Rifle Association considered that policy too restrictive and demanded a change so that loaded guns carried in a backpack or purse can, for example, be set on the floor nearby. In making the change, the regents reversed their earlier approval of KU’s policy. Never mind the extensive efforts KU went through to reduce the chances that someone else might get their hands on a concealed gun.

Kansas is about to change, and that change is significant, shortsighted and scary. Right now, it’s last call for common sense.

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The Lawrence Journal-World, May 28

A new law concerning the use of crisis intervention centers is a positive step for Kansas.

The Legislature is to be commended for approving House Bill 2053, which gives law enforcement the option to use licensed crisis intervention centers as an alternative to incarceration when appropriate.

Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill - known as the Crisis Intervention Act - into law last week.

The Crisis Intervention Act would allow people age 18 and older to be placed in a licensed crisis intervention center for up to 72 hours for emergency observation and treatment. At the end of 72 hours, they would have to be released or transferred to another facility such as a state psychiatric hospital or a community hospital authorized to take involuntary admissions.

Kansas currently has three crisis centers - in Kansas City, Wichita and Topeka - which only take patients who agree to treatment.

Douglas County is working to partner with Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center to develop an intervention center, and Douglas County Administrator Craig Weinaug is a supporter of the new act.

“The next step is for the state to write regulations for the licensing to go with a 72-hour hold,” he said. “Then the decision will be made if that is a type of service we would want to include in a crisis center. It’s good to have that option.”

A similar bill failed in 2016 after concerns were raised about violating the rights of people with mental illnesses. This year’s bill is a compromise hammered out by law enforcement and mental health professionals.

The act limits the circumstances in which a person can continue to be detained. Individuals held in centers must be evaluated by the head of the center within four hours of admission, again within 23 hours, and a third time within 48 hours. The second evaluation must be conducted by someone other than the person who conducted the first evaluation. If any evaluation shows the person no longer meets the standards for holding someone involuntarily due to mental illness or substance abuse, the center would be required to release the individual.

Incarcerating individuals struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues often exacerbates the problem and sets in motion a cycle of jail stays that are not helpful to the individual and are expensive to taxpayers. The Crisis Intervention Act should help address the problem in Kansas.

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The Topeka Capital-Journal, May 27

A conservative plan to maintain Brownback’s tax cuts will only exacerbate the state’s problems

When Gov. Sam Brownback took office in 2011, a Fort Hays State University poll found that only 11 percent of Kansans said they wanted to see their income taxes “significantly decreased.” This was when the state still had three tax brackets - 3.5 percent for Kansans who made less than $15,000, 6.25 percent for those who earned between $15,000 and $30,000 and 6.45 percent for anyone who brought in more than $30,000. But Brownback didn’t care what Kansans wanted, so he threw the state’s budget into turmoil with his 2012 tax cuts and refused to consider any changes for half a decade.

The top tax bracket was eliminated and rates were reduced to 2.7 percent for people who earn less than $15,000 per year and 4.6 percent for everyone else. Meanwhile, the owners of pass-through businesses no longer had to pay any income tax (this became known as the “LLC loophole”), and 330,000 of them were removed from the tax rolls - far more than the architects of the plan anticipated. The tax cuts cost the state billions of dollars in revenue (legislative researchers put the number at more than $3.6 billion), while none of the economic benefits touted by Brownback in 2012 have materialized.

Although we’ve been critical of recent tax proposals in the Legislature, at least there’s a general acknowledgement that the state can’t absorb the incapacitating cost of Brownback’s tax scheme any longer. However, 40 Republican lawmakers are still clinging to the status quo that has bankrupted Kansas, and they’re trying to convince their colleagues to maintain it. Earlier this week, a coalition of 29 representatives and 11 senators presented a “balanced budget solution” that will get Kansas through another year without raising taxes. But the plan will be familiar to anyone who has been paying attention to Brownback’s attempts to salvage his waning legacy: huge reductions in spending coupled with the securitization of payments from the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

This “budget solution” will only exacerbate the consequences of Brownback’s tax cuts. First, selling off the tobacco payments will sacrifice a recurring source of revenue that the state uses to fund early childhood development programs. And second, while proponents of the plan say it will close the revenue gap by bringing spending in line with economic growth, this argument ignores the immense damage that will be inflicted by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from state agencies and services.

Does it really make sense to impose massive cuts at a time when our judicial branch employees are among the lowest-paid in the U.S. (Kansas ranks 47th after adjusting for the cost of living)? Or when a majority of other state employees haven’t received a raise in almost a decade? Or when the state highway fund has routinely been depleted by hundreds of millions of dollars? Or when state aid for Regents universities has been steadily declining (Brownback cut $100 million last year alone)? Or when per-pupil spending for K-12 education is much lower than it was eight years ago?

The conservative budget plan doesn’t account for the revenue that will need to be raised after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the inadequacy of K-12 funding, either - a figure that could be as high as $800 million. As lawmakers debate how to address a crippling shortfall with only days left in the session, 40 of their colleagues just proved that they simply aren’t serious about making a meaningful contribution to this process.

Members of The Capital-Journal’s editorial advisory board are Zach Ahrens, Matt Johnson, Ray Beers Jr., Laura Burton, Garry Cushinberry, Mike Hall, Jessica Lucas, Veronica Padilla and John Stauffer.

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The Hutchinson News, May 24

It’s time for Brownback to lead or get out of the way

The Kansas Legislature has passed the 100-day mark and doesn’t seem very close to wrapping up the state’s business of satisfying the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling on school finance and passing a budget.

Yet, during this critical time, it seems Gov. Sam Brownback is in hiding, emerging from his administrative dungeon not to check or weigh in on the state’s affairs, but to use his veto pen to slap down sensible public policy.

It’s not that the Legislature hasn’t done its job. With some new blood in the old statehouse, lawmakers sent Brownback a tax bill that repealed his signature income tax plan, and restored some balance to financing the state’s operations by ending an exemption for 330,000 businesses that pay no income tax.

The veto override effort sailed through the House, but failed in the Senate by only three votes.

Now, it seems the Legislature is sort of mired, as lawmakers work to come up with something that will satisfy disgruntled voters and pass through the governor’s desk. But there’s not been much in the way of useful communication coming from the state’s top administrator - outside of his tired rhetoric about the power of tax cuts to fuel the sort of dynamic economy we’ve witnessed in Kansas under his tenure.

It’s OK if you need to take a minute to control your laughter.

Tough decisions require leadership, but the state won’t find it in the governor’s office. That would require him to acknowledge that mistakes were made, or, in the alternative, be honest with Kansans that the tax cuts have worked exactly as planned - by starving the state of the resources it needs to fully operate.

This effort, however, requires someone willing to sit down and lead. To lay out the lines that can’t be crossed, to find the fulcrum of compromise, and to find a solution that works for the majority. Leading isn’t digging in one’s heels and saying there’s only one solution that will work, nor is it sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to solve the problems created by the misguided actions of another.

This legislature has done its work, and it has shown the governor what the people of Kansas desire. It’s now time for the governor to step into the fray and work with lawmakers to come up with a solution.

And if he’s not willing to do that, maybe it’s best that he simply get out of the way.