Tim Carpenter: CRITICS QUESTION HIRING, WORK ETHIC OF SECURITIES COMMISSION STAFF @ Topeka Capital Journal

Jefferson County prosecutor Josh Ney is in the news!

Ryan Ogle: TOP KANSAS DEMOCRAT, 'TRUMPS TAX PLAN "KANSAS ON STEROIDS" @ WIBW News Now

Jim McLean & Meg Wingerter: KANSAS LAWMAKERS BALK AT BROWNBACK'S $24M PLAN FOR GUN SECURITY AT STATE HOSPITALS @ KCUR Public Radio

Judy L. Thomas: UNION HAUL: BOILERMAKERS LEADERS' SALARIES AND PERKS CLIMB AS MEMBERSHIP SINKS @ Kansas City Star

Kansas governor plays heroic word games ... hospitals close, low wage-slaves die, nurses lose jobs.

Rep. Ron Ellis' wife, head honcho at Leavenworth's St. Luke's hospital, might be the one to talk some sense to him about expanding Medicaid to the 150,000+ in Kansas who need it.

#ksleg The press release from @govsambrownback's office acknowledges possible closure of St Francis. #topeka pic.twitter.com/J2vQ7X0Sog

— Celia Llopis-Jepsen (@Celia_LJ) April 14, 2017

My response via twitter:

#KillthePoor crypto-talk from #Brownbackistan blame-gaming 150k useless eaters keep'em off Medicaid @OpusDei_Italia phone: UN-Rome calling https://t.co/ddySnboPSi

— Radio Free Kansas (@RadioFreeKansas) April 15, 2017

Rep. Jim Ward responds within minutes too:

How many hospitals close b4 @govsambrownback & his followers expand Medicaid? KS healthcare system in crisis. #ksleg https://t.co/gqTvXKYC8A

— Jim Ward (@RepJimWard) April 14, 2017

Sustainability Action Network, Weekly Newsletter, 11 April 2017 @ Discomfit Magazine

Streamed live, April 6, 2017 KCMO Central Public Library

Sen. Anthony Hensley: SECRETARY OF REVENUE MISLEADS KANSANS @ Op/Ed Osage County News

Killing Kansans for the 1%, Letter to the Editor, submitted April 3, 2017

When a senior professor of political science at the University of

Kansas produces a widely circulated essay requesting the resignation of our governor intelligent Republican voters in Jefferson County should pull out their political ear plugs and listen up.

Professor Burdett Loomis wrote just such an essay last week appearing in the wake of the heartless veto Gov. Sam Brownback used against Medicaid expansion. Our self-described “moderate” Rep. Ron Ellis voted against the bill before the governor could veto it. Mr. Ellis estimated the “cost to the state is too high” using “our state financial situation” to support his and the governor’s opposition.

Mr. Ellis is conveniently overlooking the fact that the fiscal destruction of our state government has been caused by the governor and his supporters in Topeka.

Mr. Ellis’ March 16 report published in this newspaper also revealed an alarming blind spot most elected officials suffer from in Kansas. Under the convenient cloak of not raising taxes they allow their campaign donor class to chisel the state tax collectors. According to the Economic Policy Institute (www.epi.org) the average income of at least 12,000 households in Kansas is $981,279/yr. and has been tucked into the same tax bracket as those of the middle class.

They are the top 1% and have been looting and pillaging for years in Kansas, protected and comforted by obliging politicians, lobbyists and shadowy PAC front groups infused like vampires with dark money from tax deductible non-profit organizations.

To the many business people of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce(s) who support Rep. Ellis I ask this one question. Would Rep. Ellis explain to you why he would take a $500 campaign contribution from WalMart?

The fact he even cashed the check to win an election campaign makes me gag.

Mike Caddell
North Jefferson County

Professor Burdett Loomis: IT'S TIME TO GO, GOV. BROWNBACK @ Insight Kansas

Physically, he still inhabits his second-floor suite in the capitol, haunts the statehouse halls in his sweater vest, and resides at Cedar Crest, courtesy of Kansas taxpayers.

Burdett Loomis, Political Science Dept. KU

Legislatively, however, Brownback is nowhere. He is essentially absent from the continuing discussions on the Bermuda Triangle of taxes, budgets, and school finance, even though his vaunted income tax experiment is the root cause of the state’s fiscal crisis. As the Legislature moves toward the humane and fiscally sound decision to expand Medicaid, he’s not a player, save as an ultimate, disengaged wielder of a veto pen.

In politics, the saying goes, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” Per this truism, the governor has only one serious option: Resign.

Resign and go off to Rome as the U.S. ambassador for food and agriculture at the UN.

Resign and let Governor Jeff Colyer become part of the policy-making process.

Resign and let the Legislature do its job.

Numerous lawmakers have acknowledged the governor’s AWOL status. Most notably, Senate President Susan Wagle (R-Wichita) said, “…the governor is refusing to acknowledge that we have a deep budget hole, and he’s refusing to give us solutions. If anybody’s playing games, it’s the governor.”

In short, gubernatorial delusion has met gubernatorial disengagement.

Ironically, state legislators are heavily engaged on taxes, the 2017 and 2018 budgets, and school finance. As we’ve discovered at the national level, legislating is hard; an absent governor makes it all the more difficult.

Past chief executives have worked with the Legislature to fashion policies that can win approval by both houses and gain the governor’s signature. Some governors roamed the legislative halls, negotiating on the fly; others called lawmakers into their chambers to hammer out compromises. Sometimes they intervened only when a legislative impasse was at hand. Regardless, they became integral parts of the legislative process.

But not Sam Brownback in 2017. He’s distant, aloof, and uninvolved, to the point that he has abdicated his responsibility to govern.

So let Jeff Colyer, whose only path to becoming governor in 2018 is to run as a results-oriented conservative, take the reins and cut some deals with a legislative body that is eager to do so. With Colyer, Republican leaders would only have to win narrow majorities to carry the day, rather than the two-thirds required to overturn a veto. Strangely enough, those majorities might well produce more conservative legislation than the supermajorities’ results, which would reflect bipartisan deals to override a Brownback veto.

Moreover, the power of ambition is central to effective governing. Politicians eye their next office, or re-election, or some administrative appointment as they seek to succeed in their current position. But Brownback has run his course, albeit as one of the state’s most successful electoral politicians, while Colyer as governor could use his ambition to generate legislative victories.

Senators Moran and Roberts, as well as Bob Dole, should beg President Trump to finalize the Rome appointment for Governor Brownback, who could stop wandering aimlessly – literally and figuratively — around the capitol’s halls.

Although the governor may appear active by writing letters to support the GOP’s health care bill and by seeking federal aid for prairie fire damage, he has failed to do the real work of addressing Kansas’s most pressing problems. Indeed, he has only made them worse.

So, as Rome beckons, it’s time to take your leave, Sam. You’ve done your work, for better or, most assuredly, worse.

Still, you can act one last time to benefit our state: Resign.

Burdett Loomis is a political science professor at the University of Kansas. Insight Kansas columns appear across many newspapers in the state.