2024-01-16 09:37:26
Before the legislative session last year, I wrote a column for Kansas Reflector expressing the hope that, in the aftermath of Gov. Laura Kelly’s re-election, legislative leadership might take the hint from the electorate and work with the governor for moderate policies supported by most Kansans in education, health care, and tax policy.
Unfortunately, my advice was not taken, as Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins instead spent the 2023 session in pursuit of their laundry list of divisive and extremist policies, including the flat tax, school vouchers and a single-minded obsession with Kansas’ tiny trans community.
This month, the Kansas Chamber, the main representative of Koch interests and a major player in Kansas politics, released its legislative priorities — its marching orders to leadership — and it was more of the same: a flat tax; opposition to Medicaid expansion; and public money for unaccredited, unregulated, private, religious and home schools.
To be clear, these policies are proven failures. To take them in order: The flat tax is another way to cut taxes on the wealthy, the very strategy that caused us all those problems during Gov. Sam Brownback’s terms. Every previous attempt at vouchers (or tax credits, or whatever the message testing wants them to be called this year) has failed, primarily because rural Republicans realize that vouchers would be the undoing of many a rural school district. And of course, Kansas is one of the last 10 states to have not expanded Medicaid, and Hawkins is on a media tour to make clear that he has no intention of allowing a hearing or bringing it to a vote.
For a cautionary tale about where the Chamber’s priorities would lead us (if the 2010s in Kansas weren’t enough), we can look to Arizonawhich passed both a flat tax and a universal school voucher program and turned a $1.8 billion surplus into a $400 million budget deficit this year and another $450 million gap next year.
This is the kind of future Hawkins and Masterson are trying to write for us, but Kansas has already seen this movie, and we don’t need to see it again.
But leadership’s goal here is not good policy, and it’s certainly not bipartisanship. Rather, Masterson and Hawkins have made clear that they will use every tool at their disposal to impose their will on the people of Kansas. They employ a veto-proof majority, threats to committee assignments or of primary challenges, control of the committee process (hearings) and the calendar, and the odious and undemocratic “gut and go” system — in which bills that likely haven’t had a hearing are stuffed into unrelated shells and passed in a straight up and down vote.
If leadership can get their bad policies passed via such chicanery, overriding the governor’s vetoes with Republican votes (and a single rogue Democrat), then by gum, that’s what they’ll do.
For an alternative path forward, the organization I am privileged to lead, Kansas Interfaith Action, has released its 2024 legislative priorities. Spoiler alert: They look a lot like last year’s.
As the voice of the moderate faith community in Kansas, we support policies that promote compassion and justice for most Kansans, even those without lobbyists: Medicaid expansion, which would give 150,000 (mostly) working Kansas access to affordable health care, including mental health care; support and protection of our wonderful Kansas public schools; addressing the crisis in affordable housing; and protection of the rights and dignity of our LGBTQ+ siblings against culture war-inspired efforts to victimize them.
Kelly, bless her, continues to work with the hand she’s been dealt, modifying her policy proposals (primarily on Medicaid Expansion and taxes) again and again in an attempt to appeal to the concerns of Republicans — sometimes at the cost of alienating her own supporters.
Like the governor, I would much rather be developing bipartisan policy to help our people, stabilize the state’s finances, and keep vital state services functioning. As I did last year, I urge legislative leadership to take a big step back from confrontation and culture war, and to work with the governor to develop policies that can receive bipartisan support and move our state forward.
In that way, their time in office can mean something to someone other than the Kansas Chamber and right-wing culture warriors.
Rabbi Moti Rieber is executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization that works on a variety of social, economic and climate justice issues. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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