Recent Kansas Editorials

The Hutchinson News, March 31

House leadership shows poise with retaliation antics

It’s refreshing to know that the leadership in the Kansas House of Representatives possesses the sort of maturity and pragmatic approach to governance that’s been so sorely missing in recent years and that is needed to debate and pass legislation that is meaningful to the people of Kansas.

Just kidding. They actually are acting like a bunch of out-of-control toddlers who are kicking and screaming because they can’t eat an entire bag of candy right before supper.

When Democrats in the House used a procedural maneuver to bring the issues of Medicaid expansion and due process for teachers to a vote, the Republican House leadership essentially took its ball and went home.

First, committee chairs were told that freshmen Democrats no longer would be allowed to carry bills to the floor - something that has been a congenial rite of passage for years. The practice has been used as a way to teasingly introduce new lawmakers to the rigors of speaking out on legislation and ready them for the day when they carry a bill of personal importance to the well.

Then, the reporter who had the nerve to report on the kindergarten-esque antics - The News’ Mary Clarkin - was told that she no longer would be allowed to sit in the back of House chambers as she had done since the beginning of the session.

Eric Turek, communications director for House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, told The News that the ban against Democrats carrying bills would remain until House Republican leadership could regain trust in Democrats.

This, Kansas, is the proud leadership you have in Topeka. People like Ryckman, who are ego-centric, thin-skinned, sensitive, petty and ready to throw a full-on tantrum at any perceived slight. And in the throws of their wrath, these so-called leaders hurt incoming lawmakers who weren’t to blame for whatever wrong supposedly had been done.

This attitude is a seeming holdover from the days when conservatives had an iron grip in the Legislature. Under much of Gov. Sam Brownback’s reign, conservatives walked with swagger in the halls of the capitol, knowing that they had the power and clout to do as they pleased.

Now that the people of Kansas have installed a different government - one more responsive to a wider segment of the state’s population - those left from the heyday can’t quite accept the reality of the day.

They say that leaders aren’t born, they’re made. But first, they have to grow up.

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The Kansas City Star, March 31

U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder is cultivating a record of working for consumers’ digital privacy protections.

U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder is fighting the good fight to keep private the websites you visit, the apps you use and the content you view online.

Yoder broke ranks last week and sided with 190 Democrats (and 14 Republicans) when he voted against allowing internet providers to snoop on users and sell their personal online history. The Kansas Republican rightly favored requiring broadband companies to get a person’s permission before profiting off intimate data, including browser searches, use of apps and a user’s location.

While the vote broke down largely along party lines, Yoder resisted playing partisan politics and instead tried to do right by his constituents. The majority of Yoder’s GOP colleagues supported the use of a congressional maneuver that allows for a fast-tracked vote to undo the previous administration’s policy shortly after a new president takes office.

Some members of Congress surely acted without thinking about the ramifications for the people they represent. Too often, that’s a reflexive GOP response when considering anything labeled with the poison tag “Obama-era policy.”

Here’s the rub: Yoder lost this battle. The measure passed 215-205 in the House and 50-48 in the Senate.

The Obama administration’s internet privacy regulations hadn’t gone into effect. That was scheduled to happen later this year. The rule was passed by the Federal Communications Commission last October on a 3-2 vote.

The FCC was trying to protect consumers from the targeted marketing that unleashes a deluge of advertisements for similar products anytime you search for something online.

Well, brace for more. Without the constraints envisioned by the FCC, providers such as AT&T, Comcast and others can gobble up data, package it without your permission and sell it to advertisers who want to reach you. They’re already doing some of this.

Now, without restrictions on gathering personal data, the practice likely will escalate. Just because people use broadband technology doesn’t mean that all of their information should be up for grabs.

Yoder understands this. He has become a reliable advocate for protecting consumers’ digital privacy, and he has sought to update laws to reflect changing technology.

In February, Yoder was successful in getting the House to unanimously pass the Email Privacy Act, a bill he’s been pushing for several years. The legislation would require government agencies to obtain a warrant to search people’s emails, regardless of when the email was written. It is intended to close a loophole in a 1986 law that gave the government the right to search without a warrant if an email was older than 180 days and was stored on a third-party server, like Google or Yahoo.

In pitching the legislation, Yoder conjured up his 10-year-old self, noting that was his age when the original law passed.

A young Yoder couldn’t fathom how vast the World Wide Web would grow or imagine his privacy concerns as a member of Congress.

Back then, Yoder said he was “hoping to get a new Nintendo game console for Christmas so I could play Super Mario Bros. You could buy a ticket to see ’Top Gun’ for $2.75. In the tech world, 1986 marked the debut of the first laptop computer. It was 12 pounds. A mobile phone was the size of a small pet.”

Fortunately, that Nintendo-loving kid is now a member of Congress focused on protecting your online privacy.

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The Wichita Eagle, March 31

Kansas isn’t prepared for wildfires

Kansas is woefully ill-prepared to fight wildfires and needs to significantly increase its resources.

In fact, the state’s forest service is the smallest and lowest funded of any in the country - which puts people and property in danger.

Massive wildfires earlier this month burned more than 700,000 acres and threatened Hutchinson. Last year, the Anderson Creek wildfire consumed nearly 400,000 acres and barely avoided Medicine Lodge.

Local volunteer firefighters bravely battled those blazes, saving as many houses and as much ranch land as possible. But they were overwhelmed - and received little or no help from the state until most of the damage was done.

Consider the difference in resources and responses between Kansas and Oklahoma:

? The Kansas Forest Service budget in 2016 was about $3 million, with $1 million dedicated to fire service; Oklahoma’s budget was $15 million, with $8 million for fire service.

? The Kansas Forest Service has three trucks and four employees dedicated to firefighting and fire prevention; Oklahoma has 47 fire engines, 47 bulldozers and 84 firefighters.

? On March 6, when the wildfire started, Oklahoma had a plane in the air by 3 p.m. to help firefighters. It was two more days before Kansas could get a rented plane to help in Clark County, after most of the county had burned.

The risk of wildfires may have been low enough in the past that Kansas could get by with few resources. That’s no longer the case.

The Legislature finally approved a bill this week that would allow Kansas to coordinate firefighting efforts with Oklahoma. But more needs to be done.

After two straight years of massive fires - and predictions by scientists of more and bigger fires in the future - the state must respond.

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The Salina Journal, April 1

Roberts comment appalling

Sen. Pat Roberts has a reputation in the U.S. Capitol for his dry, deadpan humor.

But the Kansas Republican’s comment recently to reporter Alice Ollstein was anything but humorous. Ollstein had asked Roberts about possible changes under the proposed American Health Care Act to benefits that health insurance plans are required to provide under the Affordable Care Act.

“I wouldn’t want to lose my mammograms,” Roberts told Ollstein, who works for Talking Points Memo.

Ollstein tweeted about the comment, and the comment drew well-deserved criticism.

Roberts apologized about an hour later in his own tweet: “I deeply regret my comments on a very important topic. Mammograms are essential to women’s health & I never intended to indicate otherwise.”

We hope his apology was sincere.

But the comment never should have been made.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 252,710 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 63,410 cases of non-invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in U.S. women this year. The cancer society estimates that one in eight women and one in 100 men will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. Chances are that Sen. Roberts even knows some women who have been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer.

The cancer society estimates that 40,610 women will die of breast cancer this year.

And how is that cancer detected?

Primarily through screening - those mammograms referred to by Roberts.

“I wouldn’t want to lose my mammograms” might have been an offhand, joking remark for Roberts, whose suggestion Jan. 19 that a fellow senator take a valium to relax derailed a Senate confirmation hearing.

But to millions of women and their families across the country, the possibility of losing insurance coverage for this potentially life-saving screening is no laughing matter.