Kansas City Star. February 19, 2021.
Editorial: Kansas House issues shamefully weak reprimand of abusive Democratic Rep. Aaron Coleman
Democrats in the Kansas House, your part in the half-finger-wag of a response to your newly elected member Aaron Coleman, of Kansas City, Kansas was pitiful. Coleman has admitted abusing women. And it was since his November election that he tweeted about a “hit” on Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. So really, what were you thinking?
Because what we’re thinking is that next time you (correctly) accuse U.S. Senate Republicans of pretending that accountability just wasn’t possible for former President Donald Trump, look in the mirror and behold someone who just did exactly the same thing.
Kansas House Republicans, you are even more responsible for this unacceptable outcome. It was Republican Rep. John Barker, who chaired the committee investigating Coleman, who declined to let even one of Coleman’s victims testify at the mini-hearing on this matter. Barker said the committee shouldn’t look at any behavior before Coleman or any other member was in office, though it doesn’t have to be that way.
The committee found that 20-year-old Coleman, whose admitted history includes revenge porn, bullying and blackmail, had indeed engaged in abusive behavior toward women. This history goes as far back as middle school and allegedly went on as recently as a year ago.
THREAT TO ‘CALL A HIT OUT’ ON GOV. LAURA KELLY
The Star reported in August that an ex-girlfriend, Taylor Passow, said that Coleman had slapped, choked and urged her to commit suicide in December of 2019. On New Year’s Eve, Passow said, he texted her, “Air out the clip into your head,” after having choked and slapped her in a hot tub a few days prior. “Mag dump yourself. Do that midnight tonight. If I never hear from you again then I’ll know what happened.” Coleman denied having choked and slapped her.
In June of 2020, Coleman said in a Facebook post that he would “laugh and giggle” if a former GOP lawmaker died of COVID-19. In a tweet after his election, Coleman wrote that Kelly would face an “extremely bloody” primary in two years, and said “I’m not playing around. People will realize one day when I call a hit out on you it’s real.”
When this led some of us to conclude that he wasn’t playing around, Coleman said in an interview that OK, maybe “hit” wasn’t the best word choice. But then, he added, “Really, at this point, nobody can really stop me.” So it would seem.
Instead of the expulsion from the Legislature that his behavior fully warranted, the disciplinary process ended Thursday in a not very scary “warning and admonition” letter. It included the wee recommendation that he find a mentor.
The bipartisan commission of three Democrats and three Republicans voted 6-0 to let him off with a letter, when they could have recommended expulsion. To have ousted him would then have required the votes of 2/3 of the House.
The letter Coleman is probably laughing about right now accused him of a “longstanding history of physically and emotionally abusive behavior.” That’s been well documented.
But staff “revisors” - legislative attorneys - said that because this behavior occurred before he was elected, no serious sanction was possible. Since the House sets its own disciplinary rules, it either needs new lawyers, new rules, or both, because this response to Coleman’s quite recent actions is both cowardly and dangerous.
It’s not even technically correct, since Coleman threatened the governor after his election.
JUST A LETTER, NOT A FORMAL REPRIMAND
Good for state Reps. Susan Ruiz and Cindy Neighbors, both Shawnee Democrats, who refused to sign the weaker-than-weak-tea letter.
“It’s not very strongly worded at all,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t give the recommendations or expectations that we originally wanted to and according to the revisors that was sort of beyond the scope of what our assignment was.”
But the letter, which all members of the investigating committee decided on instead of a formal reprimand - because oh, too harsh? - was released a full month after lawmakers began writing it.
Why it took a month to write, “Shape up, OK?” we’ll never know.
Democratic Leader Tom Sawyer said he was frustrated by the whole process, which should have led to Coleman’s expulsion: “It was clear from the beginning the Republicans didn’t want to do anything. We’ve said all along he’s not fit for office.” Not only that, but “when I talk to him individually, he shows no remorse. He blames his victims and says they’re all lying.”
He said Democrats on the committee felt that if they didn’t go along with the Republican insistence on recommending no punishment more serious than sending Coleman a sternly-worded letter, then nothing at all would be done.
A letter was better than nothing, they reasoned. Then, once they’d agreed to that, the letter actually given to Coleman was even meeker than the one to which they’d agreed.
Moral of that story: Going along with the wrong answer often results in even less than the little you bargained for.
Rep. John Barker, who chaired the committee, pushed back on the idea that Democrats had no choice but to go along: “After much public discussion and debate the committee voted unanimously to pursue this course of action,” he said in an email. “Each member of the committee is responsible for their own vote. Allegations to the contrary are revisionist history.”
Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher, who spoke out about the threat Coleman posed long before his election, said that what she’s heard over and over from her Democratic former House colleagues is, “Who are we to judge?” and “Why does this fall on us?” after the Wyandotte County Democratic Party supported Coleman almost to the end.
“I said, ‘You’re not sending him to prison.’ They could have done more but they just chose not to,” Holscher said. “It’s disappointing. I can’t say it’s totally surprising. People are just trying to stay away from him.” Female people in particular.
The Capitol Police, she said, are very aware of the situation, and have put out the word that there will be zero tolerance for abuse.
But Kansas House Democrats, if anything does happen, it will be on you as well as on your Republican colleagues.
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Topeka Capital-Journal. February 19, 2021.
Editorial: Seaman schools are named after a Ku Klux Klan leader. Students have the moral high ground in calling for change.
Seaman High School students aren’t only within their rights to ask the district to shed the name of its KKK leader founder. They have the moral high ground.
Students did amazing work last year in uncovering and confirming the fact that district founder Fred Seaman “wasn’t only a member of the Topeka chapter of the Ku Klux Klan but also an exalted cyclops leader,” as The Topeka Capital-Journal has written in recent months.
Their work and subsequent activism has deeply impressed us. It should deeply impress all of the state.
Yet we notice that not everyone is rushing to change the district’s name.
We understand the discomfort that some feel with “cancel culture.” We feel it ourselves. Should we change the names of streets, schools and states named after such slave owners as former Presidents George Washington or Thomas Jefferson? What about someone who privately held racist believes but didn’t show them publicly?
On the other hand, we’re not looking to solve the problems of society forever and for all time here. We’re simply addressing a situation that has arisen here, in our community, and one that affects students who go to a school named every day for a Klansman.
Put yourself in these young people’s shoes. Wouldn’t that bother you?
There’s a fairly easy metric to decide if the name of your organization is racist or problematic. Was your namesake a member of the Ku Klux Klan? If yes, then you’d be well served by discussing changing that name.
Perhaps we should re-examine the entire process of naming buildings and institutions after people to begin with. No one is perfect, after all, and perhaps we should all be more modest about our fellow man.
What’s wrong with naming a school or a district after flora or fauna? How about trees or wildlife? Some cities do fairly well with simple numbers, although we understand that probably seems bland.
We want to make one more point. Students who are now organizing to change the name, rather than showing any sort of weakness, are demonstrating incredible strength. It takes guts to stand up and ask adults for change, to demand that a system change.
In recent years, frankly, the adults running this country haven’t done so well. We might all be well served by listening to today’s youths.
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Wichita Eagle. February 17, 2021.
Editorial: Easing concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine requires information, honesty
Health experts say ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require the vast majority of people getting vaccinated - 75 to 80 percent, according to most estimates - to safely reach herd immunity and limit the virus’ ability to spread.
And vaccines only work when people take them.
So a recent survey of Wichita and surrounding counties, which showed that only two-thirds of residents say they want the vaccine, proved a tough pill for some Sedgwick County leaders to swallow on Wednesday.
It’s also a warning that more must be done to inform, educate and ease residents’ fears.
A good place to start: Understand why some people or communities may be hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccine, and don’t assume anyone with concerns is an all-out anti-vaxxer who opposes vaccines across the board.
“It’s fully understandable that people have questions and concerns … especially for a vaccine that’s new,” science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer told Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
“Most people are somewhere along this spectrum of maybe just having one question that makes them a little bit uncomfortable until they have the question answered.”
Some people might doubt the vaccine’s safety or effectiveness, or have concerns based on how quickly it was created and made available. Others might wonder or worry about side effects.
Some polls show that Black and Hispanic adults are especially wary of the vaccine - a fact that might date back to the Tuskegee syphilis study of the 1930s. In that long-term, government-sanctioned health study, Black men were enrolled under false pretenses, treated like lab rats and denied life-saving treatment under the guise of free healthcare.
Is it any wonder that legacy of deception might sow distrust and hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine?
Dr. Elizabeth Ablah, an expert on population health at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, told Sedgwick County Commissioners on Wednesday that survey respondents’ concerns about the vaccine are “very much based off of misinformation.”
Providing clear, consistent and honest data about the COVID-19 vaccine could sway about 19% of Wichita-area residents who said they “may” get the vaccine. That would push our vaccination rate well above 80%, assuming distribution can keep up with demand.
Local leaders and health officials should continue to remind residents about the very real threat of COVID-19 - including more contagious strains recently identified in the Wichita area - and encourage them to weigh worries about the vaccine against the serious health effects of the disease itself.
Meanwhile, Kansas leaders must quickly identify glitches and fix the state’s troubled vaccine reporting system. Vaccination-rate rankings at or near the worst in the country and claims that 100,000 shots were given but not registered - that’s the stuff that can prompt even further doubt and distrust.
The good news: Wichita-area residents are starting to get vaccinated against the potentially deadly coronavirus. Their experiences, combined with a ramped-up campaign to share information and quell concerns about the vaccine, could finally put us on a road to recovery.
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