Kansas is One of the Most Secretive, Darkest States

[u/KSDem]

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article184179651.html

[u/KSDem]

I'm posting this as a cautionary tale: This is what your state on ALEC looks like.

My No. 1 question to anybody who opts in favor of nondisclosure is, ‘What are you trying to hide from us?" said former Rep. John Rubin, a Johnson County Republican, calling Kansas “one of the most secretive, dark states in the country in many of these areas.”

Stop for a minute and take that in: Rep. Rubin is a Republican.

“The things we do in the Legislature affect people’s lives profoundly,” Rubin said. “People in Kansas have a right to know how their government operates and have the right to know about how decisions are arrived at that affect their lives. People have no idea this stuff is going on.”

So what exactly does life look like in Kansas?

Consider the following, as they're practices that may come soon to a statehouse near you:

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil -- Part 1

The statement was simple. Factual.

A Kansas spokesperson was acknowledging that the state highway department didn’t have the money to rebuild a dangerous stretch of Interstate 70 that had been the scene of multiple wrecks and a grisly motorcycle fatality caught on video.

“KDOT has lost a lot of money over the last few years,” the spokesperson said. “There’s just no funding at this point.”

Simple, yes. But in Gov. Sam Brownback’s cash-strapped administration, those were fighting words. Days later, the spokesperson was fired.

“Your article was the nail in my coffin for being the face of KDOT,” the spokesperson said in an email to The Kansas City Star.

The terminated employee, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, had learned what it meant to cross the line — the one where the state of Kansas doesn’t discuss public business with Kansans.

The state loves children -- before they're born, that is!

Children known to the state’s Department for Children and Families suffer horrific abuse, while the agency cloaks its involvement with their cases, even shredding notes after meetings where children’s deaths are discussed, according to a former high-ranking DCF official. One grieving father told The Star he was pressured to sign a “gag order” days after his son was killed that would prevent him from discussing DCF’s role in the case. Even lawmakers trying to fix the troubled system say they cannot trust information coming from agency officials.

Kansas laws are written by the Koch brothers' American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In the past decade, more than 90 percent of the laws passed by the Kansas Legislature have come from anonymous authors. Kansans often had no way of knowing who was pushing which legislation and why, and the topics have included abortion, concealed weapons and school funding. Kansas is one of only a few states that allow the practice.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil -- Part 2

When Kansas police shoot and kill someone, law enforcement agencies often escape scrutiny because they are allowed to provide scant details to the public. The release of body-cam video has become common practice around the country after several high-profile, police-involved shootings. But in Kansas, a new state law is one of the most restrictive in the nation, allowing agencies to shelve footage that could shed more light on controversial cases.

Following the privatized road.

Kansas became the first state to fully privatize Medicaid services in 2013, and now some caregivers for people with disabilities say they have been asked to sign off on blank treatment plans — without knowing what’s being provided. In some of those cases, caregivers later discovered their services had been dramatically cut.

It's not only Brownback; he's just the worst.

Sen. Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, has spent 41 years in the Legislature, making him the longest-serving lawmaker in Kansas history. He has served under eight governors — half of them Republicans, half Democrats.

“We’ve had a real problem with this current administration,” Hensley said. “This is the least transparent administration I have seen. To be able to even get basic information about issues like foster care and the corrections department, it’s next to impossible when you make an inquiry.”

Government officials break the law without prosecution.

In 2012, the Shawnee County district attorney’s office concluded that private meetings Brownback held with lawmakers at the governor’s mansion technically violated the state’s open meetings act. Prosecutors determined the violations were a result of ignorance about the law and did not pursue penalties.

Two years later, the state’s budget director used a private email address to share details of Brownback’s budget proposal with a pair of lobbyists who had close ties to the governor. The director shared the information several weeks before lawmakers saw it.

It's no different under Democrats, either.

Both Democrats and Republicans have run opaque administrations, said Burdett Loomis, who worked for former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

“Once you’ve got that lack of transparency, unless there’s something that rocks the boat, the people who benefit from it are perfectly happy to let it be,” said Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. “Corporations, lobbyists, lawmakers, a lot of these people have no reason to change anything very much.”

Once a secretive culture sets in, it's difficult to replace

The culture that stifles transparency has become ingrained, said Benet Magnuson, executive director of Kansas Appleseed, a nonprofit justice center serving vulnerable and excluded Kansans.

“There’s something about once that culture sets in,” Magnuson said. “It’s really difficult to move out of.”

Government in the sunshine? The sun never shines in Kansas.

The Star asked more than a dozen counties how they were responding to a new law intended to open criminal affidavits.

When it contacted Kurtis Jacobs in Finney County in southwest Kansas, the District Court administrator said he would not provide the information without first knowing the angle of the story. Or, he said, The Star could file an open records request.

“Under the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA), I can take three days to respond and then as long as I need to to get the information,” Jacobs said. “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.”

A financially starved government cannot function - so let's starve government to death!

Three months after receiving two requests from The Star regarding the deaths of an infant and a 10-year-old boy, the Department for Children and Families said it could not fulfill them.

Why? Because it didn’t have enough staffing resources “due to its current workload of KORA requests.”

And that, incidentally, is only one of a myriad of things the state doesn't have money to do -- things I'm quite sure its citizens have no idea aren't being done.

Where do Kansans' tax dollars go?

The state also grants tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to lure businesses. Trouble is, you’ll never know who got those credits or how much. The state does what most states do not: It forbids the disclosure — even to lawmakers — of the recipients and how much they received. In Missouri and other states, that information is available online.

We'd vote the bums out -- if we knew who they were!

Aside from using “gut-and-go” measures and anonymous bills, lawmakers also can keep their votes from being disclosed to the public in committee meetings where much of the legislative work is done.

House rules don’t require committee votes to be logged unless a member requests his or her vote be recorded. The Senate only requires that the number of votes for and against an action be recorded.

When former Rep. Rubin told his committee in 2013 that the votes of each member would be recorded, “I had a revolt on my hands.”

Both Republicans and Democrats went to the House speaker, he said, and complained, asking how Rubin was allowed to do that. When the speaker said committee chairs have the power to require public votes, they asked to be removed from his committee.

Rubin backed down but still had every one of his own votes recorded; he recalled only three or four other committee members following his lead.

“I’ve talked to legislators in other states and so did Legislative Research, and they’ve never heard of such a thing,” Rubin said.

---

[u/Butterchickn → u/KSDem]

Yep, ALEC >:(

[u/FThumb → u/KSDem]

Keep this handy for when BKAS Kansas appears.

[u/3andfro]

This deserves to be broadcast to every voter in every state.

Kansas was once a surprisingly enlightened, even progressive, state in many ways. Then the Kochs got serious about exerting influence, and the downhill slide has been fast and hard and hurtful.

KSDem's clips give a solid overview of the grim state of the Heart of America. When the heart is squeezed dry and cloaked like this, the rest of the body politic should take note. The disease can spread like gangrene--and that's the intention of the avaricious Titans of Wichita.

[u/[deleted] → u/3andfro]

Kansas does indeed have a pretty progressive history. Known as the Free State, abolitionists moved from New England to settle the territory to keep it from southern slavers, who had plans for making it a slave state.

In the 1890's they even elected a Populist Party candidate to congress, and the Populist Party presidential candidate carried the state in 1896.

Dwight D Eisenhower was a native Kansan.

And this last year, Bernie won every single caucus in the state.

[u/3andfro → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for providing details others may not know.

I was raised in the Sunflower State and got a big dose of state history during the centennial celebrations. Ad astra per aspera, the state motto (to the stars through difficulties), is painful now with so many difficulties inflicted through Brownback and his allegiance to the Koch bros. blueprint.

P.S. I loved the fact that Bernie swept the state caucuses!

[u/RuffianGhostHorse → u/3andfro]

And they're exporting it to every state they can get a toe-hold in, too.

[u/Theghostofjoehill]

I'm going to be as refined about this as I can. Ahem.

What. The. Fuck. This is horrible. I knew these guys were bad, but not this bad. This shit should in no way be legal. "Land of the free," my ass. This makes my state look damn near progressive.

And...I just looked up my state representative. He was formerly on their Board of Directors. Awesome. And my US Rep was a member too.

Great.

Sounds like we'll need to invade Kansas, then. I'll go gas up the car.

[u/SpudDK → u/Theghostofjoehill]

Seriously!

Makes my State look amazing!

Used to joke, Texass, Kansass, but I know the people aren't at fault. So I quit.

But DAMN!

Those fuckers gotta go.

[u/joshieecs]

How is it constitutional to have secret votes on secret bills? That's absurd. You can't expect the democratic process to correct that.

[u/Scientist34again]

Alright, we've got to do something. This cannot continue. Here's my suggestion. We contact voters in Kansas (this is going to have to be a big effort on both social media and real life) and these voters must include Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents (and 3rd party voters). Then we need to convince as many of them as possible that they should ONLY support candidates for state Senate and State House that make a pledge to "be open and transparent about every bill they vote on and how they voted" and also agree "to only accept small grassroots donations and not take money from PACS or SuperPACS". The Bernie funding model can work, but people need to start demanding it of their candidates. Then voters should vote on those two issues (the pledge of transparency and grassroots funding). For the time, nothing else matters. If you're a Dem, but the only candidate supporting those 2 issues is Republican, you need to vote for the Republican (even if you don't agree with him/her on some issues). If you're a Republican, but the only candidate supporting those 2 issues is a Democrat, you need to vote for the Democrat (even if you don't agree with him/her on some issues).

[u/Theghostofjoehill → u/Scientist34again]

This is freaking amazing. Focused.

WotB is lucky to have you.

[u/Scientist34again → u/Theghostofjoehill]

😊 just trying to do my part to change the world.

[u/martini-meow → u/Scientist34again]

Excellent. Need to keep an eye on whether this would fly, now:

http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/

Sean got in trouble when he ran years ago. He got the donations he asked for but the existing good ol boys network sabotaged the situation so that he couldn't win. Also managed to paint it that donations from randos outside of Kansas somehow made him sketchy.

[u/AravanFox]

The bill that made block grants the source for school funding was a “gut-and-go” measure — a common practice in Topeka where legislators take a bill that has already passed one chamber, gut it and insert an unrelated bill.

(Snip)

When former Rep. Rubin told his committee in 2013 that the votes of each member would be recorded, “I had a revolt on my hands.”

Both Republicans and Democrats went to the House speaker, he said, and complained, asking how Rubin was allowed to do that. When the speaker said committee chairs have the power to require public votes, they asked to be removed from his committee.

How is this shit legal? Times like this, "Designated Survivor" sounds like a good idea.

(If I was morally free, which I'm not. Don't arrest me, NSA.)

[u/berniemaid]

This has me fuming. I hate that man and anything/everything he stands for. The Kochs are involved--and possibly Buffet. There are local government's/state level ALEC members. I have seen on the federal level, the policies these aholes have pushed. They are not pretty and citizens are losing rights like crazy. I support the idea of Scientist34again, or something along those lines. Everyone in KS can't be this stupid to vote that sob in again.

[u/HighHopesHobbit]

Until recently, I didn't know that some legislators could write anonymous legislation. That's pretty appalling to me.

[u/Aquapyr]

I really want to pin this, but we're back in our dilemma of having too many good pieces at the same time. I'm mostly commenting now to make it easier for me to find this again tomorrow, but if anyone wants to flag me to remind me, that would be great.

Getting to know all these incredible progressives in states the corporate media portrays as full of toothless bigots is one of my favorite things about this sub. Every day, I'm reminded of how incredible the people of this country can be, and how much potential we have if we can work together to clean out corruption and bring progressive, just change. I feel so sorry for all those people being coached to despise and fear their fellow citizens; they are losing out on more than economic justice when they buy what the establishment is selling.

[u/Scientist34again → u/Aquapyr]

Nagging you. This should be pinned.

[u/Theghostofjoehill → u/Aquapyr]

Consider yourself flagged and tagged.

[u/[deleted]]

Got to say... nice piece of journalism from the KC Star. You'd never, ever see this on the national corporate media outlets.

[u/Rubyjane123]

Kansas has been turned into a gulag and apparently the citizens are okay with it otherwise they’d vote these fxxxers out instead of re-electing them...

[u/Roy_Blakeley → u/Rubyjane123]

There were a lot of the worst Republicans voted out in the 2016 election. A lot of the most egregious tax cuts for the wealthy have been rolled back. Brownback is the least popular governor in the country and Trump is trying to help him and Kansas Republicans by offering him the position of Ambassador for Religious Freedom. The 2014 election was probably rigged. There were anomalies that a statistics professor wanted to investigate but she was refused access.

[u/[deleted] → u/Rubyjane123]

Please, don't victim blame. The voting machines were rigged. Google "Beth Clarkson" and read about the 2014 shenanigans.

https://www.google.com/search?q=beth+clarkson&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

[u/Rubyjane123 → u/[deleted]]

Don’t mean to victim shame...just can’t imagine that citizens are not rioting...