Shawnee Mission Times -- Local news...with the facts

Mission at center of another controversy
A debate brews in Mission over a real estate transaction involving the city and an old printing facility. Some think it could be illegal and just one of several questionable transactions. Last July, the Mission City Council met in an executive session - closed to the public - and approved the purchase of the former Neff printing facility. City administrator Mike Scanlon said over the past five years, the city has approved about two dozen purchases during executive sessions. They are possible unlawful transactions totaling in the millions of dollars. Nichols says a formal complaint has been filed with the district attorney over possible open meetings act violations.

Secretary of State: Kansas in Constitutional Crisis
Kansas is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the state’s chief election officer, said Wednesday. Candidates must decide by June 11 whether to run, or not to run. But they don’t yet know who their opponents might be, or which doors to knock on. Voters who are in the military, living overseas or won’t be in Kansas for the scheduled Aug. 7 primary elections are supposed to start receiving early ballots June 23, but they still can’t identify the district in which they live. Kansas legislators are the last in the nation to redraw the state’s congressional and state legislative districts to reflect population changes reported on the most recent U.S. census. They can’t seem to agree on how to do that. In fact, the lawmakers don’t even agree on why they don’t agree.

JOCO Election Commissioner Concerned about Primary Elections Limbo
Will the Senate resolve their redistricting flap? Brian Newby hopes so. Newby is Johnson County’s election commissioner, and he’s responsible for ensuring things go smoothly for the nearly 365,000 voters in his county. If the impasse is resolved by June 1, organizing the elections in the county’s more than 500 precincts will be tough, but manageable, Newby said. If not, preparing for state primaries on Aug. 7 could become a futile exercise. If that happens, “we’re beyond crisis,” Newby said. “We’re over a cliff.

Senate President Delays Redistricting Again!
With the balance of power in the Senate at stake and after an acrimonious meltdown in the Republican caucus, Senate President Steve Morris held off bringing the contentious issue of redistricting to a floor vote. Senate redistricting Chairman Tim Owens, R-Overland Park said, “Does anybody else have any questions about the map?” he said. “If you don’t I’m out of here. I don’t need to sit and listen to this kind of garbage.” Then he got up and left the meeting. Sen. Pete Brungardt, R-Salina, said the conservatives had “poisoned” the redistricting process in the Senate by announcing “they were going to take eight to 10 of us out” in the August Republican primary election. The House has passed a Senate map that is a variant of the conservative-leaning map called “For the People,” first offered by conservative Sen. Steve Abrams, R-Arkansas City. The Buffalo 30 map would keep the advantage for moderates, but was an effort to narrow the deviations and get district populations closer to ideal numerical distribution of voters. Several of the conservative senators demanded that Morris and Majority Leader Jay Emler, R-Emporia, be called to the caucus meeting to explain themselves. Morris said he and Emler were off by themselves “strategizing” over redistricting and the equally deadlocked issues of taxes and spending. “If they weren’t bold enough to come talk to us about a map, it’s very disconcerting to me,” said Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita. “And the fact that they were more willing to work with a Democrat vote than the majority of their own caucus bothers me.”

Kansas Senate Ok’s Foreign Courts Bill
A bill that would outlaw the use of foreign legal codes in Kansas courts — broadly written but particularly aimed at Islamic sharia law — is on its way to the governor. The final Senate vote, a lopsided 33-3.

Costs for extended KS legislature begin counting up
You know it’s bad news for your wallet when a plumber or electrician works overtime. The same is true for the Kansas Legislature. Lawmakers returned to work Monday after missing a 90-day constitutional limit for legislative sessions, costing taxpayers somewhere between $34,900 and $63,600 a day, Capitol number crunchers estimate. The higher number is about half the median cost of a home in Kansas, according the Kansas Association of Realtors. In the Capitol, though, the lower figure represents “paying salaries and subsistence to 165 state legislators,” said Jeff Russell, Kansas’ director of Legislative Administrative Services. “The $63,600 is the average cost per day when the session is in full swing," including the cost for seasonal and part-time clerical and support staff.

Brownback gets Liquor Bills
A wide-ranging set of bills that relax alcohol regulations in Kansas is headed to Gov. Sam Brownback, but they don’t include a controversial move to allow grocery stores to sell stronger beer and alcohol. The changes would:

Allow bars to offer happy hour specials.
Permit microdistilleries of liquor to sell and serve their products similar to the way microbreweries can.
Allow liquor stores to offer samples of beer, wine and booze.
Open the door for farm wineries where people could grow grapes, produce wine and sell it on site or take it to other locations, such as wine festivals, and allow people sampling wines to buy bottles on site. The House approved the bills Friday in a 97-24 vote.

KC Christian Siblings Co-Reign as State Tennis Champs
It took him three full sets and a tie-breaker, but Kansas City Christian freshman Johnny Goodwin wound up with a pretty special Mother’s Day gift for his mom Kristin last Saturday. But knocking off Eduardo Martelli, an Italian exchange student playing for Sterling High School, in the state 1A-3A tennis tournament, he made Kristin the mother of both the boys and girls reigning state 1A-3A tennis champs. Johnny’s sister Sara, a sophomore at KCC, won her title in the fall.

First Elite Basketball Camp Coming to Benedictine College

The Benedictine College Men's Basketball program will be hosting its first-ever Elite Player Development Camp on June 19-20 in the Ralph Nolan Gymnasium on the Benedictine campus. Camp registration begins at Noon on Tuesday, June 19, with the camp beginning at 1 p.m. The camp will conclude with an awards ceremony at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 20.

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Kansas doctors disbelieve Planned Parenthood claims

By Kathy Ostrowski

Planned Parenthood (PP) never misses a chance to misrepresent pro-life legislation for fund raising, so it is unsurprising what they’re telling national supporters about the Kansas Pro-Life Protections Act (introduced in February as HB 2598, now House sub 313).

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Kansas House delegation voices concerns with EPA regulation

Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins was joined by all three of her fellow Kansas House delegation members (Kevin Yoder, Tim Huelskamp and Mike Pompeo) in sending a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson requesting that Kansas be allowed additional time to comply with the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). The letter submitted to Administrator Jackson is in addition to legislation introduced by Pompeo (H.R. 4387), along with companion legislation introduced by Kansas Senators Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts (S. 2300). The letter language is included below.

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Shawnee Mission Area Senator in the middle of election flap

Shawnee Mission Times

State senator, Terrie Huntington, who represents Northeast Johnson County, is one of a few republicans that is joining forces with democrats to cause Kansas to have what Kansas Secretary of State says is a “constitutional crisis.”

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Editorial: So who is our Keeper, Mr. President?
Samuel Gregg

In case you missed it, President Obama visited the People’s Republic of Vermont in late March. It was, as the President reminded his adoring fans at a rally, the first time a sitting president had visited the land of Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Democratic Socialist) since 1995 (when another Democratic president was running for re-election).