Davis Merritt: Ending legislative battiness a top priority

Four improbable, noxious and even batty things that couldn’t have happened in Kansas eight years ago – and shouldn’t be happening now:

▪  The Legislature is likely to make discriminating against gun dealers illegal. If you are, say, a bank owner who doesn’t want a gun-dealer customer, he or she could sue you – and even collect attorney fees from you. Perhaps you have religious beliefs about not facilitating violence, or political reasons or simply individual preference. Such things don’t matter. And this is the same Legislature that refuses to prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian people but wants to pass laws allowing anyone to discriminate on the basis of religious beliefs.

▪  Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee, wants to deny welfare benefits to recipients who win more than $10,000 on the lottery.

▪  A bipartisan group of legislators wants a Kansas constitutional amendment establishing the right to fish, hunt and trap. Rep. Adam Lusker, D-Frontenac, believes that “Kansas will be affected by a push from the coasts to limit what we can do in regard to wildlife.” If it passed, he claimed, Kansans faced with federal regulations they don’t like would be able to say, “Hey, we have our constitutional rights.” But it’s simply another symbolic iteration of the anti-federalist conceit that state constitutions trump all other rights. So the Civil War settled nothing, at least not in Kansas.

▪  Sen. Mitch Holmes, R-St. John, embarrassed himself and all Kansans by unilaterally decreeing that women appearing before his committee avoid “low-cut blouses and miniskirts.” No instructions for male dress accompanied his declaration, which he quickly rescinded. Just another 19th-century solution in search of a 21st-century problem, because most everyone understands that someone dressing in a clown suit to read the Gettysburg Address may simply be ignored. Unless, of course, clown suits are a turn-on.

And all of that was just the first couple weeks of this new legislative session.

This is supposedly not a budget session (Kansas uses two-year budgets and this is an “off” year). Besides, no one in Topeka can possibly think of any reason why the present budget needs attention.

This foolishness has to stop, and its perpetrators must be replaced.

Only voters can do that. It’s no longer a matter of Democrats versus Republicans versus independents. Those traditional, comfortable and once-defining labels are not useful in sorting out Kansas’ present political state or its future. Those labels convey nothing.

But the electoral mechanics have not changed: Most state and local elections are decided not in November but in August party primaries.

When most candidates bear the Republican label but hold very differing beliefs, there is only one way for concerned citizens, including Democrats and independents, to regain control: Register as Republican for the primary (you can quickly change back) and then, along with moderate Republicans, find out what the legislative candidates actually stand for and vote against the battiest of them, including incumbents.

This would temporarily fracture the two-party system and discomfort Democratic Party leaders, but before we can heal, the immediate foolishness must end and its perpetrators must be dismissed.

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Davis Merritt: Ending legislative battiness a top priority."