Capitol Beats: Rumors of governor’s departure swirl in Week 8

Check this spot on Sundays for a few quick hits about what’s driving the debate in the Legislature.

Say what?

“Did they just wake up and realize we have a crisis in schools? That’s the frustration. You’re just like, ‘Do you want to work in July? Is that what the goal is?’ ”

House Minority Leader Jim Ward, D-Wichita, on Senate leadership forming a committee to create a new school funding formula

“I’m going to have to Google ‘no comment’ in Italian.”

Eric Teetsel, Family Policy Alliance of Kansas president, when asked about reports his father-in-law, Gov. Sam Brownback, would take an ambassadorship in Rome

“If there’s any way that you can clarify where, in any type of religious scripture, carrying a firearm is listed as an inherent right, that would help me. I was raised Catholic and we didn’t get that.”

Rep. Stephanie Clayton, R-Overland Park, to a Kansas State Rifle Association representative during a campus carry hearing

25

Investigative files on cold cases where the person has been missing for at least 25 years would be open to records requests under a bill in the Senate that passed in a committee last week. The documents would need to be at least 15 years old.

Trending

Is Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on the way out? That was the question buzzing around the Statehouse after a Kansas Public Radio report on Wednesday said he was in line to become the ambassador to the United Nations for Food and Agriculture in Rome. His office said in a statement that the governor was focused on working with lawmakers to balance the budget and pass a new school funding system. Brownback would not comment on the report Thursday after he returned to Topeka from viewing wildfire damage and relief efforts. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said Friday he thought “the governor and his folks have decided to fly” a trial balloon, when news is released prematurely on purpose to judge the reaction.

Earlier in the week, Brownback’s tax plan was soundly defeated in the Senate.

News ahead

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to take final action Monday on the governor’s spending plan. That bill, the substitute for HB 2052, would freeze contributions to the state’s retirement system and delay $75 million in K-12 spending.

The House Federal and State Affairs Committee will also hear testimony Thursday on a resolution that recognizes pornography as a public health hazard with a broad range of societal harms.

The Eagle’s new Statehouse reporter, Jonathan Shorman, begins work Monday. Shorman previously covered Kansas politics at the Topeka Capital-Journal.

For more legislative news, go to www.kansas.com/politics.

This story was originally published March 11, 2017 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Capitol Beats: Rumors of governor’s departure swirl in Week 8."