Symbols or substance? Stone-bridge bill points to Legislature’s political tactics (+video)

Kansas lawmakers haven’t made much progress on school funding or the roughly $200 million budget deficit, but they’re rock-solid on stone bridges.

With the annual session now a week old, the only bill the Legislature has passed so far is a new state law to designate Cowley County as the Stone Bridge Capital of Kansas.

And even that seemingly innocuous measure – it passed the Senate 40-0 and the House 118-1 – was a decision nine months in the making.

It required two separate bills spread out over two legislative sessions. Originally introduced by a House Democrat, the bill got traction only after it had died in the House and was reintroduced almost verbatim by a Republican senator.

“Good old symbolic politics,” said Chapman Rackaway, professor of political science at Fort Hays State University.

He said measures like the stone bridge designation serve two purposes for politicians.

First, it gives them something to do while they wait for committees and leadership to handle major public policies like the budget.

But more important, it creates a reservoir of good will for the upcoming campaign, in case they do something later that their constituents might not like.

Rackaway said taxes, jobs and the economy are almost always the biggest issues for voters. But symbolic votes can help convince voters that their own legislator “is one of us and cares about the same things we care about.”

“If there is bad economic news on the horizon, you can soften that hit you take” by getting symbolic actions through the Legislature, he said. “Sometimes these symbols are really, really important things that mean a lot to the people of the district.”

Like Cowley County’s stone bridges. There are 18 of them, dating to the early 20th century, several of which still carry traffic.

People in Cowley County take pride in those bridges.

“On the main street of Winfield, you’ll notice that most of the old buildings were built out of the same stone that those bridges were built out of,” said Leo Carlin, who was born and raised in Wellington but moved to Winfield because he liked the more historic atmosphere of stone buildings and tree-lined brick streets.

“Having the old stone bridges being the most famous in Kansas is neat, really neat,” he said.

Desmond Kennedy, also of Winfield, said he has gone out to see several of the stone bridges east of town. The attraction for him is “just seeing the old architecture, things that were built a hundred years ago and have withstood a lot of use.”

From bill to law

Most Kansas counties can claim only a couple of stone bridges, if they have any at all. But as obvious as it might seem on the surface, Cowley County’s stone-bridge law took a very circuitous route through the Legislature.

It was first introduced on Feb. 4 by Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, as House Bill 2238. The bill passed the Local Government Committee two weeks later.

But it languished without a vote on the House calendar until March 4, when it was stricken from further consideration by a pass-or-fail deadline.

Six days later, Sen. Steve Abrams, R-Arkansas City, introduced Senate Bill 278, a measure virtually identical to Trimmer’s bill. It sailed through the Senate in two weeks.

Rackaway said he thinks the Republican-dominated Legislature did it that way to deny Trimmer a win that could resonate with voters back home.

Trimmer is perceived as one of the few legislative Democrats who could be vulnerable to a Republican challenge. He appeared to be behind his Republican rival on Election Day in 2014 but eked out a 17-vote victory once all the provisional ballots were counted.

“If a Democrat in a safer district had introduced it, I don’t know that they would have taken such drastic steps to deny him and then take it on themselves,” Rackaway said. “They don’t want to give Trimmer anything.

“I think it speaks to the level of discourse happening in the Legislature right now – it’s rather ugly,” Rackaway said.

Abrams said he didn’t know why the measure didn’t clear the House in the first place and that he didn’t have anything to do with blocking Trimmer. He said he introduced the measure at the urging of Cowley First, the county’s economic development department.

Cowley First wanted the designation as part of its effort to promote tourism and a stone-bridge tour series started by a local teacher, he said.

Trimmer did not return a phone message seeking comment.

More symbolic bills

Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University, said he expects to see more symbolic legislation this year because most lawmakers want to avoid a repeat of last year’s lengthy, contentious and politically damaging session.

In an election year, they could opt to just patch the budget as best they can and put off long-term issues, such as reforming school finance, until next year, he said.

That leaves room for legislators to introduce and have hearings on bills that would motivate Republican voters in a primary election, even if they don’t pass, he said.

Absent substantive legislative debate, he said, “nature abhors a vacuum.”

He predicted lawmakers will introduce several bills that “end up being more symbolic than not, just so they can talk about them” on the campaign trail.

Those measures could range from minor designation bills like stone bridges all the way up to proposals like banning abortions, he said.

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 7:49 PM with the headline "Symbols or substance? Stone-bridge bill points to Legislature’s political tactics (+video)."