A legislative session that heads in the right direction

We knew this much: It was going to be an unusual Kansas legislative session.

Gains by moderate Republicans in last August’s primaries were combined with nine seats picked up by Democrats in the November general election. It created essentially three blocks of legislators: conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans and Democrats.

“The legislature’s going to be a much different place in 30 days,” House minority leader Jim Ward (D-Wichita) said on election night.

It was. Needing to tackle a $350 million budget gap without pre-session cuts from Gov. Sam Brownback, the legislature convened in January and immediately took up the issue of rolling back the 2012 tax cuts championed by Brownback.

Five months later, after many tries and a Brownback veto, both houses found enough votes for an override and an end to the governor’s experiment.

The override became the defining moment of the 2017 session, a moment that needed to happen to get Kansas back on the path to common-sense governance. It took cooperation and patience, two qualities often lost in a session reaching triple-digit days.

The tax increase will raise $1.2 billion over two years, yet create a three-tier formula that’s still lower than 2012 tax levels. A disappointing aspect is that spending cuts weren’t a part of the plan. No matter the size of a budget, there should always be a good-faith effort to look for ways to make government more efficient.

There may be more work to be done. Legislators hope their new school-finance formula, which will raise an estimated $485 million over two years, will be enough to convince the Kansas Supreme Court that the legislature did its job in making the formula constitutional. A quick session may be needed if the court kicks it out.

Larger districts, such as Wichita’s, say school funding still isn’t enough. Even if it’s not, the court may give lawmakers credit for a step in the right direction. There were a few of those this session.

This story was originally published June 27, 2017 at 2:45 PM with the headline "A legislative session that heads in the right direction."