Stay focused on county issues
When Sedgwick County commissioners issue proclamations and give speeches on things they can do nothing about, they waste resources – and create doubt about whether they even understand what their jobs are.
So it’s regrettable, though hardly surprising, that at Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners likely will pass a resolution on the federal issue of illegal immigration.
Its first goal is for the Legislature to repeal the 2004 law enabling certain undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state universities.
Most of the hundreds of kids who benefit each school year were brought to Kansas by their parents; all have lived in the state for at least three years and earned a high school diploma or GED. It’s in the best interest of Kansans to give them a shot at an affordable college education and successful life. That’s why the Kansas Board of Regents, religious leaders and business groups all support the tuition law – and why attempts to repeal the law have all failed.
And if county commissioners wanted to make their dissenting view known, however futilely, why not do so in the legislative agenda they approve late every year? Why pass a resolution with that message in late June, when the year’s legislative business is finished except for a single-issue special session?
Or might Commissioner Karl Peterjohn hope to turn the applause he got for his provocative immigration comments at a recent Wichita Pachyderm Club meeting into votes in the Aug. 2 GOP primary against challenger David Dennis?
The other stated purpose of the resolution seems similarly political and pointless. Commissioners demand that the Brownback administration pressure the federal government to let Kansas limit Women, Infants and Children program participants to citizens and legal residents – or publicly explain why it won’t.
The county commissioners won’t give up their misguided desire to use immigration status to deny nutritional food and supplements to some of the low-income pregnant or breastfeeding women and babies in the county. The program, county-operated under a state contract but federally funded, has no immigration restrictions. WIC is considered an effective tool against infant mortality, which occurs at a higher rate in Sedgwick County than in the state.
Such official wading into state and federal issues distracts from Sedgwick County’s mission to assure quality public services. And it makes such use of the commission bench a legitimate target in re-election campaigns, which also would be better focused on county concerns.
This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 12:07 AM with the headline "Stay focused on county issues."