Cities have enough power in Kansas. It’s citizens who need more | Commentary
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” used to be part of civics and government classes. The concept of the rule of law, was fundamental to our republic so the citizens would know what was legal or not.
Today the provision that the “law be faithfully enforced” is disappearing, and the citizens’ ability to know and follow the law — whether it is city ordinances, county resolutions, state statutes or federal laws and regulations that are now so complex — that there is a joke in legal circles: “The feds could indict a ham sandwich” is now our mode of legal operation.
That is why it was distressing to read Russel Arben Fox’s recent commentary (“Why is it so easy to push cities around?” March 7). The column claims that Kansas cities lack necessary powers. For the past 60 years, Kansas cities have enjoyed constitutional home rule, which allows cities the ability to rewrite state law, or negate it, or avoid it by using their “home rule” constitutional powers.
The city of Wichita has enacted 233 charter ordinances to opt out of “non-uniform” state laws using these home rule powers. When I asked the Wichita city clerk’s office how many of these charter ordinances were in force today, I was told that I would need to make an open records request for this information.
Fox’s commentary neglected to mention the cities’ constitutional home rule powers. Every year, cities’ lobbyists and the League of Kansas Municipalities work hard to add more non-uniformity provisions to state law that will allow more “home rule,” city charter ordinances.
Additionally, Kansas counties enjoy statutory home rule powers that can transform some non-uniform state statutes. There also is a proposal to allow counties to add constitutional home rule powers in legislation pending at the Kansas statehouse.
A plethora of varying city charter ordinances creates a complex maze for citizens whereby crossing a street and stepping into another city changes the law — and perhaps changes it dramatically with the jurisdiction. This has always been true for state laws, but the idea that cities lack authority and power under the Kansas constitution and state law is wrong. And this complexity is a burden for the smallest minority group in Kansas: the individual citizen.
Cities currently enjoy the power under Kansas law to sue citizens for circulating petitions. I know because I have a case pending in the Kansas Court of Appeals as part of the effort to save Century II. This is the third municipal initiative petition that I have circulated in the last 30 years in Wichita, and it is the third time I have personally been sued for circulating a municipal initiative petition under Kansas law by the city of Wichita.
Cities have more than enough powers under current Kansas law. The citizens deserve statutory clarity, home rule reform, and should not need to make open record requests to find out simple information about their city charter ordinances that supersede state law.