Republicans trying to bring Chiefs to Kansas have some powerful foes: conservatives | Opinion

So the Kansas GOP establishment is all-in to bring the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line from Missouri, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

It’s true that Republican leaders in the Kansas Legislature have enthusiastically laid out a welcome mat for the Super Bowl champs. House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson this week released their letter to Clark Hunt, announcing their support for an effort to use STAR bonds to subsidize the gazillion-dollar cost of a new football stadium.

“With the potential for a substantial return on investment, far surpassing the initial outlay, it also promises to be a victory for Kansas taxpayers and a game-changer for our state’s economy,” the two men wrote.

Meh.

Team owners routinely promise economic extravaganzas when campaigning to have the public build them new stadiums. Those promises usually don’t pan out.

That’s just common knowledge at this point. You can’t blame team owners for making the argument anyway, but you do have to wonder about the wisdom of elected officials who know the evidence, or should, and still line up to give away government support.

It’s not just Hawkins and Masterson, though.

Scoop and Score Inc. — a group pushing the Kansas effort — is headed by another prominent Republican, former Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman, along with his onetime chief of staff, Paje Resner.

Add it all up, and there’s some powerful GOP muscle behind the effort to make Kansas a major league state.

But that’s not the whole story.

There are skeptical signals and outright opposition coming from two prominent conservative/libertarian think tanks — the Kansas Policy Institute and Americans for Prosperity, both connected to billionaire power broker Charles Koch. And that means the Chiefs debate might not play out along the usual right-left lines.

‘Sweetheart deals for developers’ with taxpayer money

The campaign is playing out on social media, naturally.

Americans for Prosperity-Kansas made its opposition clear again this week in a Facebook post urging supporters to oppose “sweetheart deals for developers.” It was the group’s fourth anti-stadium post in the last month, on top of a flurry of posts on social network X from AFP lobbyists Michael Austin and Elizabeth Patton.

“FLAG ON THE PLAY!” AFP said Wednesday. “Some lawmakers are more focused on putting Kansans on the hook for BILLIONS in stadium subsidies rather than being laser-focused on delivering meaningful tax relief.”

The Kansas Policy Institute weighed in mid-May, with a piece on its website explaining “how stadium subsidies undermine taxpayer interests.”

“Of course, many Kansans support the Royals or the Chiefs. These sports teams are part of the community and should be celebrated,” wrote Vance Ginn, a consultant who served as a budget official in Donald Trump’s White House.

But, he added, “they’re private businesses, and subsidizing their operations from the paychecks of someone in Edwardsville or Ellis County hardly seems appropriate.”

Well, exactly.

So here’s something you won’t hear me say very often: The right-wing think tanks are right.

You don’t have to delve too deeply into the intricacies of STAR bonds to understand the bottom line that Kansas taxpayers would indeed be “on the hook” for the stadium costs. They shouldn’t be.

And you don’t have to have an MBA to understand that it’s simply dumb for Kansas to get into a bidding war with Missouri to move the team a few miles one way or the other. Especially if it’s still not clear when or if Missouri will get into the bidding, too.

The think tank opposition — especially from the powerful Americans for Prosperity — means this fight might not look like the typical, dreary Republicans-versus-Democrats battle we’re so used to seeing in Topeka. Instead, it could well be hashed out along intramural lines within the GOP.

Hawkins and Masterson are going on offense to steal the Chiefs from Missouri. Are they ready for the prevent defense to come from their own sidelines?

Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.

This story was originally published June 7, 2024 at 5:02 AM with the headline "Republicans trying to bring Chiefs to Kansas have some powerful foes: conservatives | Opinion."