Where Legislature is and how it got there

I recently talked to a national reporter who came to Kansas to cover the Legislature’s wrap-up session. He wanted to know how we arrived at our current Rubik’s Cube puzzle of revenue, funding and budget issues.

Here’s my story of how Kansas arrived in its current circumstances.

From the early 1970s until 2010, Kansas was governed by a loose, moderate-conservative coalition of legislators and governors who did a more-than-decent job of representing the wishes of the electorate. Major governmental obligations, such as education and highways, were funded adequately; the three-legged stool of income, property and sales taxes provided steady, if not opulent, revenues.

Were there major conflicts within the Legislature during this 40-year period? Of course. There were fights over education funding, tax levels, prisons, highway construction, abortion, universities, etc. But in the end, legislators deliberated, compromised and finished their work.

I’m not trying to paint some idyllic version of Kansas politics. A school-funding struggle raged in the courts for 10 years, eventually requiring a large infusion of cash. There were winners and losers, and the most conservative Kansans accurately viewed their interests as consistently under-represented.

Slowly, over the 1990-2010 period, the right wing of the GOP gained power, both within the party and inside the Legislature. But with Bill Graves, Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson occupying the Governor’s Office, moderate-conservative governance remained in place.

The 2010 off-year elections produced state and national Republican landslides. Sam Brownback and a far-right GOP majority won convincingly, more in response to President Obama and his health care legislation than statewide issues.

Although 2011 saw mostly symbolic issues move through the process, the 2012 session produced the set of major income tax cuts that profoundly affected the state.

In 2012, the governor and his allies campaigned vigorously against several moderate and conventionally conservative Republican senators, resulting in far-right chamber that matched the House over the next four years.

Revenues plummeted after 2013. Any number of stopgap, one-time fixes were adopted, including massive transfers from the state highway fund. Sales taxes were increased, but revenues continued to lag. Once again, the Supreme Court decided that K-12 education funding was constitutionally inadequate.

Finally, in the 2016 primary and general elections, something approaching the traditional moderate-conservative legislative membership was restored; lawmakers immediately faced the difficult, inter-connected problems of reduced revenues, $900-million in budget deficits, school funding and Medicaid expansion.

That’s the Cliff Notes version.

It took a lot of digging to get here. We’ve got a long haul to see daylight.

This story was originally published May 6, 2017 at 5:05 AM with the headline "Where Legislature is and how it got there."