Burdett Loomis: ‘The rest of story’ is more profound

Growing up, listening to 1950s AM radio, I’d regularly hear the breathless, distinctive Paul Harvey talk about “the rest of the story.”

This year in Kansas, despite the juicy if distressing headlines on the budget and taxes, the “rest of the story” is likely more profound and problematic.

First, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill that would explicitly subordinate the judiciary to the whims of Kansas lawmakers. The law (House Bill 2005) ties judicial funding to a bill changing the oversight of county judges and court budgets. Under the condition of “non-severability,” if one part of the budget bill is struck down, the entirety is, too.

In short, the Legislature has dared the court to rule against its policy or face losing funds.

Less well-publicized, but of great long-term significance, is the move Republicans made to bring spoils-system politics back to Kansas. For more than 120 years, the trend in American politics has been to emphasize neutral competence within the bureaucracy, in reaction to the machine-style politics of the 19th century, when the victor received the “spoils” – jobs, contracts, privileges – that flowed from winning elections.

Over the past 50 years, the administration of the state’s policies has been admirably free of partisanship. Scandals have been rare, and bureaucrats, despite their reputation, have striven to implement policies in fair-minded and efficient ways. Beyond cutting the size of government, which sometimes makes sense, Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-dominated Legislature have substantially reduced the number of “classified” jobs, those protected from the ebb and flow of partisan politics.

Over time, this means that the GOP can further implement its new-style spoils system, which emphasizes the loyalty of state employees to far-right and/or evangelical principles rather than requiring workers simply to do their jobs well. The governor and others argue that the state needs “flexibility” in hiring workers. Andrew Jackson and New York’s Boss Tweed would be proud.

The Legislature also fulfilled Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s wish to prosecute vote fraud. It is a real-life, power-grab solution to an imaginary problem.

Likewise, lawmakers moved local elections from April to November in odd-numbered years, pretty much to demonstrate they could. Such a change has little meaning, but when turnout doesn’t significantly improve, the push will come to change local elections to even-numbered years and make them partisan, per Kobach’s desire for even more GOP advantage at the polls.

In its budget fiasco, lawmakers imposed restrictions on local increases in property taxes, eventually producing a bill that decreed that they knew better than local officials how to forge community tax policies. These are, of course, precisely the folks who absolutely despise federal mandates on the states and who have fumbled the state’s tax policies.

Obscured by lengthy budget and tax battles, our governor and lawmakers politicized the bureaucracy, attacked the judiciary and reduced local control over voter fraud, elections and taxation.

As Paul Harvey breathlessly ended his broadcast: “Good day!” But not for Kansas.

This story was originally published June 26, 2015 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Burdett Loomis: ‘The rest of story’ is more profound."