The KC Star reports that Democratic Kansas Representative Sue Storm has filed for the 2nd district state school board seat currently held by Sue Gamble, who is now running for the state senate in the open 10th district.
Mary Ralstin has filed as a Republican for the state school board seat, but we fully expect her to endorse Storm and drop out.
We've been told that it's likely that a mainstream Republican challenger will file against Storm. If this candidate files, the person is one who will listen to all sides but, unlike Storm, will place the needs of students and parents as a top priority.
Storm will have a tough race if a solid Republican files against her -- the district voted 60% for Bush in 2004.
With each passing year, the Kansas Republican party's ranks become more, well, Republican; the resulting elections are better for both Republicans and for the voters. When liberals and conservatives do their election battles in the general elections, the idealogical differences are much clearer to the voters, and there are strong Republican coattails in most parts of Kansas.
While Rep. Storm is well-liked by both Democrats and Republicans and has meant well when voting, her long tenure in the state legislature has produced a record that is in lock-step with the NEA and consistently against the interests of students, parents, and taxpayers -- and sometimes against even the interests of teachers.
During the 2008 session in Topeka, Storm voted against legislation that would have encouraged teacher merit pay in government schools. Teachers unions regularly oppose efforts toward improving accountability within government schools, including pay-by-performance salary structures.
They're really calling it this? The "Patriot Tax"?
This tax just might have lost Kansas 3rd district Congressman Dennis Moore a percentage or two in the general election. The "Patriot Tax" is a half-percent increase in income taxes on Americans who make more than $500,000 a year.
In other words, it makes the tax code even less supportive of economic success. The people making $500,000 a year are the people employing those who make $75,000. This tax increase will cost American jobs. And Johnson County voters will pay attention to these types of votes.
Here's a demographic chart for the zip code 66208 -- parts of northeastern Johnson County.
32 House Republicans voted for this amendment.
Here is a Club for Growth press release about the farm bill that passed both houses of Congress by veto-proof margins and with the support of a majority of Republicans.
Only 15 U.S. Senators voted against the farm bill. Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts voted for the bill.
Until Republicans begin to vote to decrease government spending, they should plan on losing more seats in Congress.
Kansas Republicans Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt demonstrate that they understand one of the key reasons that the GOP is in the congressional minority: government spending. The two Republican members of the Kansas delegation to the U.S. House voted against the massive farm bill, while the majority of the Republican caucus embraced their minority status and voted for the bill.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representatives Dennis Moore and Nancy Boyda voted for the bill. Neither of them will have an easy general election race, and time will tell whether these were smart votes.
It passed by a veto-proof margin, 318-106.
Click here for the House roll call.
This video is from Women Influencing the Nation. Called "Kansas Rising," it is a 10-minute summary of the ongoing story of Kansas' unenforced late-term abortion laws.
Jack Cashill moderates.
The Wall Street Journal interviews Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
- "When I woke up after the election in November 2006," Mr. McConnell says, "I realized I was going to be the Republican leader and not the majority leader. That was the bad news." The one-time county judge continues: "The good news is that 49 is not a bad number in a body that requires 60. The United States Senate is the only legislative body in the world where a majority is not enough."
Sheila Frahm, the short-term moderate-to-liberal U.S. Senator, has been the president of the Kansas Association of Community Colleges since 1997. As it is with most taxpayer-funded lobbying jobs, there's not a lot to the KAACT job description: you get paid by the taxpayers to try to get more taxpayer money, while also opposing efforts by pro-taxpayer groups to increase government accountability.
It's now been reported that she wants to choose her successor.
The KAACT is only slightly more effective than the United Nations. And Johnson County Community College is the KAACT's United States. While each of Kansas' 19 community colleges is a paying member, JCCC pays around 20% of the budget but then gets only one vote.
In 2007, the Kansas Legislature addressed a real reality: the Board of Regents was ignoring technical education in the state. But rather than focus on the failure of the Board of Regents, the legislature unnecessarily added another "arm" to the Board of Regents (a "technical college authority"). The results of this legislation are not financially favorable to Johnson County Community College or the county's taxpayers.
Sheila Frahm was ineffective at preventing this bad legislation from becoming law.
Frahm is retiring soon, and JCCC President Terry Calaway reported at Tuesday's JCCC board meeting that Frahm wants to play a role in picking her successor.
Calaway and JCCC board chairman Lynn Mitchelson will be traveling to June's KAACT board meeting in Hutchinson to look after the interests of Johnson County taxpayers.
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And on a somewhat related note, here is Stephen Colbert's report on Russia's Vladimir Putin, who picked his successor:
The KC Star blog covers some recent pay raises given by the Johnson County commission to employees:
- At the top of the heap is County Manager Mike Press, who will earn $187,600 a year beginning Jan. 1. That’s a $10,585 increase, or a 6 percent raise.
Mike Press and County Chair Annabeth Surbaugh allowed the "soccer vote of 2006" to go forward to the ballot, but county commissioners never voted on the issue. Our understanding is that it's still unclear whether the process was legal, given that the bonds for the soccer issue were approved only by the county parks board, whose members are appointed by the county commission.
Even though 2006 was the year that some conservatives sat home while liberals came out to vote in large numbers, voters in 21 of the county's 22 cities rejected the soccer proposal. To look at it a different way, only 35% of Johnson County voters voted for incumbent Attorney General candidate Phill Kline, but 60% voted against the premium taxpayer-funded soccer stadiums.
Meet 10th district Kansas Senate candidate Mary Pilcher Cook.
