Nobody denies that Kansans are in trouble. The state continues to lose money, scraping what it can from between the couch cushions at KDOT and KPERS. Hospitals are closing, leaving communities and patients without the health security they need. Schools are being squeezed by naive legislators who think lobbyists know what children need to succeed.

It is an old saw that all politics are local. It holds that, because voters vote on what matters to them (their backyard, usually) then the epicenter of political change begins in that backyard. It is why Presidential contenders eat corn dogs at state fairs.

Last week was a prelude to the next two weeks, where we are told to expect a flurry of bills and hearings and possible late nights. This shotgun approach is meant to both end the session early (a campaign bonus in an election year after last year's record long session) and to confuse and bewilder the public. “We are in trouble,” Rep. Rooker says of state’s financial condition - PV Post

This is the testimony we presented to oppose SB 311, a bill intended to strip the Kansas Department of Education of the administration of public school finances, transferring them instead to the Department of Administration, answerable directly to the Governor. However, before we could post this here, the chairman of the committee withdrew the bill, complaining bitterly about media reports and "vile emails" in opposition.

Kansas has a tax problem. Estimated revenues for the state are almost never met. Every month, what little budget there is gets undercut by shockingly low income. If the state does not take in enough in taxes to meet its obligations, who is to blame? Who owns the tax problem?

Last week, the Kansas House rejected a bill to encourage and enhance ethnic studies in Kansas public schools. On the surface of it, this would seem just more of the same reactionary, fundamentalist conservatism we see every day in our legislative leadership. But below the surface, there was more going on.

This is a critical day in the Kansas Legislature. We need to express our opposition to several bills, but especially HB 2457, the expansion of the tax-credit scholarship bill. This bill would make an already terrible law even worse, and put us on the path to fully funding private, religious schools.

Last week saw some incredible acts in the Kansas Legislature, some expected of a partisan legislative leadership, some shocking in their brazen flouting of the democratic process. Read on for the details.

We said it at the beginning of the session, and we reiterate it now, the big issues this year in the Kansas Legislature are public education, the Kansas budget, and expansion of the state's health care mismanagement. Under all of those lurks the specter of the independence of the judicial branch of state government, as we saw last week.