(Updated to clarify that the child welfare oversight committee was not placed back into the budget)
Former Democratic state Rep. Steve Crum became so angry over budget deliberations that he decided he wants to try to win back his seat in the Kansas House.
Crum posted a letter on Twitter over the weekend announcing his intention to run for the House District 98 seat now represented by state Rep. Ron Howard. Crum lost to Howard last fall by 130 votes, or 51% to 49%.
The Haysville Democrat criticized Howard for voting on a variation of the budget that would have removed money for hospitals and higher education.
The budget also would have deleted language creating an oversight committee on child welfare.
Crum said the cuts — which were restored in the final version of the budget — were intended to retaliate against lawmakers who were trying to block the spending plan to force a vote on Medicaid expansion.
The former lawmaker called that version of the budget a “tantrum proposal” in response to Republican leadership not getting its way.
“To me, that behavior is absolutely unacceptable,” Crum wrote in his letter posted on Twitter.
“Making decisions that change people’s lives based on your own desires, or worse on intimidation and fear, is the exact opposite of what we pledge to uphold in our constitution,” Crum wrote.
welfare system; the same system that has missing kids & worse yet, children in the program have been murdered. This is absolutely unacceptable. I am filing for the House seat in District 98 this week. I hope you will join and support. https://t.co/Aj3Vxc6t4B pic.twitter.com/QNnyuxjRtW
— Steve Crum (@stevecrum1) May 4, 2019
The budget proposal Crum referred to would have:
- Eliminated $12 million from higher education that had been in the first version of the budget for fiscal year 2020.
- Eliminated $14.2 million for the Health Care Access Improvement Program, which was created in 2004 as a way of encouraging providers to participate in Medicaid. The law allows Kansas hospitals to tax themselves an amount equal to 1.83% of the net revenue they earned from providing in-patient services in 2001. The change deleted a proposal to allow hospitals to raise that tax so they could draw down $250 million in federal funds.
- Eliminated $186,000 for salary increases at Larned State Hospital to reduce turnover and the number of vacant positions.
The money for hospitals and higher education was placed back into the budget. The child welfare oversight committee was not.
Crum could not be reached for comment for this story. But Howard said in an interview that the would-be challenger was spreading misinformation about the budget. Howard said the proposals that would have been deleted were above what the governor recommended in her budget.
Howard said in an interview there was no cut made to state services. He said the issue was still being debated in the Legislature and should not be considered a “cut.”
“How can you cut something that’s never been appropriated?” Howard asked. “We hadn’t finished the vote. It hadn’t been appropriated, so it isn’t there yet. That is an untruth.
“Once it gets approved and signed by the governor, then comes back and we cut it, then there’s a legitimate gripe.”
House District 98 covers parts of Sedgwick County that includes parts of Haysville and Wichita.
Thirty-two percent of the district is made up of Republicans, 25% are Democrats and 43% are unaffiliated.
Three years ago, Crum won the House with 53% of the vote in a district carried by President Donald Trump with 59% of the vote.
The district went for former Gov. Sam Brownback in 2014 and Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.
