The Kansas Senate on Tuesday approved Gov. Laura Kelly’s nominees to the Kansas Board of Regents despite reservations that two of them did not candidly answer a nomination questionnaire.
The Senate approved the nominations of retired BNSF Railway executive Carl Ice, former Kansas City Kansas Schools Superintendent Cynthia Lane and Lawrence attorney Wint Winter Jr. despite a turbulent process.
Ice was confirmed unanimously 38-0. Lane was confirmed on a 23-11 vote and Winter was confirmed on a 24-9 vote.
The vote came a day after Senate Republicans met in a closed meeting to discuss the nominees, although Senate President Ty Masterson had predicted they would pass.
The Senate president supported all of the nominees.
The nomination process was sidetracked after the three nominees were confirmed last year by the Senate Confirmation Oversight Committee.
Earlier in the session, the nominees were sent back to the Education Committee for more vetting. Only Ice emerged with a recommendation.
The committee withheld recommendations for Lane and Winter, who came under intense questioning from the Education Committee.
Republicans on the House Education Committee homed in on a question asking whether the nominee had a business in which they were an officer, director or partner who was a plaintiff or defendant in a civil lawsuit.
Winter said in the questionnaire that he had not been cited for breach of ethics or unprofessional conduct as well as named in a complaint to a court.
However, senators quizzed him about a 2017 consent order against Peoples Bank in Lawrence “for deceptive residential mortgage origination practices.”
Winter was previously CEO and co-chair of Peoples Bank, which according to the consent order told certain borrowers that they were paying an additional amount for discount points that would lower the borrowers’ interest rate.
The consent order said many borrowers did not receive a reduced rate, and the bank was ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution.
Winter said while he had been involved in litigation matters involving the bank, but it did not involve him personally.
In Lane’s case, she answered “no” to that question even though she was involved in the decadelong lawsuit over school funding in Kansas.
“I did not see that applicable to my answer,” Lane told the committee when discussing the schools’ lawsuit against the state.
Republican state Sen. Molly Baumgardner said she didn’t believe the nominees supplied the information that was sought by the application.
“When we are looking at the measuring stick, it is unfortunate that we had two nominees who could not be forthcoming in their application,” Baumgardner said.
“This is not a perfunctory process. We as a body are what we are willing to expect,” she said. “What do we expect from the next nominees?
“We expect them to fill out the application and be forthright, open, honest and thorough before they sign their name and they’re sent to our committee.
“Why would we accept an application that is inaccurate, incomplete that was submitted to this body – the Kansas Senate?”
Winter figured to have the toughest hurdle since he was saddled with a reputation of fighting conservatives through the Save Kansas Coalition and Republicans for Kansas Values.
Republican had questioned comments Winter had made in the past where he referred to abortion opponents as “bullies” and to former Gov. Sam Brownback’s supporters in the Legislature as “legislative lemmings.
Winter said Republicans for Kansas Values started in 2011 or 2012 and was made up of former members of the Legislature who were Republican.
He said the group was created to oppose former Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax policy that was blamed for crippling the state budget before most of it was reversed in 2017.
The Republicans for Kansas Values group, he said, came to an end when the former governor’s tax cuts were reversed.
The Save Kansas Coalition came about later as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit to raise money and incorporated a broader group of people.
State records show that Winter started the group along with former Senate President Steve Morris in 2016. The group had the same address as Winter’s law firm.
