Good morning:
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. As you might imagine, it wasn’t the busiest of weeks, but here are some notable news items that are worth catching up on, including the most significant stories we published last week plus anything you might have missed but need to know.
- Former Secretary of State Kris Kobach appears to be losing his shine with the president.
- Supporters of a constitutional amendment on abortion are trying to figure out the best time for putting the measure to a public vote, assuming it can get the two-thirds support it needs from the Legislature.
- A panel studying criminal justice reform recommended spending as much as $50 million on specialized prisons for substance abusers and geriatric inmates needing cognitive care.
- A retired Wichita teacher who has received national acclaim could be the state’s first transgender lawmaker, running in a district that leans Democratic.
- Two Democrats — one looking to make a comeback and the second seeking to fill Rep. Brandon Whipple’s seat — are making plans to run for the House.
Now onto other news:
Attorney general opines on freeze-dried remains
Yes, there is a new, and perhaps more environmentally friendly, way to dispose of your remains when you’re gone.
If you don’t like the idea of being buried 6 feet under or incinerated after you’ve left this world, there’s an emerging method where your remains are frozen in liquid nitrogen at minus-320 degrees and then shattered into powder.
The remains are then placed in a biodegradable container that later can become compost.
Last week, the attorney general’s office issued an opinion that said cryogenic shattering — otherwise known as promession — is not the same as cremation, raising the prospect that a law would be needed to authorize the process.
The attorney general concluded that cryogenic shattering is different from cremation because it does not “destroy or eliminate flesh or produce identifiable bone fragments.”
After reviewing a video of the process and examining the law, the attorney general’s office concluded that the method reduces the body into “crystallized body particles” with “no change in composition whatsoever.”
The attorney general’s opinion does not address whether the process would be legal under state law and regulations that govern the disposal of bodies. That’s up to the state Board of Mortuary Arts to determine.
The opinion was sought by Democratic state Rep. Dave Benson, who told The Kansas City Star he may introduce a bill allowing the process because of broad interest in different options for disposing of remains.
A constituent of Benson’s who represents the company exploring the idea of cryogenic shattering asked for the opinion.
While cremation is generally more environmentally friendly than embalming, where chemicals are used to preserve the body, there are implications to be considered.
Agreenerfuneral.org points out that cremation means burning fossil fuels and that some aging cremation facilities can consume more energy than newer ones.
“Mercury is also emitted when a person with dental amalgam fillings is cremated, but the development of effective filtration devices and the decline in use of dental amalgam fillings will eventually mitigate this problem,” the website notes.
If all of this is not too morbid for you on a Sunday morning, here are a couple videos on the topic, including one produced by National Geographic.
Promession explainer
National Geographic explainer
Iowa sports betting results
If you want some sense of what sports betting might produce for Kansas, keep an eye on neighboring Iowa. The two states are of comparable sizes, which might give you an idea about how sports betting would fare here if it’s authorized next year.
Iowa has now completed two full months of sports betting, plus two weeks of wagering in August.
So far this year, there’s been about $93.6 million in bets placed, of which about $51.4 million has been online.
Net revenue for the year in Iowa so far is about $12.8 million. What that means for the state in taxes: about $861,000.
There was some increase in October over September.
About $46.5 million in sports bets were placed in October, up from $38.5 million a month earlier.
Net revenues increased to $5.6 million in October from about $5 million in September. State taxes were about $381,000 in October, an increase of about $47,000 from September.
Iowa is now bringing in an average of $357,000 a month in state taxes (not counting August), putting it on track to bring in more than $4 million for the fiscal year.
Indiana sports wagering results
Indiana has a much bigger population than Kansas, but here’s how another Midwestern state has been doing with sports wagering.
In October, Indiana recorded almost $92 million in sports bets, up from $35.2 million during the first month.
So far this year, there has been approximately $127.2 million in sports bets in Indiana, compared to about $93 million in Iowa, which has about half the population.
The state’s share so far? About $1.9 million over two months, which would put Indiana on pace for bringing in about $12 million for the year.
This statistic will prove to be seasonal, but most of the bets placed so far have been on football. The handle for football has totaled $63.5 million so far this year, compared to $14 million for baseball and $6.3 million for basketball.
Sleeping judge
The Kansas Supreme Court last week upheld the convictions of a Sedgwick County man, even though the trial judge dozed off during the proceedings.
Daquantrius Johnson had been convicted in Sedgwick County District Court of criminal possession of a firearm, aggravated assault and felony criminal discharge of a firearm. He was sentenced to 43 months in prison with 12 months of post-release supervision.
The Court of Appeals reversed Johnson’s convictions and sent the case back for a new trial, ruling that the trial judge “nodding off” on the first day of trial was structural error. The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court ruling.
A juror observed that Judge Ben Burgess may have been sleeping and nodding off on the opening day of Johnson’s trial and questioned whether Johnson could receive a fair trial.
At the time, the judge addressed the concern in open court, but Johnson did not object to continuing with the trial or move for a mistrial.
A majority of the appeals court panel drew an analogy between the “nodding off” judge in Johnson’s trial and a judge who is absent from the trial for a period of time.
“Even if we were to accept the panel’s view that a physically absent judge is always structural error, we reject the way the lower court equated what happened during Johnson’s trial with a physically absent judge,” Justice Caleb Stegall wrote in the unanimous opinion for the court.
Stegall said that while a transcript of the proceedings does not indicate exactly when the judge dozed off, “it also does not show any lapses of judicial oversight during the window of time in question.”
“Given this, it is not reasonable to equate the trial judge’s nodding off to the facts of the cases relied on by the panel—all involving a judge who physically left the bench.”
Stegall said that while the judge’s inattention appeared serious, “it was not so significant or serious to either show up in the transcript or generate objections from the parties.”
“We cannot say the district court judge so abdicated and abandoned his judicial responsibilities that he was effectively absent from the courtroom. As a result, Johnson’s trial did not suffer from structural error.”
Moran’s traffic control legislation
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran is cosponsoring legislation to encourage retired Federal Aviation Administration traffic controllers to work at traffic control towers staffed by private companies.
The bill would remove a financial obstacle that keeps FAA air traffic controllers from working at 256 so-called contract towers nationwide, including eight in Kansas.
There are contract towers in Garden City, Hutchinson, Manhattan, Salina, Olathe and 
Topeka.
Contract towers are generally less expensive to run than similar FAA towers, primarily because of lower staffing and salary levels. They cost on average about $1.5 million less to operate than an FAA tower, a 2012 audit showed.
FAA controllers must retire at 56. They are penalized for continuing to work as controllers at federal contract towers. The bill would eliminate that penalty.
Because the mandatory retirement age is earlier than normal, FAA controllers are included as a “special group” under the Federal Employees Retirement System.
They pay an additional 0.5% of their yearly salary into a special retirement annuity account. In return, they receive an annuity payment during the mandatory retirement period from 56 until the Social Security minimum retirement age of 62.
The retired controller’s special annuity payment is incrementally reduced if they earn more than the Social Security earnings limit of $17,640 annually.
Estes & savings bonds
U.S. Rep. Ron Estes joined with three other House members to introduce a bill requiring the U.S. Treasury Department to transfer all records and ownership of unclaimed, matured savings bonds to the states to find the owners and heirs of the bonds.
“For decades, the federal Treasury Department has held people’s matured savings bonds without returning them to the legal owners or heirs, including nearly $210 million in unclaimed bonds owed to Kansans,” Estes said in a statement.
The legislation, he said, will ensure that states can access Treasury Department records and return matured, unclaimed savings bonds to their legal owners.
Currently, there are more than $26 billion worth of decades old, matured, unclaimed United States Savings Bonds sitting in the U.S. Treasury, a number that has grown by roughly $10 billion in the last six years, Estes said.
While states often make efforts to return unclaimed property, the federal government hasn’t given states access to the records needed to return savings bonds, he said.
Since 1952, states have asked the federal government to release the names and addresses of those individuals so they could be found and notified of their unclaimed bonds. Recently, states, including Kansas, have initiated litigation to obtain the records from the Treasury Department.
Estes is sponsoring the legislation with Democratic Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois and Republican Reps. William Timmons of South Carolina and Ben McAdams of Utah.
Food taxes
The KC Star/Wichita Eagle reports that Gov. Laura Kelly’s tax reform commission is moving toward recommending the restoration of food sales tax rebates that were wiped off the books in the 2012 when former Gov. Sam Brownback signed tax cuts into law. It might be a more affordable alternative to an across-the-board cut in the sales tax. A one-cent reduction in the sales tax on food costs the state about $60 million.
Judicial appointment
Gov. Laura Kelly last week appointed Magistrate Judge Christopher D. Sanders to the district court vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Michael Quint in the 25th Judicial District.
Sanders has been a District Magistrate Judge for Finney County since late 2004, where he presides over civil docket cases.
Sanders is also active in the community, serving on the board of the Garden City Rotary Club. He graduated from Wichita State University in 1982 and from Washburn University School of Law in 1990.
The other nominees sent to the governor were Kristi M. Cott, assistant county attorney for the Finney County Attorney’s Office, Garden City lawyer Richard L. Marquez and Brian R. Sherwood, assistant/deputy county attorney for the Finney County Attorney’s Office.
The 25th Judicial District covers Finney, Greeley, Hamilton, Kearny, Scott and Wichita counties.
Other Kansas political news
- State Sen. Vic Miller is charged with drunk driving stemming from a crash last May.
- An activist lodged an ethics complaint last week against Olathe City Council member and former state Sen. Karin Brownlee as tensions build over the ongoing debate about whether the city should adopt a nondiscrimination ordinance.
- Kansas could lose millions in parks revenue because heavy rains from last spring led to closures that turned away tourists.
