Good morning everyone:
We’re trying to get this out to you early today, because we know at about 2 p.m. no one will care about politics — or at least they shouldn’t. If you’re reading this during the Chiefs game, we suggest you put this down and come back to it in a couple hours. We like your readership, but for now, the Chiefs need your support.
The 2020 legislative session got off to a swift start last week with Republican lawmakers moving at light speed to pass a constitutional amendment reversing last year’s state Supreme Court ruling that found the right to an abortion was protected by the state constitution.
The governor’s plan for refinancing payments to the state’s retirement system is already under fire, and three candidates were recommended to the governor for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Let’s get started with the significant stories that we published last week and move onto news you may have missed but need to know…
- Wichita businessman Wink Hartman said he’s about 90% sure he’s running for governor in 2022.
- Gov. Laura Kelly’s approval rating took a slight dip but is still substantially higher than it was in early 2019 after she was sworn in.
- A constitutional amendment was introduced last week that would reverse the state Supreme Court’s ruling that found the right to an abortion was protected by the state constitution. The issue could be decided in two weeks.
- Attorney General Derek Schmidt last week introduced legislation that would ban e-cigarettes and vaping at most public indoor locations.
- Three candidates were recommended to the governor for a seat on the state Supreme Court, replacing former Chief Justice Lawton Nuss.
- A new study out last week said that state incentives intended for repopulating rural Kansas counties are failing.
- Secretary of State Scott Schwab said last week he would not make a decision about bringing back a controversial database for detecting voter fraud until a federal lawsuit in Indiana has been resolved.
- The board that oversees the state pension system is not very excited about Gov. Laura Kelly’s plan to restructure state payments into the system.
- Top takeaways from Gov. Laura Kelly’s State of the State address.
- A fundraising roundup for state House candidates in 2019.
- A fundraising roundup for state Senate candidates in 2019.
Kelly fundraising
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly hasn’t officially announced she’s running for a second term, but she’s raising money like someone who plans to be on the ballot in 2022.
Kelly reported raising about $586,000 during 2019, more than either of what the last two Kansas governors raised during their first year in office.
The governor had about $470,000 in the bank at the end of the year.
By comparison, Sam Brownback raised about $247,000 in 2011, the first year of his term as governor.
However, Brownback ended the year with a $439,000 in the bank, largely because he started 2011 with $408,000 following a decisive election victory in 2010.
Kelly also raised more last year than what former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius pulled in during her first year in office.
In 2003, Sebelius raised about $442,000, some $144,000 less than what Kelly raised in year one. Sebelius finished 2003 with about $173,000 on hand, nearly $300,000 less than what Kelly has on hand after her first year.
New poll numbers out last week showed Kelly enjoying an approval rating of 50% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
It’s down a little from the third quarter but up overall from where she started in the first quarter at 43%.
Kobach loans forgiven
Wichita businessman Wink Hartman has written off more than $2 million in loans he gave to Kris Kobach’s unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor.
Kobach’s latest state campaign finance report shows that Hartman has forgiven $2.4 million in loans to the campaign.
The Kobach campaign finished 2019 with about $3,500 in the bank.
Hartman’s loans helped carry a Kobach campaign criticized for its inability to raise money.
Hartman said in an interview last week he never expected the money to be returned.
“I never intended from day one to get repaid,” he said.
“My wife and I decided we thought it was a good investment for our views and our opinions about how to work in the state government,” he said.
“It was an investment, and I wrote it off.”
Other statewide officeholder fundraising
Here’s a rundown of how the other statewide officers did in fundraising in 2019.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt
Amount raised in 2019: $81,148
Amount on hand on Dec. 31: $243,790
Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt
Amount raised in 2019: $28,400
Amount on hand on Dec. 31: $38,979
Secretary of State Scott Schwab
Amount raised in 2019: $8,900
Amount on hand on Dec. 31: $12,490
Treasurer Jake LaTurner (running for Congress)
Amount raised in 2019: $96
Amount on hand on Dec. 31: $18,579
Davids’ new campaign manager
Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids has hired a new campaign manager to oversee her 2020 reelection campaign.
The congresswoman has hired Han Jones, a Democratic operative who has worked in Virginia and Wisconsin.
Jones most recently ran the state Senate race of Democrat Amy Laufer in Virginia, according to her Facebook page.
Laufer lost that race to Republican Bryce Reeves by a little more than 2,000 votes, 52% to 48%.
Jones also worked as the former regional field director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party and as a campaign organizer for the Virginia Democratic Party.
Jones replaces Danny McNamara, who presided over Davids’ historic election campaign in 2018 when she defeated Republican Congressman Kevin Yoder.
McNamara returned to Virginia last year to help a member of the state’s House of Delegates campaign for the state Senate.
Ethics Commission drops dark money complaint
The Kansas Ethics Commission has backed off its insistence that a dark money group that supported Kris Kobach in the governor’s race file disclosure reports.
The commission last week sent a letter to the lawyer for Per Aspera Policy acknowledging that the group was not required to file disclosure reports stemming from the ads it ran on Kobach’s behalf during the 2018 governor’s race.
“After further review of the communications of which we are aware, it appears that no express advocacy, as currently interpreted by our commission based upon Kansas statute, occurred in the space of those advertisements,” said the Jan. 13 letter from Mark Skoglund, executive director for the Ethics Commission.
Skoglund told Per Aspera’s lawyer, Trevor Stanley, that the group had no obligation to register as a political action committee or report its donors and expenditures.
At the end of last month, the Ethics Commission instructed organizers of Per Aspera Policy to either file an independent expenditure report or a statement of organization as a political action committee.
The group spent $30,000 on an ad for Kobach on Kansas City’s ABC affiliate, KMBC. The Kansas City Star reported last fall that Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel contributed to the 501(c)4 group.
A lawyer for the group said the Ethics Commission erred in its letter.
Stanley said the group was not required to register as a political action committee because it never spent money that expressly advocated the nomination, election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.
Under state law, groups “expressly advocating” for a candidate must report their expenses and donors if their communications use a series of specific catchwords or phrases, such as “Smith for Senate” or “Sam Jones in ’18.”
The law says the definition is not limited to those phrases, but over the years the Ethics Commission has adhered to them after a federal court ruled in 1999 that ads or mailers couldn’t be taken as a whole in defining “expressed advocacy.”
Senate popularity
Morning Consult’s new poll numbers last week showed that the approval ratings for U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts dipped a little last quarter.
Moran received support from 40% of those polled in the fourth quarter compared to 42% in the third quarter, Morning Consult’s results showed.
His disapproval number was at 29%, which was unchanged from the second quarter of the year and 1 percentage point worse than the first quarter of 2019.
Moran’s highest approval rating in the Morning Consult poll was 51% in the first quarter of 2017.
Roberts, who is retiring after this year, had an approval rating of 37%, one point down from the third quarter but two points better than the first quarter.
His disapproval rating in the fourth quarter was 35%, which is about where’s he’s been throughout the year.
Morning Consult’s survey showed that Moran and Roberts are generally popular among Republicans but not so much Democrats and independents.
Moran had a net approval rating of 45 percentage points among Republicans but was at a minus-24 points among Democrats. He was dead even with independents.
Roberts’ net approval rating was 35 percentage points among Republicans but was minus-34 points with Democrats and minus-8 with independents.
Capitol grill update
Yes, you still can’t buy food on the first floor of the Capitol.
While construction on the new snack bar was completed late last year, it is still not ready to open.
The Department for Children and Families (an unlikely source for snack bar information) reports that equipment is still being installed.
DCF spokesman Mike Deines said the snack bar is waiting on a second order of equipment to arrive.
“We’ll have a better sense of an opening date once the equipment arrives and make a determination of how long it will take to get through installation and everything else that goes along with opening a food service operation,” he wrote.
The new snack bar will be located on the first floor of the Capitol underneath the colonnade across from the vending machine area.
The snack bar is overseen by the Business Enterprise Program, which is a division of DCF. The program offers people who are legally blind the opportunity to manage food service and vending operations in government facilities.
The menu for the snack bar includes cinnamon rolls, toast, bagels and cream cheese, cookies, muffins, hard-boiled eggs, tuna salad, chicken salad, hummus and veggies, hummus and pita bread, turkey sandwiches, hot dogs, pizza slices, ice cream and espresso beverages.
New Moran staffers
A couple of familiar faces from political circles in northeast Kansas are joining U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran’s staff.
Moran has hired Susan Metsker, an aide to former Congressman Kevin Yoder, and former Johnson County Commissioner Jason Osterhaus.
Metsker and Osterhaus will work as district representatives serving northeast Kansas.
Metsker will primarily work on behalf of constituents interacting with federal agencies.
Osterhaus will serve as a contact and representative at community events and meetings for Shawnee, Douglas, Wyandotte, Miami, Lyon, Ottawa, Osage, Jackson and Jefferson counties.
Metsker worked as a district representative for Congressman Yoder for eight years.
She also served for 12 years on the Shawnee Mission School Board and is now on the board of directors for Inclusion Connections, a nonprofit that helps individuals with developmental disabilities.
Osterhaus was on the Johnson County Commission for eight years. He lost a bid for reelection to the commission in 2018.
He is a former board member of the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault.
As an Eagle Scout, Osterhaus is the former chair of the Shawnee Trails Boy Scout Nominating Committee.
He graduated from Park University with a degree in communications.
Metsker and Osterhaus will join State Director Alex Richard and District Representative Michele Payne in representing the northeast region of Kansas in the Olathe office.
Iowa’s abortion amendment
The Kansas Supreme Court wasn’t the first in the country to find that the right to an abortion is protected in the state constitution.
A year before the Kansas court ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court found a similar right in that state’s constitution as well.
Now, the same battle that is about to play out in Kansas has already started in Iowa with a proposed constitutional amendment introduced to ensure there is not a right to an abortion in the Iowa Constitution.
Here’s last week’s coverage from the Des Moines Register, The Associated Press, the Sioux City Journal and the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
U.S. Senate forum
There’s been some buildup toward what is expected to be the first debate in the U.S. Senate race when the state Republicans hold their annual convention at the end of the month. But maybe the first debate already sort of took place.
Last week, Lyon County Republicans staged a forum that was attended by former Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Senate President Senate Susan Wagle and Republican socialist Brian Matlock. Eric Pahls stood in for his boss, Congressman Roger Marshall.
KVOE radio did interviews with all four candidates who attended the forum. Here’s what the candidates told the radio station afterward.
Kelly appoints judge
Gov. Laura Kelly last week named a Shawnee County public defender as a judge in Douglas County.
Kelly appointed Stacey Donovan to the district court seat that came open with the retirement of Judge Peggy Carr Kittel on Dec. 31.
Donovan has worked as chief public defender for the 3rd Judicial District, where she represents criminal clients and oversees the operations of the public defender’s office.
She graduated from Simmons College in 1992 and from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1997. She has been an adjunct professor at KU since 2008.
“Stacey is a talented and accomplished public servant with a reputation of integrity and hard work,” Kelly said in a statement.
“Her experience helping Kansans deal with legal problems and working to improve our criminal justice system makes her a valuable addition to the Douglas County bench.”
Kelly chose Donovan over Carl Folsom III, an assistant federal public defender, and Shon Qualseth, an assistant attorney general.
House 113 candidate
The Hutchinson News reported last week that Pratt School Board member Donna Hoerner-Queal had filed to run for the House District 113 seat now held by Republican Alicia Straub. Hoerner-Queal filed as a Republican.
The seat once was held by Republican Greg Lewis, who stepped down last year after he was stricken with a brain tumor.
Highway Patrol lawsuit
The former head of the Kansas Highway Patrol is asking the state Supreme Court to give him his job back after he resigned amid controversy last year.
Mark Bruce filed a petition with the high court last week, asking that it order the governor to rehire him as a major, according to a story first reported by the Wichita Eagle last week.
The paper reported that Bruce said in his petition that he has asked the govenor and the patrol to hire him back several times but has been denied.
Bruce and Lt. Col. Randy Moon, the highway patrol’s assistant superintendent, abruptly resigned last March amid reports of sexual misconduct and domestic violence that were ignored. Here’s coverage of the lawsuit from WIBW, The Associated Press and The Capital Journal.
Jeff Colyer & Chaka Khan
Former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer is going to get a chance this week to perform with the “Queen of Funk,” Chakah Khan.
Colyer will be part of a student and faculty choir that will join the artist as part of an event that will be held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The event is sponsored by Georgetown University, where Colyer was a political fellow at the school’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.
Medical marijuana
The Associated Press’ John Hanna looks at how the medical marijuana debate might unfold in the Kansas Legislature this year. There’s still a lack of clarity about whether this might be the year the Legislature legalizes medical marijuana even though it’s already allowed in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri.
Democratic Party targets Watkins
A year ago, Emily’s List announced it was targeting the 2nd Congressional District.
So it should be hardly any surprise that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting the district now that it has a candidate in Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla.
Here’s coverage from McClatchy, WIBW and a look at the DCCC’s briefing paper on Republican Rep. Steve Watkins from the 2018 congressional race.
Other news
- The Kansas park system suffered about an $11 million hit to its budget because of flooding last spring. Here’s coverage from the Capital-Journal.
- Kansas lawmakers jumped on the peace train last week, attending a forum Friday on civil discourse. Here’s coverage of the event from The KC Star.
