At the end of a busy week at the Kansas Legislature, we’ll take a little bit of breather today (and we assume you need one, too), giving you some odds and ends from the Kansas political scene to catch up on today.
Gubernatorial campaign
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Svaty has been piling up media coverage on his statewide tour of college campuses. 
Here’s some snippets of what he’s been up to on the campaign trail. Here’s coverage from his visit to Emporia State and Fort Hays State. Also, here’s an interview he gave with KVOE radio in Emporia where he talks about the importance of natural resources and higher education.
Turning to the Republican side, here’s a story from The KC Star’s Hunter Woodall on Gov. Jeff Colyer’s seeming reluctance to engage with Secretary of State Kris Kobach in the GOP gubernatorial primary.
The issue became apparent when Colyer took a pass after Kobach was found in contempt of court in his voting rights trial over proof-of-citizenship requirements for would-be voters.
Maybe it’s just the whole rope-a-dope strategy that Muhammad Ali employed against George Foreman more than 40 years ago in their famed fight in Zaire. And it’s worth remembering that Ali won that bout.
Also, the brightest and best of Kansas political scientists talk about this year’s elections. Here’s what they’re saying about this year’s races in this report filed by the Topeka Capital Journal. And if you have some time, here’s a Cap-Journal podcast featuring Washburn politicos Bob Beatty and Mark Peterson.
Catholic bishops vs Techies
On Friday, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest advocate for LGBT rights, released a letter from some of the country’s tech giants – Apple and Google, among others – opposing the faith-based adoption bill that’s engendered so much controversy this legislative session.
Supporters say it protects religious freedom. Opponents say it discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents.
On Saturday night, the executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s bishops, released this statement:
“I just see an extraordinary amount of hypocrisy at work here,” Michael Schuttloffel wrote in an email. “These are the same out-of-state corporate interests that tout business ventures in countries where gays are executed.
“Abroad, they kowtow to human rights abusers,” Schuttloffel wrote. “Domestically, they take the side of political activists that have succeeded in closing charitable adoption services in other states because they do not like their religious beliefs.
“These soulless corporate suits don’t really believe in anything except the cheap publicity their poll-tested gestures can buy.”
Schuttloffel said that two of the top five states on Forbes’ list of “Best States for Business” – Texas and Virginia – have enacted an Adoption Protection Act.
The bill is now bottled up in a conference committee with no sign of when – or if – it will re-emerge before the legislative session ends on May 4.
Votes for school fix bill
Great care went into ensuring that fixing an error in the school finance plan would not upend a fragile balance between the House and Senate.
The House accomplished that Saturday when it approved the bill while turning back enticing amendments that would have added millions more for schools but would have likely faced fierce, if not insurmountable, opposition in the Senate.
While there’s always uncertainty in the process, it looks like there might be some extra votes to play with when the bill is considered in the Senate on Monday – assuming the votes from when the education bill passed don’t change.
The overall, five year $525 million plan passed the Senate 21-19 in the early morning hours of April 8. Two of those “no” votes in the Senate – Majority Leader Jim Denning and Barbara Bollier – said Saturday they would support the fix.
“I will vote ‘yes’ to get it to the court, but will be surprised if the court accepts it as satisfactory,” Bollier said in a text.
Said Denning, “We need to get it to the attorney general as soon as we can so he can complete his work for the Supreme Court case.”
Stay tuned and see what happens Monday.
Medicaid maneuvers
This interesting story from Jim McLean at Kansas News Service about efforts to keep Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer from implementing new eligibility restrictions for Medicaid recipients. It’s worth a peak.
Cheaper gun permits
In a multi-billion dollar budget, it’s always the little things that work their way in that can be the most interesting. On Friday, Republican state Rep. Blake Carpenter of Derby got an amendment tucked into the state budget that reduces the cost of a concealed carry permit to $82.50 from $132.50. Next up, a bill lowering the age for carrying concealed handguns in Kansas to 18.
Budget coverage
Here’s some statewide coverage of the House’s approval of a new budget from Saturday. The bill passed the House on a 92-24 vote. First, from Kansas Public Radio, the Lawrence Journal-World and WIBW in Topeka.
Food sales tax fails
This story from the Capital-Journal is about the sales taxes for the state fair but mostly focuses on failed efforts to lower the sales tax on food.
