(UPDATED) Sunflower Sunday Reader: Kelly inaugural takes shape; Kansas uninsured number falls

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Brad Cooper
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Photo credit: Lane Pearman

(Updated to reflect how governor’s trip to Armenia was paid for)

Good morning everyone:

In the last week, we saw Democratic state Rep. Tom Sawyer upend Rep. Jim Ward for minority leader in the Kansas House and the election of Rep. Dan Hawkins as a new conservative majority leader in the House.

The Sunflower State Journal also broke a story that ultimately went national, first reporting that outgoing Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins has started a lobbying firm.

Plus, there’s lots of palace intrigue over what’s happening in the Senate with a reshuffling of committee assignments. Plenty more news on that front awaits us.

Now onto other news that you either may have missed or is not getting much attention.

Inaugural ball tickets

Sunflower State Journal obtained a copy of an invitation to Gov.-elect Laura Kelly’s inaugural ball, set for Jan. 14.

While details of the inauguration are still taking shape, here’s an idea of what tickets to the governor’s inaugural ball cost.

The invite offers three different packages: $10,000 for gold, $5,000 for silver and $2,000 for bronze.

Gold packages are a table with 10 seats and eight tickets to a VIP reception. Silver is a table of 10 with four tickets to the VIP reception. Bronze is a table of 10 with two tickets to the VIP reception. The reception is scheduled for Jan. 13.

Individual tickets run $1,000 (premium seating), $500, $200 and $100. Seating for the $100 general ticket is limited.

Details of the event, such as location, special guests and entertainment, were not available over the weekend. That information is expected to be forthcoming this week.

Number of Kansas’ uninsured dropping

A new report from the Kansas Health Institute shows the number of uninsured Kansans ages 19 to 64 has dropped a little more than a quarter since the adoption of the Affordable Care Act.

KHI reports that the overall uninsured rate for Kansas adults in that age bracket plummeted to 12.3 percent in 2016 from 17.3 percent in 2009. 

The report shows a wide disparity in where uninsured adults live in Kansas. The greatest percentage of uninsured Kansas adults lived in the southwest corner of the state, the study showed.

Wyandotte County had one of the largest concentrations of uninsured adults in the state.

As of 2016, 22.6 percent of the county’s population — or 21,708 adults — were uninsured. It was an improvement from 2009, when 26.3 percent of the adult population was uninsured.

By comparison, Seward County topped the list with 28 percent of adults uninsured. The percentage of uninsured dropped from 30.5 percent in 2009.

Counties with some of the biggest declines from 2009 to 2016 included Clay, Trego, Wallace, Ellsworth and Miami.

Wallace County saw the percentage of adults drop to 11.7 percent from about 25. Clay went to 7.9 percent from 16.9 percent. Trego dropped to 8.8 percent from 18.5 percent. Miami County fell to 8 percent from about 15 percent. Ellsworth declined to 8.9 from 17.5 percent.

Svaty sighting

Josh Svaty was back in the Capitol last week watching legislative leadership elections after losing in the Democratic gubernatorial primary last summer.

What’s more interesting is that Svaty popped up on social media over the weekend with an endorsement for a Democratic college student running for the Kansas City, Kan., School Board.

Gary Enrique Bradley-Lopez tweeted out this endorsement from Svaty on Saturday.

“One of the greatest outcomes of a statewide race is meeting the next generation of leadership in Kansas. Gary Enrique Bradley-Lopez is part of that leadership and would be a crucial fresh voice on the KCK School District BOE.”

U.S. Senate approves new FERC appointment

We’ve written a lot on this site about electric rates, and this story could have some bearing on energy production in Kansas.

Bernard McNamee

The U.S. Senate last week voted 50-49 along party lines to confirm President Donald Trump’s hotly contested appointment to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that regulates the transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. It also regulates the wholesale sale of electricity.

Trump’s nominee, Bernard McNamee, drew opposition from critics who see him as a fossil-fuel hawk who opposes wind energy and renewables — a point that some said could affect Kansas. Supporters see McNamee as well qualified and someone who is committed to being impartial on the commission.

Here’s some national coverage that looks at the controversy surrounding McNamee’s appointment to a key government agency you may not have ever heard about.

There’s a piece from Politico on the appointment, another from Bloomberg and one from The Associated Press.

If you really are interested in this issue — and some of you might be — here’s McNamee’s Nov. 15 testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as well as his answers to questions about comments he made that suggested he was biased in favor of fossil fuels. Here is McNamee’s response to questions from Democratic U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

DCF news

The Kansas Department for Children and Families gets its own place in the Sunday Reader this week because, well, it has been in the news so much the past week.

Let’s start with The Kansas City Star’s coverage of how the agency is going around the Department of Administration to award child welfare grants, a move that’s viewed as lacking transparency.

Here’s more coverage from The Associated Press in which the agency defends the contracts. Also, there’s this piece from the Topeka Capital-Journal and from Stephen Koranda at Kansas Public Radio.

There’s also coverage from KAKE TV on the recommendation of the child welfare task force and these stories from Kansas News Service and WIBW that look at changes coming to the foster care system.

Colyer visits Armenia

Outgoing Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer traveled to Armenia last week to mark the 30th anniversary of the Spitak Earthquake, which killed 25,000 people and injured about 140,000.

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer during his visit to Armenia.

The 6.9 quake — followed minutes later by a 5.8 magnitude tremor — destroyed nearly a half-million buildings.

Colyer was one of the first responders to arrive in the country after the quake struck at 11:41 a.m. Dec. 7, 1988.

At the time, Colyer was a White House Fellow with the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and among the first U.S. assistance teams on the ground in Armenia.

Joined on the trip by Kansas Adjutant General Lee Tafanelli, Colyer presented the Armenian government with proclamations designating Dec. 6, 2018, as Kansas-Armenia Partnership Day and Dec. 7, 2018, as Spitak Remembrance Day in the state of Kansas.

A spokesman for the governor said the Armenia trip was paid for by the U.S. European Command, which has a partnership program with the National Guard in 22 states such as Kansas. No state tax dollars were used on the trip.

The program was created to foster stability and encourage democracy in former Soviet bloc countries.

Kobach’s post-election presence

Outgoing Secretary of State Kris Kobach may have lost the governor’s race, but he hasn’t gone away.

Since the Nov. 6 general election, he’s written a column for Breitbart defending the student body vice president at Emporia State University who was criticized for using the term “illegal alien” on her Facebook page. There was an unsuccessful attempt to impeach her a couple weeks ago.

Then last week, Kobach offered his thoughts to The Washington Post about accusations of voter fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. In this case, it’s the Republicans charged with the election irregularities that are now being investigated. Here’s The Hill newspaper’s coverage of Kobach’s thoughts.

Brian McClendon humor

Give Democrat Brian McClendon some credit. He still has a sense of humor after losing the secretary of state’s race to Republican Scott Schwab.

Last week, McClendon tweeted that he received more votes in his race for secretary of state than Kris Kobach did for governor.

But then … “Unfortunately, as my opponent, Scott Schwab, pointed out regularly… I wasn’t running against Kris Kobach.”

 

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