L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Several plates are spinning in Topeka, and we need to make sure that several of these projects make it over the finish line.

One already has and will be on the ballot in August. Kansans will son have the chance to decide whether or not seven people should choose every Kansas Supreme Court Justice or whether we all should have a say in that decision.

To know why this is important, the first question you should ask yourself is, “Can I name one member of the Kansas Supreme Court?”

If that answer is no, that is proof how disconnected the people are form the highest court in Kansas.

Justices have a very unique job. Like an umpire in baseball, they are meant to call balls and strikes. Politics should not play a role in their decisions.

But the Kansas Supreme Court has earned the honor of being overturned at the federal level more than any other state in the past 25 years.

They clearly make calls based on political views rather than simple interpretation of the law.

Some will claim that electing the justices will inject politics into the court, but the fact is politics are already in the court. That argument also misses the fact that we already elect district court judges, and no one is claiming a political bias is influencing those decisions. Why, then, would they claim politics would take place if we elect the justices on the Kansas Supreme Court?

Kansans have been a fair-minded electorate over the years. The governor’s mansion has been occupied equally be Republicans and Democrats for 32 years. If we can be trusted to select the legislators and the governor, why are we banned form selecting the justices?

The time has come to correct this injustice, and Kansans will have that chance during the August primary when the question will be on the ballot.

I trust Kansans to make the right call and vote yes.

Currently, the Kansas Bar Association appoints three people to a judicial board alongside four appointees from the governor’s office, and those seven people choose the justices on the Kansas Supreme Court.

We have seen locally what happens when power is concentrated in the hands of a few. It never seems to end well, and that has been the case of the overreaching Kansas Supreme Court.

I have called for reforms to the system for three decades, and we finally have a chance to correct this error.

The Kansas House and Senate are also working on two separate bills to prevent massive property tax increases at the local level.

The House is proposing a bill to address the issue while the Senate is proposing a Constitutional amendment.

There are four options moving forward, and three of them are good.

The House bill could win the day, and that’s good.

The Senate bill could win the day, and that is also good.

Or, the two chambers can compromise between the two and offer an amended final version. That, too, would be good.

The only option that is unacceptable would be to allow the differences between the two bills to end with nothing being presented or passed.

Both proposals protect the taxpayer from a handful of people deciding to enact massive tax hikes with no recourse for the voters.

Currently, there is very little that can be done to challenge rogue local leadership when an outlandish proposal is presented by administration and rubber stamped by commissioners who refuse to listen to the constituents they claim to represent. When that happens, the damage is almost irreversible before those commissioners have to face the voters in an election, so the Kansas Legislature is looking to protect Kansans by placing limits on local tax hikes and valuation processes by providing voters a way to contest these rogue decisions before they are enacted.

Whether it be by petition or by vote, the proposals currently vary, but either would be an improvement from the current system where the people have no recourse whatsoever.

By holding local officials to account to the people, tax would remain in line with inflation, and any additional funding through property tax would have to be proposed by commissions in a way that would be acceptable to the voters.

Isn’t that what representative government is all about?

It is astounding that the associations that represent local units of government are fighting against this, but those efforts are more proof on why the protections are needed. Locally elected officials may have the mistaken impression that they were granted power over the people.

They weren’t.

They were granted power to represent the people, to make sure the will of the people was carried out in local government.

The Declaration of Independence states that whenever a government stops protecting the rights of the people, the people have a right to change or abolish that government and institute a new one.

They didn’t say just the federal government. It says, “that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends ...” Any.

That includes local, and the Kansas Legislature has a moral obligation to protect Kansans from units of government seeking to violate this most sacred trust.