During a visit to the Kansas Senate with her father, Sen. Jeff King, 5-year-old Amelie asked if he wanted to know what she thought. Of course he did.
“I think there are some people there who need to go to time-out,” Amelie announced.
“It’s the toughest year,” he remembers in six in the Legislature, including the last two in the Senate, said King, an Independence Republican appointed to the Senate when Derek Schmidt was elected attorney general.
He and Rep. Bill Otto were in Iola Saturday to meet constituents, nine of whom trekked to Community National Bank for a 7:30 a.m. session sponsored by the Allen County Farm Bureau.
“It’s the most caustic session,” he also remembers, said King, but allowed “at least we’re getting more done than they are in Washington.”
Although he prefers not to have a label, King said if he did it would be “pragmatic conservative, and pro-life because of my faith.”
In major issues — the 2013 budget accentuated by school finance and redistricting — the Senate has yet to reach accord.
King noted that while he represents the poorest area of the state, southeast Kansas, he has more in common with senators from Johnson County, who have empathy for the poor and out of work, than colleagues from similar social and economic districts who carry the Tea Party banner and have signed no-tax pledges.
He recalled George Washington talking about the ills of partisan politics. King also mentioned a property tax bill he introduced that found favor among moderate Republicans and Democrats, but failed because of ultra-conservative opposition.
Redistricting also has created contention, he said, noting that 10 conservative House members had filed against senators, on the anticipation that redistricting would permit them to take on the moderate incumbents. That has led to an atmosphere rife with animosity, he said, and charges from the wannabes that redistricting may be designed to prevent their races.
However, “I’m optimistic,” he said. “That gives me reason to get up every morning and pray for wisdom.”
Legislators are on a three-week break. They will return to Topeka April 26 for the veto session, “which usually lasts three or four days but probably will be a minimum of 2 1/2 weeks this year,” King said.
OTTO SAID he continued to learn that the democratic process he taught for 30 years in civics classes in reality was gamesmanship stoked by partisan politics.
A Senate education finance measure essentially is dead in the House, having been referred to the Education Committee, which isn’t scheduled to meet again this session, Otto used as illustration.
The House agreed to a redistricting plan, which Otto thinks will change little, if at all. The Senate has been unable to reach accord and the House is putting one together for the senior chamber.
Otto, too, is frustrated by partisanship and lack of progress. Noting he, a Republican and with a philosophy similar to King’s, is “a minority in the majority party.”
