Smoke and mirrors are hiding the real reason a proposed constitutional amendment to change the balance of power in Topeka will be on the November ballot.
If approved, the law would allow Kansas legislators to establish veto power over current agency rules and regulations with as little as a majority vote.
The Nov. 8 issue will change the existing law that requires a two-thirds majority of both chambers to override long-established laws as well as a governor’s veto.
The danger of such a change is that it gives out-sized weight to factions on either the far right or far left to decide future law.
Increasingly, we would see Libertarians who favor hands-off government voting alongside far-right conservatives on measures that concern our air or water, public health policies, public education, etc.
THOSE favoring the change are masking those realities with the line that a bureaucratic “deep state,” is pulling the strings.
Yes, another conspiracy theory making the rounds.
“We kind of had a fourth branch of government in bureaucrats that started passing laws by imposing rules and regulations,” House Speaker Ron Ryckman, an Olathe Republican, said after last week’s Senate approval of the measure. We kind of had a fourth branch of government in bureaucrats that started passing laws by imposing rules and regulations.Ron Ryckman, Speaker of the House
Republican Rep. Dan Hawkins of Wichita echoed Ryckman, saying it’s the “bureaucrats” in Topeka who are overtaking the system.
And just who are these powerful “bureaucrats”?
State employees who work for the Departments of Labor, Education, Transportation, Revenue, Corrections, Health and Environment, Children and Families, etc.
The very people who keep the wheels of the state government turning while their elected officials are out grandstanding.
THE PUSH to overhaul the balance of power between the executive and legislative branch began festering the day Gov. Laura Kelly was elected governor. Seems it’s not enough for Republicans to have a supermajority in both the House and Senate. Their tipping point was when Kelly regarded the COVID-19 coronavirus as a public health threat and issued a temporary moratorium on schools and certain businesses and limited the size of gatherings.
Kelly was acting on the advice of officials who have devoted their careers to public health.
