Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly was exasperated, and rightly so.
“When you’ve got 125 grown-ups talking about girls’ sports participation,” she said, “and they’re not dealing with the issues that are real important to Kansans … you’ve got a problem.”
Kelly was referring to last week’s legislative rush to pass a bill banning transgender students from participating in school-sponsored sports. The measure will prompt lawsuits unless the governor vetoes it, as we hope and expect she will.
That bill, if it became law, might also lose Kansas money in other ways: On Monday, the NCAA announced that states with laws that discriminate against trans athletes might lose the opportunity to host championship tournaments: “When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” said the statement. “We will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
But our concerns aren’t limited to that one wedge issue, and neither are Kelly’s. The Legislature, the governor told The Star Editorial Board Friday, has been engaged in a regrettable session-long effort to focus on culture issues as a distraction from the state’s most pressing problems.
“There’s been just an incredible amount of, ‘Look at this shiny object over here,’“ she told us. “Let me distract you with this social issue so that you don’t notice what I’m doing to voting laws, that you don’t notice what I’m doing to the budget, that you don’t notice what I’m trying to do to schools.”
The mistaken focus of GOP lawmakers should anger everyone who cares about the future of the state. With only a May veto session left, many poor workers in Kansas still lack insurance, the schools aren’t budgeted, medicinal cannabis is still prohibited, but by God five transgender kids will be banned from playing for the girls’ team.
Lawmakers also worked tirelessly this session to limit the governor’s ability to mitigate the danger of the coronavirus. They put lives at risk to make a political point. The result? Legal cases and acrimony across the state.
The Kansas Senate also decided the state should set up a school curriculum for gun safety, based on a course designed by the National Rifle Association, which is in bankruptcy court. Actual gun safety measures are less popular with lawmakers.
Thanks to their dedication, Kansas could soon have a “don’t tread on me” license plate.
Students may have to pass a civics test to graduate.
Lawmakers have tinkered with the state’s voting laws, an unnecessary answer to a nonexistent problem. (The governor’s vetoes are needed here, too.) The state Senate has wrestled with needless tax cuts.
What Kansas doesn’t have is expanded Medicaid for 165,000 people who need help.
Its reckless $20 billion budget doesn’t include any school spending, while legislators skate dangerously close to reopening the school finance case.
Patients suffering from chronic diseases and pain won’t get relief from medical marijuana. Maybe later, we’re told.
