Recent Kansas editorials

The Kansas City Star, June 5

Republicans in the Kansas Senate have managed to squeeze a number of bad decisions into a short special session. This week, they even denied a judgeship to a respected longtime public defender, Carl Folsom III, because he was once assigned to represent a man convicted of possessing child porn. Which only deepens our impression that one problem area for Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, state Sen. Molly Baumgardner and others is the U.S. Constitution.

Public defenders do more than represent their clients, who include the poor and the poorer, the odious and the innocent, none of whom they choose. They take all comers, and in doing so also defend the Constitution itself every day, with a job description clearly laid out in the Sixth Amendment right to counsel for every single person accused of a crime.

That may not sound right to you, Senators, but it’s a little late to take it up with James Madison.

Baumgardner, the Louisburg Republican who led this assault on good sense, laid out in detail the number and nature of awful images allegedly found on the computer of Folsom’s former client. But this conflation of client and counselor shows a lack of either understanding of or respect for how our criminal justice system is supposed to work.

Should someone dear to Baumgardner get in legal trouble of any kind, whether guilty as former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin or falsely accused as Kansas exoneree Lamonte McIntryre, she would no doubt engage the best lawyer she could afford; we all would. But for those without the manners to have the means, well, that’s where Carl Folsom and his colleagues come in.

After this petty but no doubt painful kick in the pants, it’s to Folsom’s great credit that he tweeted this: “The thing about Kansans - we are resilient. Time to go help some more people.”

Gov. Laura Kelly is probably right that the real reason the Senate rejected Folsom, a KU Law grad and assistant federal public defender in Topeka, for the state Court of Appeals job was the never-gets-old thrill of “political games.” Wagle admitted as much when she said in a statement after the vote that Folsom had “donated to Governor Kelly’s campaign, which is indicative of his political ideology.”

When the governor nominated Folsom, who is from Tonganoxie and also teaches at KU Law, he said, “I am committed to the law and to applying the law as the Legislature writes it without prejudice or bias. But my passion for the law goes beyond legal reasoning or words on a page - the law is a real thing that has the capacity to change lives, for better or worse. As a Court of Appeals judge, I will always apply the law fairly and uniformly, never forgetting that the law is ultimately about people and our obligations to our fellow citizens.”

That he was seen as irreparably tainted because the FBI found images on his 2014 client’s computer that Baumgardner said “were so horrific they included penetration” is hard to believe. But whether that was an excuse or a reason, the lawmakers failed their fellow citizens in denying Folsom the job and the court his contribution.

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The Manhattan Mercury, June 4

We stand with Richard Myers, the president of Kansas State University. He is exactly right in saying that it was “not right,” the way the Trump Administration has responded to protests.

In particular, President Myers said he was saddened by the handling of the peaceful protest around Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. on Monday evening. In that case, federal agents broke up a protest by force, using tear gas, to clear the way for President Donald Trump to walk to a church for a photo op with a Bible.

President Myers is the former Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top military officer. He has refrained from much comment on national security issues or national politics since leaving that post, where he served for President George W. Bush.

He said his first reaction to the incident “was absolute sadness that people are not allowed to protest, and as I understand it, that was a peaceful protest that was disturbed by force,” he said on CNN. “That’s not right, that should not happen in America, and so I was sad. I mean, we should all shed tears over that particular act.”

Right on.

Protesters around the country are basically demanding equal justice under the law, a fundamental right in America. They have the right to protest, and their cause is clearly just.

President Trump has seized on the looting and rioting that has come along with some of the protests, puffing up his chest on Twitter to issue warnings like “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He wants to send in the military; we learned this week that one unit from Fort Riley is on alert to deploy, probably to Minneapolis, if the governor there requests it. Thank goodness thus far he hasn’t.

President Trump’s basic tactic is essentially to divide, rather than unite; to condemn, rather than to understand.

That approach may, in fact, benefit him politically — although we will only know the upshot of all this in November.

But to use force to clear a peaceful protest so that he could stand in front of a church holding a Bible? Breaking up a Constitutionally-protected right to assemble by government force, so as to pose for a photo?

We’re glad President Myers called it out. Because in America, that should be unthinkable.

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The Topeka Capital-Journal, June 7

They didn’t expand Medicaid.

They didn’t really address the crisis facing Kansans either, who are grappling with historic threats to their health and livelihoods.

But they did reject a judicial nominee .

Welcome to the special session of the Kansas Legislature, two days of backroom dealmaking and wasted potential. It was an outcome that made nearly everyone involved look smaller, and left the people of our state the losers.

The question all along was this: Were Kansans more threatened by Gov. Kelly’s executive orders protecting public health or by a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic that has sickened thousands and killed hundreds?

Ideologically blinkered leaders in the House and Senate took aim at Kelly, rather than the virus. And large numbers in both chambers voted aye simply to get it all over with.

After the governor vetoed legislators’ earlier, late-night attempt to prevent her ability to protect the public, everyone tried again. But rather than take their time and spend the days needed to properly vet the legislation, leaders and the governor’s staff hammered out an agreement and declared the whole conflict done.

In the meantime, of course, the governor had already backed down, changing her plan to reopen Kansas from a mandatory to an advisory one, and handing her legislative adversaries their biggest win without a fight.

This is all profoundly disappointing.

Perhaps a compromise like this was inevitable, but the rushed and secretive process wasn’t ideal. And Legislative leaders clearly didn’t want their bodies taking up any business that might distract them - and, you know, actually make other things better.

Medicaid expansion was a clear opportunity to improve things for Kansans who faced twin health and economic crises. It wasn’t even debated. Carl Folsom. Kelly’s nominee for Kansas Court of Appeals, didn’t get the gig as some senators decided that smacking down the governor was more important than a good-faith appraisal of the nominee.

And given looming revenue shortfalls, legislators might have also taken a stab at finding more resources to cover expenses or beginning to make cuts - or both.

But this is an election year. And too many in both chambers decided that it was more important to pass a backroom bill, wash their hands of the whole thing and head home.

Kansans deserve better than that. At the very least, they deserve more discussion and debate as our nation and state struggle.