A Kansas Political Action Committee (PAC)  files political money reports on statewide activities with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, but a PAC reduces to a “Political Committee” for local issues within a county.  Kansas Law has very weak reporting requirements for such local committees. These weak laws are why the public knows little about the [...]

Continue reading about Over $800,000 spent by Johnson County Committees on local issues

Earl Glynn on January 29th, 2009

Oddly, out-of-state PACs have different reporting requirements than in-state PACs, which allow them to “hide” their participation in Kansas politics.  These  reports are not online, and can only be reviewed at the Secretary of State’s Office in Topeka. Our weak state laws allow out-of-state groups to file “Verified Statements” that are not published online at [...]

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Today the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy issued a press release, Proposition K Will Make Property Taxes Fairer and More Predictable.  Their study is about a better property tax sysetm for Kansas. This new system seeks to stabilize property taxes and make local government budgeting more transparent for taxpayers. The press release compared taxes [...]

Continue reading about Property taxes up almost everywhere, but population down in most Kansas counties

“Uncle Bob” Regnier at the Bank of Blue Valley has supported numerous tax increases on the voters of Johnson County. In 2008 alone Bob Regnier was one of the “leaders” in Johnson County pushing for two sales tax increases:  the quarter-cent Public Safety Sales Tax, and the eight-cent JoCo Education and Research Triangle tax. Mr. [...]

Continue reading about Bank of Blue Valley: Weak Bank, Unusually High CD Rate for Three Days

Around Thanksgiving last year, Adam Herrman’s sister called the Kansas SRS to find out what happened to him  almost a decade before.  His sister’s inquiry sparked an investigation in recent weeks by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office into the disappearance of 11-year-old Adam Herrman in 1999. According to the timeline for the case from the [...]

Continue reading about Why did parents of missing boy register to vote about a week before his disappearance in 1999? Why have they never voted?

Earl Glynn on January 23rd, 2009

Today, Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh held the first meeting of a study group he formed to study the future of elections in Kansas. Secretary Thornburgh invited several key groups to the meeting to discuss what elections might look like in perhaps 20 to 30 years. After the introductory remarks by Secretary Thornburgh, Brad [...]

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Earl Glynn on January 22nd, 2009

This year’s Rally for Life, which was promoted by Kansans for Life, drew a huge crowd of about 1500 in Topeka in front of the Kansas Supreme Court Building today. About 1000 pieces of tape were handed out to participants to wear to symbolize the Kansas Supreme Court’s gag order on Judge Richard Anderson.  This [...]

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Earl Glynn on January 21st, 2009

The most interesting part of today’s Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission meeting was the public hearing for a complaint against Kristian Van Meteren.  A Meadowlark article last month gave the background in 1st Amendment Constitutional Right may become issue … Silence the accuser? Briefly, Van Meteren was accused of breaking confidentiality after filing a complaint with [...]

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Earl Glynn on January 20th, 2009

Congratulations to President Barack Obama. Those of us on the center-right respect you as our President, but have profound differences with you on policy.  We hope to have a respectful, but vigorous, debate in the future about free markets and the size of and scope of government. We must focus on civil discourse and use [...]

Continue reading about Change Has Come to www.whitehouse.gov

Last year citizens of Johnson County voted on Question No. 1 as to whether or not to elect district court judges instead of selecting them through a judicial nomination process. The “No” votes won, which prevented the election of judges. This group said judicial elections would make the process too political, but ignored how political [...]

Continue reading about District Court Judges Spent Over $32,000 to Prevent Election of District Court Judges