- Coming up on IGI Kansas tries to lure the Chiefs out of Missouri.

Our panel of experts is here to break down the details of this bold move by the legislature.

Stay with us.

Hello and welcome to IGI.

I am your host Washburn University Professor of Political Science Bob Beatty.

Well, this year, Kansas not only had a regular legislative session, but for good measure, had a one day special session in June.

And indeed it was special.

Not only did the governor and legislators agree on a mega tax bill, but they also sent shock waves through the sports world and provoked major anxiety throughout Missouri with a massive stadium incentive bill meant to move the Chiefs or Royals are heck, one out both to Kansas.

Here to get on the field and help us figure it all out are three Kansas politics experts.

From the Kansas Reflector senior reporter Tim Carpenter from KSNT News Capital Bureau Chief Rebecca Chung and Michael Smith, professor of Political Science at Emporia State University.

Thank you for joining me.

I've brought the football, so hopefully you're, you're you're ready to, to catch a pass, both figuratively.

So you're hoping for the Chiefs, not the Royals, no baseball there.

We can talk about that.

We will talk about that.

But yes, this, as I said, sent shockwaves around the United States.

Seriously.

No, but especially in Missouri at the prospect of losing the Chiefs and the Kansas has made a play, major play for a new stadium to be on the Kansas side.

So let's dissect this.

We'll start with how did it get to the point where Kansas actually even had any sort of chance and could pass some legislation?

So what happened to get it where the figurative ball was in Kansas' Field or court?

If it's basketball, which it's not, I can get started with that.

Yeah, sure.

So Jackson County, Missouri taxpayers pay a sales tax, I think it's three eighths of a penny to support the Truman Sports Complex facilities, Arrowhead and Royal Stadium.

And there was a vote about extending that and it was soundly rejected.

And so the Royals were miffed because they were gonna get a new stadium kind of closer downtown in Kansas City.

The the Chiefs were gonna blow up the Royals baseball stadium and, and develop that area and everybody would be fat and happy with their, and, and they'd get renovation to the football stadium.

So they'd all be fat and happy going forward.

So when that fell apart, then Kansas kinda started digging around and to, to look and see if there was hundreds of millions of dollars of incentives they could throw out there to try to lure one or both of the franchises now.

Yeah, and we'll go to Michael, who knows a bit about Missouri as well, but the Kansas, this was not just a, Hey look what's going on in Missouri when gambling was passed, the, the legislature in Kansas allowing for gambling Kansas put aside some money for possible stadium incentives.

And at the time everyone thought, oh, you know, it's only 10 million or whatever.

So Kansas was sort of getting somebody telling them, Hey, be ready for something.

Go to Michael.

Yeah, - A little more detail on that Jackson County vote.

It was a revolt over housing costs.

Yeah.

It was led by a group called KC Tenants.

And their argument is, why are we subsidizing for profit, billionaire owned sports stadiums when many Kansas Citians are at risk of becoming homeless because of spiraling housing costs?

I have not seen any responsiveness from either state to what the vote was about.

Royal Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, pardon me, is rated in satisfactory condition.

There's money going to be pouring into Arrowhead because it's already been decided that's where the World Cup games will be played.

And what this vote was really about, we've seen zero response from policymakers on either side of the state line, which is housing costs.

- Yeah.

Rebecca, - I wanted to also touch on what you were saying about them setting up that fund early on, because when we talked with the governor about that, she was like, they don't have enough money in that fund based on all the sports betting money we're getting.

We don't have enough money to possibly set up maybe a convenience store or something like that on the other side of the state line.

So I mean, early on, definitely Kansas was eyeing something, the potential for some sort of team coming over here, and I think it kind of got these conversations going as well.

I think to Michael's point, what something that stood out to me was that three eighth cents sales tax, and maybe you could weigh in on this, but this was something they were continuing to - Pay, right?

It would be a sales tax extension.

Right.

Missouri only partially exempts groceries from sales taxes.

We know Kansas is phasing that tax out, although not the local add-ons.

And this would be a local add-on in Missouri.

So that was another issue is that it is regressive among other things, groceries for people struggling to make ends meet would be taxed to subsidize sports venues.

- Yeah.

I mean this has happened over and over and over in, in sports and is currently happening in Oakland with, with baseball, the Oakland A's will be moving to Sacramento.

And then eventually probably, although there's some housing and educational issues going on, possibly going to Vegas, the Arizona Coyotes NHL team is moving to Salt Lake City and was a big controversy years ago involving actually some commotion and quasi violence for the, some of the politicians who voted for the, the increases in some of the taxes there.

So what what happens is, you're right, Michael, is that, and to your point, Rebecca, some local entities, often counties, cities, whoever get told, "Hey, we need a new stadium", or"Hey, we want a, a sports team", and they say, you know, okay, what's it gonna cost?

Oh, you, this is what's gonna cost.

You're gonna pay for it.

And at the local level they can reject it or if they accept it, they find later they're paying more.

And in this case, you're right, 3 eights of a cent sales tax.

My point is the, and we're gonna get to this, the Kansas deal is very different because everybody enjoys these teams.

You know, it's not just the people of Jackson County.

You got Kansans, you got people across Missouri.

Hell, you, you got even some people who, who are singing stars, right?

What are they paying, you know, they're paying, you know, so the people of Jackson County justifiably like, you know what, we're providing this service, but why is it just us?

I do wanna mention something, maybe Michael will weigh in too.

It is, you know, we think, oh, the Chiefs would never leave.

They probably won't leave Kansas City.

They could very well go to Kansas, but Missouri does not have a great track record.

Right?

They lost the Kansas City A's.

That was a while ago.

Ironically, now Oakland's leaving too.

So they lost a baseball team.

Right?

Anybody recognized this jersey here?

The Kansas City Kings.

The Kansas City Kings, which is now the current NBA team for Kansas City, right?

No, they lost an NBA team.

Now, this was in the, you know, late seventies and the eighties when no one apparently liked the NBA.

Just a few years before Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan arrived.

Kansas City decided, no, we don't want an NBA team.

They lost the St. Louis Rams.

So, you know, a lot of people are saying, "Oh, well, Missouri won't let the Chiefs move".

Well, put on this jersey and say, and say that what, and think about that owners, they don't, you know, they're not loyal.

Let's be honest about that.

Cleveland, Baltimore, Oakland, Oakland Raiders went to Vegas.

Right?

They're not loyal to a city.

Let's, that's my take on that.

Okay.

So thanks for listening.

I wanna jump in, jump in on that.

Yeah.

The advocates of having Kansas get involved in this process hired 30, 40 lobbyists.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There, there this, this movement, I, I'm very skeptical about this whole apparatus.

I just think Kansas could be being played.

They're, oh, they threw, they threw up money up on the table and now Missouri can manipulate the owners of these franchises can manipulate that to get what they want outta Missourians.

And maybe the Royals do move to Kansas, to the Kansas side.

I don't think the Chiefs are going anywhere - And don't about all the money pouring in for the World Cup.

There's no time to build a new stadium that will be played at Arrowhead.

That's decided millions of dollars are already going to be spent on Arrowhead.

Don't forget that piece.

- Yeah.

I guess what I'm saying, Tim, is, is you're right, they're not, I don't think they're gonna leave Kansas City 'cause they got the, they got Kansas now.

I think they're going to, at, at best or worst, if you're from Missouri, they're gonna pop over a few miles.

Right.

And maybe it doesn't matter in the end, as long as it's still Kansas City.

But let's get to the details of, okay, Kansas is, now whether they're being played or not, they've made an offer.

They're one of, I believe only two states in the entire country that are able to make this kind of offer.

So maybe the viewers might wanna sort of know what it is.

Who wants to start.

So there's, these are called star bonds, they're for economic development kind of entertainment districts.

They've been used for all sorts of things pan, right?

Yeah, yeah.

These are big businesses.

And so I, you know, Kansas is offering hundreds of millions of dollars in star bonds.

They would be paid off with sales tax revenue within the new business district around the stadium or in, in locations affiliated with that new complex.

And there's a possibility that as it goes, go, goes forward, they'll attach sports gambling and lottery revenue to it.

They say that's gonna go up.

I don't really know, but I just, you know, you what is in it for a western Kansas?

Let's, let's, let's hold off on that because what's in it?

I've had a lot of people say, oh, Kansas is getting, you know, going for the stadium, but they really seriously have no idea how this actually would work.

And then when I've tried to explain some of it, they're like, oh, oh, okay.

And it's not like, oh, that's awful.

They're like, Hmm, that's interesting.

I, I mean, I would counter argue that I think these star bonds, the way they're, they've been presented, it's a up to a billion dollars per stadium per project.

But the way they've presented it is much more attractive than like, like in Jackson County is, Hey, we're gonna raise your sales tax.

Rebecca, do you want to chime in on that?

I'll pass you the ball.

- Yeah, I mean, the way they presented it, it seems like it could have, you know, some sort of potential for revenue building without really burdening the taxpayers.

Right.

Is that, that's kind of what the gist of everything else.

It - Wouldn't be at the end of the Yeah, the end of the month, you know, you get a tax bill, like a local property tax, that's not gonna happen.

- Exactly.

So I mean, in the end, I don't know if we would be getting as shortchanged as we did with sports betting, you know, where, you know, we were really getting the runaround from lobbyists, but more so maybe getting the potential to generate a lot of revenue on this side of the state line.

I feel like that's what we could see in the future.

- Yeah.

And to what Tim pointed out is, is the way these bonds work is Yeah.

The money's given to, in this case, the Chiefs possibly 70% of the total cost.

So yeah.

May could be up to a billion dollars.

Where does that money come from?

It comes from a district they form and then the sales tax from that district.

And here's one little kicker that's in the line there that really got me that made sure to add that they could get the benefits of all the sales taxes from alcohol.

Yeah.

So again, maybe I'll go to Michael here.

You've got this wild scenario that if this happened, there you go.

Yeah.

If this happened, you got a Chief's fan that lives in St. Joseph right?

He goes across the line to Kansas, you know, Kansas drinks his 10 beers and he's helping pay for Kansas', paying for the stadium.

- Yeah.

That could happen.

You know, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is a much more modest star bonds project called Prairie Fire.

And Southern Overland Park has defaulted.

The city taxpayers are now on the hook for the bonds.

I am very skeptical that something as expensive as a modern day football stadium, which can cost multiple billions of dollars could ever be funded with star bonds.

Bob, I think it's a lot of hype.

I really - Do.

Yeah.

I love it because people disagree with me.

So this is great.

It's, it's wonderful.

So there have been successful Star bond projects, the big gimme that Yeah.

The the speedway out there.

Yeah.

The, the Major League soccer facility, those, those were star bond projects.

So Sporting KC was a star bond project.

Those who worked out well.

And so maybe, maybe this could come to fruition, but you know, they say this is all a user tax.

These sin taxes about liquor and gambling.

Yeah.

It's, that's how we're gonna pay for it.

It's user taxes and no, like direct income tax payments are gonna be made people, but when, when the state of Kansas redirects everybody's focus to this new business area, you, you're telling me there's no loss.

When Nebraska Furniture Mart, I think another Star Bonds project, if I'm not mistaken, was put up there, what did that do to all these other small furniture stores in the Kansas City metro area?

You can hear the whooshing sound as they closed.

And so there is consequences to a public policy that that throws all their eggs into this big basket here.

And that's, you know, the legislators who are falling all over themselves to support the Super Bowl champion Chiefs, they don't really wanna talk about that.

I think there's a ton of opposition to this in the legislature, but the leadership got behind it and they cranked everybody's arms and it passed easily.

So I, I think some of them just threw up their hands and said, well, you know, it may not happen.

I'll vote for it so I don't get in trouble with leadership.

But it may not happen and then, then it doesn't matter.

Yeah, no, it is, all these things are possible.

I can say I, I listen to sports talk radio, get the Kansas City stations and it was the, the reaction from them is, was all I can say is amazing.

And actually it's not all saying, oh darn Kansas, a number of 'em say, you know, I think this very well could happen.

The reason they say it is because they know Missouri very well.

And I'm not saying Missouri's any more dysfunctionally politically than any other state, but in this particular case, Kansas did something remarkable.

They got their act together on one thing.

Again, it may not be anything anyone supports or you think is good, but,...Bob, don't forget you brought it up.

Yeah.

Special session one, you know, this, this big tax bill and this sports bill, let's do it today.

Special session.

Yeah.

Right now.

Yeah.

They had a Monday house and Senate committee meetings and, and they voted on it the next day.

Right.

Why not wait until January, let's vet this issue then it wouldn't get down a period of months.

Yeah, no.

Then by January we'll know all the flaws in the program, right?

Yeah.

We'll know all the baloney that was thrown at people in this lobbying and marketing campaign and to save the Chiefs and, and, and we'll, we'll have a much better idea.

The forcing people to vote without consideration of the details of the plan is intentional.

They didn't want people to understand what they were voting on.

Right.

- The people in Jackson County did know what they were voting on and look how that turned out.

- But then at the same time, with any, you know, big economic project, right, you would need to take a risk.

With Panasonic we didn't know what was coming here.

Right?

Yeah.

A lot of legislators didn't.

But now, you know, potentially we have a lot of money coming into that particular area.

Oh, - You're right.

We should trust the politicians.

And in and in fact there was some who said that Oklahoma lost Panasonic because they revealed who the company was when they signed this agreement, what they weren't supposed to.

So Kansas benefited from, yeah, no, this is great stuff.

I think we're gonna be able to do lots of shows unless Kansas gets played.

Then we'll do a, a show on that.

Now the, the other aspect of the session which got dwarfed is Ty Masterson, the Senate president, said, Hey, I'm here to do this massive tax bill and all anyone asked me about is the Chiefs.

But Kansas ended up having a special session to pass a tax bill.

So I think there was a lot of moving parts in that tax bill.

Again, very complicated.

Let's talk about that a bit.

What ended up, what ended up happening?

Rebecca, you got the balls.

- Well, in the end it looks like they didn't get their flat tax.

So that's what ended up happening.

I think you saw so many proposals and then we at one point saw one proposal for a three tier system and just cutting the top bracket, which was the one thing that everyone was pushing against.

We don't just, or at least Democrats, they didn't want just cuts for tax for high income taxpayers.

So, you know, modifying it and going through the process, it looks like everyone in the end was able to come to some level of compromise.

Was it what Republicans wanted?

No.

Was it what Democrats wanted?

Maybe not all of them, but you know, in the end we got something, which is more than what we could say for previous years.

Right?

- Yeah.

Just to quickly amplify.

Yeah.

So, so let me ask you Yeah, that's great.

Go ahead.

You followed this session pretty closely as well.

Why couldn't this, I mean, why did the Republicans a go so hard on the flat tax when it looked like Kelly had the vote sewn up?

Or did they actually think they could break that, you know, veto power and then again, after they saw that she had the veto power, she had the, the votes.

Why go to a special session?

Why not just say, okay, let's do what Rebecca pointed out.

Okay, so there, there was this massive surplus in the state treasury.

Yeah.

And the Republicans have been hellbent on spending it down and giving it a bunch of away in tax breaks, mostly to their wealthy friends who can fund campaigns.

We'll say.

But, you know, and that was gonna be by reducing income taxes.

And they wanted a single rate, a one rate for all people to have their income taxed.

And that would've largely benefited a bunch of really rich people.

My, the benefit to me would've been modest.

I'm a a modest journalist salary, but if you're super wealthy, it's big gains.

So Laura Kelly wanted none of that.

They wanted to overspend on the tax bill.

She vetoed three massive tax bills.

Yeah.

And then called the special session.

And in the meantime started working a deal with the Republican leadership and you got kind of a watered down version of it all.

So we went to a two bracket system away from the three, not the one, there was a proposal in there that everybody loved that eliminated the a hundred million dollars a year income tax on social security benefits.

Kansas is among a few states that does that.

It's a crazy idea.

So they got rid of that.

There was gonna be a thing where we were gonna get rid of the food sales tax six months early.

It, it goes away entirely.

The state part of that in January that in the end that got dropped and 'cause we're so close to January 1st, what the heck?

And so there are, there are, there are standard deduction changes.

There's child tax childcare tax credits that got woven in there.

There's a lot of political stuff going on.

So you know, it's gonna be 400 million something plus dollars a year in reduction in tax revenue.

So it's a substantial, substantial policy change.

But, Hmm.

I think it was people were kind of lukewarm about all the wrangling that went on and we ended up with that Bill Michael, in the end, basically each kansan married or not, maybe one or zero or one dependence might get anywhere from 150 to $300 total a year.

Now I'm not saying that's not a, a lot of money, it's nice to have that kind of money.

Sure.

On the other hand, considering all this wrangling and talk and the total cost to the state, 400 million a year, it, it, the benefit doesn't quite seem to match all the hoo haw about it.

Also considering that Medicaid expansion was talked about.

So is it what Tim said, which is they just want to do tax cuts.

That's, you know, as long as they do tax cuts, that's what matters.

- Well, Tim forgot to mention it's also an election year that could have something to do with it.

Yeah, you're right Bob.

Your description of the bill is Right.

This is an interesting bill.

It's got a bit of a donut hole in it.

It raises the amount of income you can exempt, which for some lower income people means they may not pay any taxes at all to the state.

And there's a tax cut for people at the top.

Now that exemption benefits everyone, but it doesn't benefit everyone the same.

So lower income people get a bigger benefit from it.

The upper income people get that rate reduction.

People in the middle, as you mentioned, only save a few hundred bucks a year.

Still nice to have, but I agree it's kind of like a lot of fanfare and then the actual outcome is meh.

But it is a big win for the governor because she thought the earlier tax bills cost too much.

And clearly she wants her legacy to be the governor that fixed the state budget after Brownback.

And I think she did protect that.

- She did push down the overall cost of the final package and, you know, to, to get the cost down, they shelved some property tax reforms.

And I think that is something that everybody has said should be on atop the agenda when the 25 session starts.

Although the property tax we've done previous shows on this is interesting because most of the property taxes are at the local level.

And so if they did cut some, the prop, some property taxes, but that money was going towards schools.

So if you read the fine print, it's basically like, well we'll have to find the money that we lost.

So what it would be a, it would be a mathematical shift.

Yeah.

The idea was to lower the mill levy, the statewide mill levy for K 12 public schools.

Yeah.

And increase the residential housing exemption from that.

So your, your property taxes for public schools would go down, but the legislature included provisions to hold harmless all the school districts across the state.

So that would come outta the general treasury.

Yeah.

So it's kind of like playing games.

So we got, we got four or five minutes.

There's a number of things that happen in the session, so I'm gonna leave it up to us to pick what you wanna talk about.

Note that did pass or didn't pass.

So this isn't the last 30 seconds deal.

We just do have four minutes.

But start with Rebecca, what pass or didn't pass or something you were sort of interested in throughout the session that was - Intriguing?

Well, what definitely didn't pass was Medicaid expansion.

Yeah.

And medical marijuana.

Yeah.

And we see this happen year after year, but it was interesting that they actually gave it a hearing Medicaid expansion this year and medical marijuana.

But with Medicaid expansion that hearing, we thought that something would come of it completely tabled the bill.

The same thing happened with medical marijuana again.

And so I think it just leaves Kansans asking when exactly are these initiatives going to move to the floor?

- Yeah.

So both every year, every show we have on IGI, we talk about 'em every year.

More states either a add Medicaid expansion or some form of medical or, or regular, regular marijuana legalization.

Yeah.

Kansas wants to be exceptional in a lot of different things.

And we'll be exceptional as one of the few states that doesn't have medicinal or recreational marijuana and no Medicaid expansion.

- Right.

And remember Bob, we did that independent poll and so we saw that the majority of cantons are actually in favor of passing both legislation for both issues.

You would think in an election year we would see something move.

Yeah.

But I don't know if maybe the hearing was just to give it some thought - Placate some people.

Right.

Michael, did you wanna expand on that or we now have two or three minutes?

Or did you, or is there some other issue that did or didn't happen you wanted to mention?

- I'll expand.

What this really shows is the power of speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate Leader Ty Masterson.

They both subscribe to the strong leader theory of leadership.

They're proud of it.

They boast about it in radio interviews and it's, it's not necessarily the rank and file including some Republicans who would vote.

There are a few that would vote for Medicaid expansion.

There are a few that would have vocally supported some type of marijuana legalization or decriminalization.

This is all about Dan Hawkins and Ty Masterson.

They are able to single handedly block these bills from coming up from a vote and they are going to continue doing that.

They've shown no indication of changing their minds, - Tim, at that issue or you want to No.

Something.

No, I wanna point different, something that completely goes under the radar, which different I contend could be the greatest thing to happen during the legislative session.

Greatest thing.

That's right.

It got me excited.

The state of Kansas totally overhauled the civil asset forfeiture laws that allowed law enforcement to come up and take your car if they found a little bit of marijuana in it because they accused you of being a drug dealer.

And the whole process of getting your car back was totally convoluted, totally tipped in the favor of law enforcement.

We're talking millions of dollars a year that police policing agencies threw into their budget to go get training to buy new squad cars, to get that new high tech radio.

And so that is going to be moved back and to, to have much more a sense of justice and fairness in that court process in term terms of having your assets seized.

Big deal.

Wow.

So I guess what I would add is that Kansas passed a law involving online pornography and it required people to prove their age in some fashion.

Whether that's putting a, you know, a driver's license or some sort of, of way of proving their age.

And one of the nation's top pornography providers, PornHub, is pulling out of Kansas.

So repercussions from laws and I'm sure the, the audience is as interested in that one.

Well, that's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI visit us online@watch.ktwU.org.

For IGI, I'm Bob Beatty and thanks to my guests and thank you for watching.