- Coming up next on "IGI", we feature a panel of political experts who will analyze the upcoming legislative session and will discuss Governor Laura Kelly's 2022 "State of the State" address.

Stay with us.

(bright jingle) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust, and from The Friends of KTWU.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "IGI".

I'm your host, Washburn University professor of political science, Bob Beatty.

Tonight, we'll be starting off a new year and a new season of "IGI", discussing the upcoming legislative session, and what we feel will be the primary issues for Kansas.

We'll also discuss Governor Laura Kelly's 2022 "State of the State" address, along with the Republican response, which was delivered by House Speaker Ron Ryckman.

Joining me in the studio tonight are Tim Carpenter, senior reporter for the "Kansas Reflector", Jim McLean, political correspondent for the Kansas News Service, and joining us via zoom is Michael Smith, Emporia State University Professor of Political Science.

Thank you all for joining me.

I wanna start and just be honest, tell me if I'm crazy, which you have in the past, but I'm kind of excited for this session.

- You're crazy.

(chuckling) - It's a interesting session in so many different ways, which is what we'll talk about, but let's get it right off the bat.

Kansas is kind of awash in money.

It's kind of an odd dynamic.

I mean, we've been through a lot of these before for many, many years where we've done these, even these TV shows where we say "Oh my gosh, there's no money, the budget's broken, "money's being borrowed."

But not only is there a huge budget surplus, there's federal money kind of coming, raining, has been raining down for a couple of years.

So, Jim McLean, you told me I was crazy.

Is it because of the politics of it all or is there hope that possibly some bills that people wanted to get done for years actually get done this session?

- Crazy only in the sense that you were excited for the session, Bob.

I mean, we'll excuse you, you are a political scientist after all so that kind of comes with the territory.

No, I think it's gonna be a very different session.

The dynamics are very interesting.

It's an election year, of course.

As you pointed out, there is lots of money, about $3 billion in quote unquote, "excess cash".

Some of it the result of federal COVID relief, but that's gonna make for an interesting session between the competition about which tax cuts to approve, the ones the Republicans favor, versus the ones that the democratic governor is proposing, or are we gonna be really, really fiscally prudent and use all that money to pay down debt and stick it in the rainy day fund?

- Yeah, I guess maybe you're right.

Maybe my excitement is just, it's so unique and of course we're all hoping there's not another pandemic that will make this one not so unique, but Tim Carpenter, what are the dynamics of this session?

- So I agree with you that it would be very interesting to see how it all pans out, but in the past, as you say, the big decisions were how to cut spending, or what little bit can we increase here and there, and now the governor talks in five and $600 million chunks.

So the proportion of it all is totally out of whack of what you might've seen over the last 15 years, but there's a lot of opportunity to invest in programs, and to solidify the state's financial foundation, but we'll just see how it all shakes out in an election year.

- Yeah, Dr. Smith, you and I teach political science classes and we often say "Well, the federal government, "they can pass a stimulus package.

"They can borrow money that they sort of have an open bank, "but state governments, they can't do these things."

And yet here, and we'll talk about it more later, here's the governor saying, "How about a tax rebate?

"Every married couple, $500."

So again, this could be a very different session, right?

- It absolutely could be a very different session.

There's quite a bit of money available.

Also, tax collections are up.

It's not just the federal money, and it's always more fun to divide up the pie than to divide up budget cuts.

That said, the governor has put a lot of emphasis on undoing some of the Brownback legacy.

For example, the borrowing from KDOT, the so-called "Bank of KDOT", transportation money, putting back some pension money, and a number of other stabilizations.

So yeah, it's a lot of money, but in some ways it's also a fairly conservative proposal.

- Yeah, Jim.

- You know, Bob, it may be a bit of an esoteric point, but Michael makes the point that it's not all federal money.

The tax collections are up, but Republicans are arguing that the tax collections are up because a lot of federal money has come in to stimulate the economy, too.

So it's hard to separate out exactly where this surplus came from.

- It is, and let's start with, it's Kansas, so when we talk about Kansas, we know we either start with abortion or we start with taxes and there was a constitutional amendment in August on abortion, so we're not going to actually get into that.

And maybe that's part of this session, Jim and Tim, you know, that seems like every year we would say, "Okay, what's the abortion debate gonna be this time?"

and in some ways that's off the table.

But let's start with the groceries tax cut.

We're gonna listen to the governor make her case in her "State of the State" address.

So let's listen to her right now.

- This is a common sense policy on which Democrats and Republicans can completely agree.

The only obstacle that could block this legislation is the same type of toxic political games that have poisoned Washington, DC, where denying a political opponent a win has become more important than getting things done for the people they represent.

We are better than that in Kansas.

Let's not over-complicate this.

(legislators clapping) Let's not over-complicate this.

The essence of the bill can be summed up in 13 words.

"We hereby eliminate the state sales tax on food in Kansas, "effective immediately."

(legislators whoop and clap) Just 13 words.

Send me a clean bipartisan bill that eliminates the state sales tax on food and do it by Kansas Day, January 29th.

I will sign it the moment it hits my desk.

(legislators clapping) - Now, Kansas, nationally, has a reputation as a conservative state, in many cases, a Republican state.

So when I talk to people, they seem a little surprised that Kansas has the highest food sales tax grocery tax, in the United States.

So this is something a lot of people want to get rid of.

Governor Kelly wants to totally eliminate it.

The money seems to be there, four or $500 million a year that would be lost.

So every year, this wouldn't be a one-time, like a tax rebate.

So Jim is this the year this gets done?

- Well, it's a really good question, Bob.

I think it's probably the number one question heading into the session.

I'll be eager to hear what Tim says, but I think something gets done.

I mean, they've toyed around with the idea of reducing the sales tax, in general and on groceries and food, for many, many years.

There were components of the food sales tax reduction in earlier tax cutting bills, one of which the governor vetoed because it had a lot of other stuff in it.

So whether or not they totally eliminate the sales tax on food, I don't know.

I don't know if Republicans will be willing to give the governor that big a political win this session, but I certainly think they'll have a hard time doing nothing on the topic.

As Speaker Reichman said in his response, we want to quote unquote, "responsibly ratchet down the sales tax, "not just on groceries, but across the board."

- Yeah, Tim Carpenter.

I was at the State of the State and the Republican presumptive nominee for governor, Derek Schmidt, at the end of 2021, he said he wanted to get rid of, essentially, the grocery tax and yet when the governor made that appeal and he was in the gallery, I didn't see him clapping.

(laughing) So to your point about, you know, whether they want to give her such a big win, but do you- - So I think Derek Schmidt, his comment was that he would like to reduce or eliminate the food sales tax.

Laura Kelly has taken the tactic of totally eliminate the sales tax on groceries.

It doesn't include the food you buy at a restaurant.

We're talking about groceries at the grocery store.

And so I know that she wants to take that down to zero, but the conservatives and a lot of Republicans would prefer to lower the 6.5% sales tax on purchases down to something lower than that.

And, you know, it's a Republican-led legislature, so she can dual them on taxes.

They might be able to lower the overall rate and therefore reduce the sales tax on food at the same time.

- And Bob, a little side note here just for people, 'cause the history is important here.

When Governor Sam Brownback first came into office, they had raised the sales tax previous to him coming into the office and he said he would not have voted for it, but he needed to keep the sales tax on beyond when it otherwise would have expired, because we were already starting to have some budget problems, and so they really twisted some arms, and got that sales tax increase preserved back in the day, what 5, 6, 7 years ago, Tim?

- Yes, so it temporarily went to 6.3% and then it was supposed to fall back to a lower rate, but Brownback negotiated and took the reduction to 6.15% and then Brownback needed even more money and they took it to the 6.5.

- And I think in those years, there was a really strong desire to basically get rid of income taxes and one way to keep the money flowing is the sales tax.

Now, Dr. Smith, in some counties in Kansas, when you add up the sales tax for food or various things, and then you add up the county and the city, and in Topeka and some other cities, these special economic zones where literally it might just be one block, so you can be shopping on one side of the street, walk over, shop on the other side, and you're paying up to 11% sales tax.

So how does Kansas, again, a Republican state, end up with such high taxes and sales tax?

Is it because of the sort of obsession with income taxes years ago?

- I think it is.

The sales taxes are interesting because they're one of the only taxes that are what we call regressive.

They actually hit the poor harder because middle and lower income people have to spend more of their paycheck on things subject to the sales tax than upper income people, who may be able to put it in investments or buy things that aren't sales taxed.

By the way, another massive issue with the sales tax that hasn't come up yet, it should, is online purchases.

That is the big issue in sales tax along with groceries.

But yes, the Brownback focus was on cutting income taxes on the belief that it would prime the engine of growth.

Sales taxes, some Conservatives in the past have been more comfortable with sales tax because it's not a tax on investments, but we're hearing something different because as you all mentioned, the debate now seems to be, do you cut sales taxes across the board, or keep the rates where they are, except phasing them out on groceries?

- Well, the net effect will be some drop in sales tax.

I grew up in Oregon where there was no sales tax.

So, you know, talk about being sheltered!

(laughing) So the great thing about that is that every time you went to buy something, whether it was a hamburger or anything, it was always exactly something.

"That'll be $2."

"That'll be $3."

So it was always fun.

So, what about other tax proposals?

Again, there seems to be a lot of money.

We've heard a number of them, one a constitutional amendment, not exactly taxes, but to curb the growth of spending, which is an old Kansas idea, a lid, docking, going back, and just out is being pushed a flat tax.

And this is not a joke, this is a serious proposal, which was to what Dr. Smith said.

It'd just be one tax rate.

So somebody making a million dollars in Kansas would pay the same rate as someone making $20,000.

And then there's also been various ideas floated out there for tax cuts for seniors, tax cuts for the military, and these are not crazy ideas.

For example in the United Kingdom, seniors, for many years, got free cable.

So, I mean, it's just specific groups possibly benefiting again from maybe this windfall.

Jim, do you see any of these having traction like the food tax?

- Well, yeah, I think so.

I mean, depends on who the champion is for which proposal, right?

It has a lot to do with the personalities in the legislature.

And the idea behind, for instance, not taxing social security benefits or other retirement benefits is there are some people who believe that would make Kansas a haven for retirement.

And the military, since we have so many military installations in Kansas, if you don't tax that, then perhaps more of them will stay past their times of service.

So there are reasons for all these things.

And of course, it all goes back to the fact that we have a lot to a lot of money, right?

I mean, so you're gonna get a lot of different proposals for how to spend that money, particularly spend it in the form of tax relief.

- Tim, are there any of those others that possibly could get through?

- The one you mentioned was about a property tax, essentially lid, rebate, that would be funded by the state for senior citizens.

And so I think there's bipartisan support for that.

It's been a Democrat idea for a few years.

I think there's more Republicans who think there's benefit makes that viable.

So there will be property, sales, and income tax proposals and I would predict that the legislation that comes out at the end will be like a Christmas tree.

It'll have this, and this, and this piece over here, and this thing over here, and this big chunk, and it'll be a political Christmas tree like it always is.

- But that's exactly what the governor said she didn't want, She said, "Put a clean bill on my desk by Kansas Day."

She wants that sales tax, the elimination of the sales tax on groceries and nothing else, at least to start with.

- Shall I make a bold prediction?

- Make one, Tim.

- Ain't going to happen.

- Ain't gonna happen, yeah, right.

- Well, Dr. Smith, we're not gonna give away any of our ages, but you know, Governor Bill Graves, a previous Kansas governor, often sort of said, you know, some of the most difficult times for him where when things were great, when there was lots of money, because then the legislature, and not just Republicans, wanted all these tax cuts.

And then when things are not great, which is gonna happen, right?

All of a sudden, there's not enough money.

Now, so far, Governor Kelly has been pretty good.

She's vetoed a number of tax bills, she claims, for that reason.

- She's been building up to this moment.

- Yeah; is there... Dr. Smith, is there a danger though, without being too cynical or dampening things, that Tim's Christmas tree might shine a little too bright?

- Absolutely; that's why we use the Christmas tree analogy.

Well, that's part of the reason, because you put too many ornaments on there, if you put them too much on one side, the Christmas tree falls over.

Christmas tree bills, the idea is that you hang all these amendments on them, like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

They absolutely can collapse, that's right.

They can only hold so much.

I totally agree with the others.

It's not gonna be a clean bill, but there has to be some sort of...

There has to be a challenge to legislative leadership.

This is a leadership issue.

They have to manage the bill as it goes through the process.

So that too much doesn't get stuck on it.

And then on the rebate, that's an interesting idea, because it doesn't lock the state in, year after year.

It says "Well, we're flush right now, "so you get a rebate, "but we're not gonna commit ourselves every year "to a bigger tax cut that, when times are tougher, "we may not be able to afford."

- And Bob, the Christmas tree analogy, keep in mind, some ornaments are put on the tree to buoy the bill's chances.

Some ornaments are put on the tree to kill the bill's chances.

- What about the tax rebate?

I'm going back and forth on that because I guess, personally, I've never been a big fan of the, and this happens at the federal level all the time.

We know that, going back to the Bush years.

"Hey honey, look, a check from the U.S.

government."

Do you see that as more of a negotiating thing or election year dynamic, Jim, or Tim?

- I think it would be, as you say, a win for the governor.

They're going to hand her that kind of campaign bumper sticker - 500 bucks!

- issue.

You know, "I gave you all money."

They hold it in disdain.

And I think it cuts into their opportunity to do other policy issues and address other things.

Other types of tax cuts, for example, or whatever they want to do with the money.

It takes a big chunk of that excess out of play.

- She could take a page from President Trump's book.

I mean, she could send the check with a letter with her name on it saying, "This $500, this $250, is courtesy of me, "Democratic Governor Laura Kelly.

"Think of me in November."

- I recall that actually held up the checks a few days, forgetting the signature.

- Yes.

- Speaking of it, the State of the State, when Governor Kelly mentioned working with, uh... With Donald Trump, that was one of the few times- - That was no accident, right?

- I saw Republicans clapping a bit.

Okay, Tim Carpenter gave me a little bit of crap earlier for actually having this topic, but I can't help it.

Governor Kelly, in her "State of the State", implored the legislature, the Republican-dominated legislature, to put aside partisan differences and work together.

Let's listen to what she said about working together in her "State of the State".

- I'm sure all of you in this room can think of people in your lives, who, just a few years ago, you could have a civil conversation and talk about the issues of the day and now, you really can't.

It's all become so toxic.

Now, the people in this chamber didn't cause this problem.

Much bigger forces are in play.

But the people in this chamber can be part of the solution.

We can turn down the temperature.

We can be civil and compromise.

We can be role models for our children.

We can put allegiance to Kansans ahead of allegiance to political party.

We can be as good and as decent as the people who sent us here.

(legislators clapping) - No, she was actually pretty kind to the legislature.

She said, "Oh," she said, "it's not you.

- Yeah, "You didn't do it."

- "It's not you, "it's the people I talk to who are telling me, "it's relatives, it's social media, "but you can be role models.

"You can really help."

Do you think there's anything to what she said?

Or will legislators sort of just go about their regular business, Jim?

- Well, of course, I think there's something to what she says.

She talked about the poisonous partisan politics in Washington, DC.

- Yeah, oh yeah!

- And she was as strong as I've heard any governor in many, many years in terms of throwing down the gauntlet on that point, so yes, there's something to what she said about American politics, which has become very much more partisan and tribal.

As to the second part of your question, as to whether or not the Republicans in the legislature, who command large majorities in both houses, will take heed.

I think they listen to her.

I think they would like to work with her or anybody else when they can, but also, once again, it's an election year and it's gonna be a political year and they're not gonna hand her big victories on a platter and therefore diminish the chances of their candidate, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, from upsetting her or unseating her come next November.

- Tim?

- I think that the Republican Party will do everything they can to make the governor look weak.

And they're not going to give her a bunch of her agenda simply because they wanna win the governorship.

And they obviously, you know, the house is up for election and so forth, but really it's about Derek Schmidt's candidacy, Republican candidacy for governor, and the more they can make her look dysfunctional, the better off Derek Schmidt's chances are.

And that would play out in all this, a lot of this legislation that comes forward and playing to grabbing hands, joining hands with Republicans and Democrats, big bear hug, "Let's go!

"Let's go make an election bill that we all like."

That's impossible.

- Well, I can imagine either Speaker Reichman or Senate President Ty Masterson having a direct phone line that's open at all times between their office and Derek Schmidt's office.

"Say, what about this?

"What about this?"

because it is all about his candidacy in November.

- But going back to the beginning of this show, we analyze politics elections all the time.

I would argue, and again, tell me, you will tell me if I'm crazy.

- (chuckles) You're the scientist!

- There's actually scenarios where something like tax cuts, and in many of these issues, if Schmidt, Derek Schmidt and Laura Kelly both stand there, champion them, and then go into the election, then it's more just a, it's...

It can be a turnout election, get your people out.

Republicans can still win in Kansas, if they just turn out their voters, to be honest.

- Yeah, if they split the difference, who does that benefit?

In Kansas?

- Well, it depends on that particular election.

- Well, but in Kansas, generally speaking, if they split the difference?

- I would say the Republicans.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- And before we move on to some other issues, let's listen a bit to the Republican response to Governor Kelly's speech, and this is from Ron Reichman, the Speaker of the House.

- Republicans have been focused on many of the same goals the governor talked about tonight.

While we sometimes disagree on how to achieve these goals, my hope is we can always disagree in the spirit of cooperation and civility.

However, it's not enough to talk about our goals.

Your elected officials must deliver, for you, for our families, for our future.

Unfortunately, many of the promises we heard tonight do not align with the governor's record.

The governor says she wants to reduce the sales tax on food, but she vetoed the plan to do just that.

The governor says she wants to spend one-time income tax relief to Kansans, but a year ago she blocked Kansans from meaningful income tax relief in order to feed government spending.

The governor says she wants to foster economic growth, but she closed small business and she vetoed a plan to offer them the recovery loans they needed to weather the closure.

- All right, let's move on to a couple other issues before we end the show.

Dr. Smith, there are some possibilities of changes in election laws in Kansas.

You want to tell about those and whether people should be happy or worried or both about those possibilities.

- I'm a little concerned, Bob.

This is coming from the office of Secretary of State Scott Schwab.

And there's a proposal.

There's some proposals about turning in balance for others, and that's not necessary to clamp down on that because there's no evidence of that being abused.

But my bigger concern is that there's a proposal to make it easier to remove voters from voting lists if a postcard sent to them is not returned.

That's called voter caging.

It's often deployed selectively, targeting certain constituencies, such as urban constituencies, African-Americans and others.

It's not done statewide, usually.

It targets certain constituencies that tend to vote a certain way and it was supposed to be banned by the National Voter Registration Act of 1996, which you may know as Motor Voter.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 elections.

These laws are not necessary and I'm concerned.

- Well, Jim McLean, is this the election year dynamics?

Would Scott Schwab be offering these, if it wasn't an election year?

- Well it's straight out of the Republican playbook from a lot of other states.

So there were big changes made in election laws last year.

I think it's quite likely that there's gonna be a pretty rigorous debate on those again this year, including the ones mentioned by Dr. Smith.

Yeah, I think that there are efforts under the guise of election security to make changes that maybe go further than you need to go to protect the security of elections.

- All right, we have about a minute and a half left.

We obviously didn't talk a lot about a lot of things, but that's good, 'cause you can surprise me.

Tim Carpenter, something we haven't talked about that we should be looking for this session?

- Well, in terms of a surprise, given the Omicron infusion into COVID-19, the thing I'm surprised about in the first week of the Capitol is the number of people in the building who are not wearing a mask and act like there's no pandemic.

That surprises me.

- Pandemic, what pandemic, right?

Dr. Smith, 20 seconds with something that we haven't talked about yet.

- Oh gosh, probably critical race theory, which is not taught in K through 12 schools, but it may have influenced some of the diversity, equity, and inclusion teaching.

This is a hot button issue, but state legislators legislating what can be taught in schools is a rather concerning precedent in my opinion.

- All right, 15 seconds, sorry, Jim.

- Well, yeah, Dr. Smith was talking about critical race theory?

- Yeah.

- Last year, the division, the culture war division, in the legislation was over how to respond to COVID.

This year, it's gonna be critical race theory.

- All right, and for me, maybe it's medical marijuana.

Could be the year; I'm not going to bank on it, but you never know.

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'd like to view this program again, or any previous episodes of "IGI", visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

For "IGI", I'm Bob Beatty, and thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from The Friends of KTWU.