SALINA, Kan. - With the Legislature adjourned for the year Governor Sam Brownback and his staff are now devoting themselves to the creation of news events to keep his name out among the Kansas electorate. With that in mind last week the governor took off on a five-stop trip to tout projects included in the state's new transportation plan. Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley reacted by calling the governor "disingenuous." He's right.
Brownback's conservative allies in the Legislature fiercely opposed additional spending on highways last year. And during last year's gubernatorial campaign Brownback hammered away at opponent Tom Holland's support for the one-cent sales tax, forty percent of which went to fund the program.
Brownback's Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer, in an act of great political courage last year as a state senator, voted for the highway plan, and against the sales tax to fund it.
Making Brownback's tour even more cynical are the actions of his close friends at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The state chamber literally took out a vendetta on legislators who supported the sales tax increase. First they targeted a group of moderate Republicans in the primary, with only token success. In the general election they went after Democrats who had supported the sales tax. This endeavor proved more successful. When the dust settled on election night the ranks of Democrats in the House had been reduced from forty-nine to thirty-three members.
Almost immediately after being sworn in, Governor Brownback announced that the sales tax was necessary and that he wanted it retained. Never mind his scathing attacks on his opponent the previous fall.
Sam Brownback is not the first revisionist politician to try to take credit for his opponent's successes. In fact, there is a history of such action when it comes to Kansas highway plans. A similar incident back in 1999 involving then State Senators Tim Huelskamp and Larry Salmans is still talked about frequently in western Kansas.
Huelskamp and Salmans had both fought long and hard against the Graves Administration's proposed highway plan that year. After successfully shepherding his plan through the Legislature, Governor Bill Graves embarked on a similar tour around the state to reenact the bill signing to mark the accomplishment.
One of the stops was in Garden City. Much to everyone's surprise, Huelskamp and Salmans showed up at the signing ceremony. The two made it a point, as the proceedings were ready to start, to stake out a place right behind the governor so that they would be in pictures with him. Graves happened to notice the two and got up and moved. The two legislators moved with him, in a move that Topeka political commentator Marty Hauver later referred to in his newsletter, The Hauver Report, as the "Huelskamp-Salmans Shuffle." Huelskamp reportedly used the photo of he and Graves in his re-election campaign literature the following year.
After re-enacting the signing, Governor Graves, as is customary at such ceremonies, took to passing out five commemorative pens. The first went to Gary Hazlett, Chair of the House Transportation Committee. Another went to a plan supporter in Liberal. When he got down to the last pen, the Governor quickly scanned the crowd and found a Democratic state legislator from Dodge City to make the final recipient. The two state Senators were sent home without one of the prized souvenirs.
Senator Huelskamp stuck around the Legislature long enough to vote against the next highway bill that came along, in 2010.
Meanwhile Brownback, after savagely attacking proponents of this newest plan, is now traveling the state taking bows for it.
Can anyone blame citizens for their cynical attitudes towards politics?
Editors Note:
Alan, wonderful article! We are very honored to have you join the citizen journalists at KFP.
Since you are new to KFP and we have a few other new writers, I'm going to use this opportunity to offer some formatting suggestions to you and others, as well as also for some of our veteran writers.
I'm making a list of a few editorial suggestions (really simply formatting suggestions only) here and, in so doing, all writers here can read them. Alan, I hope that's OK with you that I use the comments section of your story as an opportunity to make suggestions to all writers! Here they are:
1. There's no need to sign your name at the end of your stories; just leave off the name. The software is designed to add your "byline" automatically at the beginning of your article and on each page that your stories appear, including your archives.
2. When formatting paragraphs, please hit the "return" or "enter" key twice in order to make a blank line between each paragraph.
3. No need to indent your paragraphs as the software ignores indentations.
4. Don't forget to use a 'dateline.' In most cases, for example, Alan's dateline will appear at the very beginning of his very first paragraph and appear like this, since Alan lives in Salina:
SALINA, Kan. -
The city name is in all caps and Kansas is abbreviated as "Kan." In most cases, any writer will use the dateline (CITY, State) of the place where that writer is writing from. But, if an article is mostly about events that have occurred in another city, such as Topeka, then the writer would use the dateline of:
TOPEKA, Kan. -
KFP writers who wish more information about datelines, consult this page from the Associated Press: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2664713/Associated-Press-AP-Style-Guide-the-basics
5. Editing already published articles. This has come up recently with several writers, including Diane and Christina, so I'll just toss in this tip now too! If any writer publishes an article and then decides to adjust grammar or spelling or make other corrections, all the writer needs to do is follow these steps: a) sign back into KFP, b) once inside the software, click on "my entries" or look for your list of entries, c) on the list of entries, find the story you want to edit and click its title, which then should open the editing pane for that story, d) go ahead and change your text as you wish, and finally, e) be sure and click "SAVE" once again to make sure that your story is re-published and saved with the changes. Voila!
6. Many writers have been unable to figure out how to put the first 100 (or so) words into one pane and the remaining words in another. It's very important to split the stories so that whole article won't show on the front page of the website. Here is how it is done: a) When creating a new story (Write Entry), look for the two tabs in your "Write Entry" page. Look for one that says "BODY" and one that says "EXTENDED". b) click on the "BODY" tab and then place 100 or so of your first words in the editing pane, c) Now, click on the "EXTENDED" tab and you will see a blank editing pane appear. Place all the rest of your words in this pane. d) Once you have effectively "split" your story into two pieces by placing some text into "Body" and the rest into "Extended", just go on and publish your piece by clicking SAVE.
7. Lastly, in regard to "categories," writers should only choose one or two categories for each story. Though it may seem like an article should appear under all categories, it's not wise to check off all the categories because that would make the story appear on all pages of the website! Just clicking one or two categories is the best way.
I hope these tips were helpful to writers at KFP. If anybody has other questions, please feel free to address them here!
And, Alan, thank you for allowing me to post these tips, intended for all KFP writers, on your article today.
Pamela Jean--Thanks for this list of tips. I'm going to copy it and save it in my blogs folder. One problem I'm having right now is that my newer computer won't let me enter my blog into the pane. My old computer will allow me to do that, but that computer is slow and doesn't have a mouse. I've trying to figure out what change I need to make to get my work copied onto the panes. Any ideas?
Thanks again for the help.
Diane, to be clear, you are unable to "copy and paste" your text from another place (such as Microsoft Word) and place it into the editing pane at KFP? If that is the precise problem you are having, I recommend making sure that your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) is the most up to date version. I recommend using Firefox and using the most up to date copy of it. It can be downloaded at mozilla.com - http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/fx/
Is that the precise problem you are having or is it something slightly different?
I'm chuckling, Pamela, because I'm not quite sure what the problem is. Here's what happened. My computer, which is a fairly new one, was allowing me to copy and paste my work from Word with no problems until one day when it just shut off. When I turned it back on, everything worked fine except for the KFP editing pane. I can click onto the title pane, but I can't even click on the copy pane. I'll try downloading Firefox and see if that helps. Everything works just fine on Everyday Citizen. Thanks. Diane
Alan--While nothing you wrote is a surprise, it's good to get it out so people will know what's going on. People may be cynical towards politics, but I also believe if they voted for those hypocrites, they have an obligation to vote them out of office. In the meantime, we need to keep the pressure on them by making these actions public. Thanks for doing your part.
Pam--The Firefox worked. The editing pane is open so I can edit on this computer and I don't have to try to manipulate everything on the other one. Thanks for the tip.
Diane, I'm so glad that solved the problem! If you need any other help, I think that this give-and-take feedback in the comments sections works well for me because I do read the comments/articles more regularly than I check email, for example. Plus, I hope that maybe this will also offer tips/solutions for other writers. Let me know if you have any other problems!
Thanks again, Pam. I now have a copy of your tips in my blog file and I'll refer to them when I post blogs. Have a good day and stay cool.