As told by Patricia Stoneking (President of KSRA)- The following comments were made by Anne Hodgdon and she is spot on about what happened. I remember it clearly. Thank you Anne for taking the time to give the people the facts about what actually happened because the media never will. Here are Annes comments: I was out of town last week when the Topeka Capital Journal first reported on this, and now it appears that Steve Kraske has picked it up to salivate over.... so its important for all to know the rest of the story that the media is not telling you (although I assure you they know it, just like I and others inside baseball know it). And the Governor is too professional to name names of those who were indeed responsible for what happened with the 2012 Kansas tax plan. But the beauty of being a private citizen is that I dont have such constraints. So heres the full story for you.... not the spun version that gives the media goose bumps. Truth: the Legislature is indeed to blame for any budget issues that may exist -- but NOT THE CURRENT LEGISLATURE - not by a long shot. So there will be no bad blood to come from Governor Sam Brownbacks comments because those who serve in the current legislature know exactly what theyre having to deal with. And heres what it is, in a nutshell (many details and nuances will by necessity be left out because its way too complicated) ....... In the late spring of 2012, toward the end of the Session when it was time to wrestle with taxes and budget, the composition of the Kansas Senate was very different than it is today. The Republicans had control of the Senate, but it was the Moderate Repubicans who were in leadership positions. The Senate President was Steve Morris; VP was John Vratil. Vratil was the bulldog who took the lead on just about everything, while Morris grinned and shook a lot of hands. Over the years these Moderates had drifted very far left; and they had created a cozy coalition with the Senate Democrats. They essentially called themselves Republicans and ran for office as Repubicans, but voted in a block with the Democrats on just about everything. In doing so, they had enough votes to control the Kansas Senate and render useless all the rest of the more conservative Repubican senatorial votes. The Kansas House was more conservative in general, and had shrewd conservative leadership in Speaker of the House Mike ONeal. So that spring of 2012, the House passed an initial tax package that was well-balanced with both tax cuts and spending cuts; and they sent the bill to the Senate. VP Vratil, with support of his mods/dems coalition, decided to pull a fast one - a ploy - which was clearly designed to fail once it got back to the House: Vratil left in all the tax cuts and removed all the corresponding spending cuts (pay-fors). He got that basterdized bill passed in the Senate by his liberal coalition as a bluff. It was a game designed to frustrate the Governor and the House. And then Vratil completely refused to negotiate it. So the House had to either vote it down and start all over again, working against a Senate they knew would not negotiate or agree to anything reasonable; or pass the bill and let it become law, as-is, with an imbalance in tax cuts because there were no equalizing pay-fors, as the Governor has just correctly stated recently. So the House called the Senates bluff and concurred on the bill as the Senate had sent it back to them; and since the Governor was well-aware of the dilemma, he signed it into law. What choice did anyone have? Of course, most of the moderate Senators either retired to save face because they knew they could not be re-elected (like Vratil), or lost their re-elections to the Kansas Senate in the fall of 2012 (like Morris and others). Their entire house of cards came falling down, and that has created much disharmony between the Kansas moderates and conservatives. But that disharmony started with Senator John Vratil and his arrogant power game that blew up in his face, but also hurt Kansas citizens. But its important that everyone know how it really happened, and take a moment to thank our Governor and our current legislators in the Senate and House for the hard work they are doing in striving to right the wrong that was done to them - and to all of us - by Vratil & Co. in 2012.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 04:37:30 +0000