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For insight into Kansas politics, Michael Barone's latest Almanac of American Politics provides more incisive understanding of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in a few pages than Frank does in his entire book. Sebelius has regularly violated her 2002 campaign promise not to raise taxes. Frank's book does not explain how Sebelius got elected, nor will it provide insight into why Sebelius is likely to be rejected next year by Kansas voters.
Frank parrots the conventional political wisdom in Kansas that there are three political factions in the state: Democrats, "moderate" or tax-and-spend Republicans, and out-of-power conservative Republicans. But Sebelius' nominally Democratic administration contains two cabinet members from her "moderate," tax-raising GOP predecessor's cabinet, including former GOP Gov. Mike Hayden. Her lieutenant governor is a former Republican businessman, and her latest hire as the lobbyist for her Department of Revenue is the recently defeated GOP chairman of the Senate tax committee for the last four years.
This is not an unusual situation, since Sebelius' GOP predecessor as governor appointed his Democratic predecessor's budget head to retain that position in his administration. In many ways Kansas is akin to a one-party state.
Automatic property and income tax hikes have helped elected officials avoid politically painful votes for more than a decade, and Kansas now has one of the highest levels of state and local government employment as a percentage of the entire state's workforce in the country. This is the reality that Frank ignored and Walker's review touched on only indirectly.
Karl Peterjohn
Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network
Wichita, KS
Correction: "Thomas Szasz Takes on His Critics" (May) implied that Rodney Yoder was still being held in an Illinois mental hospital. In fact, he is now a free man: In 2003 he was transferred to the Randolph County Jail, where he was held on charges stemming from an altercation with another inmate. In January 2005 he was released on bail, and in March the charges were dropped.
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