Posted on 06/01/2004 1:31:08 PM PDT by axel f
TOPEKA -- Who could oppose funding an initiative designed to help more pregnant women deliver healthy babies, especially when its $300,000 cost represents mere spillage in a $10.3 billion state budget?
Who would resist any effort to fight white-collar crime, or to make sure the Kansas Bureau of Investigation can process crime-scene evidence quickly enough to keep methamphetamine cooks from returning to the streets without going to trial?
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, that's who.
In recent days, she vetoed funding for all of those items, vexing legislators, particularly Republicans but occasionally her fellow Democrats. She opened herself to charges of political gamesmanship and left at least a few legislators wondering what she was really thinking.
"I don't think they were very well thought out," House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said of her vetoes during an interview last week.
Sebelius' supporters contend the governor wasn't necessarily looking for a confrontation with legislators, just attempting to block haphazardly considered policy. They also reject the notion that some legislation is too minor to warrant a veto.
"She's vetoing things she thinks need to be vetoed," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka.
In two legislative sessions, Sebelius has yet to have a veto overriden, but she came close last week over her decision to strike the $300,000 appropriation for the so-called pregnancy maintenance program.
During a session called for a brief adjournment ceremony, House members overrode her veto. An effort in the Senate fell short, primarily because three members who would have supported the effort were absent.
Under the program, the Department of Health and Environment would have provided grants to nonprofit organizations to help pregnant women and reduce the number of babies born with low birth weights. That's about as mom-and-apple-pie as state government gets, right?
But the provision Sebelius excised from the budget would have prohibited grants to groups providing abortions, and Sebelius is an ardent supporter of abortion rights. Those facts led some Sebelius critics to conclude that abortion politics lay behind the governor's decision.
Spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran denied it. In her veto message, Sebelius said the nonprofit groups already receive ample funds from non-state sources, while many health initiatives have to fight for meager state dollars.
Backers of the program weren't buying it.
"It was strictly about politics," said Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita. "There's no other reason to do that."
Sebelius vetoed $674,005 in appropriations over three years for renovating the KBI crime lab in Great Bend, even though she acknowledged the project may have merit. In her veto message, she suggested the proposal was a last-minute addition to the state budget, not carefully considered, nor weighed against other KBI priorities.
But that argument didn't wash with House members who attempted but failed to override her veto. They argued that the ultimate result -- speeding up the KBI's analysis of potential evidence -- was more important than any defects in the legislative process.
Even Rep. R.J. Wilson, D-Pittsburg, normally a solid Sebelius supporter, voted to override, reasoning the veto was difficult to explain "when you have meth offenders being turned back on the streets."
Sebelius also vetoed $200,000 in funding for a new white-collar crime and public corruption unit in Attorney General Phill Kline's office.
The governor argued that Kline's office and other agencies such as the securities commissioner's office, the bank commissioner's office and the Insurance Department, are battling executive embezzlers and government ne'er-do-wells already and will continue to do so.
But it was difficult to avoid seeing Sebelius' veto as political.
The money involved was a pittance for state government, and federal agencies have found themselves concentrating more on terrorism and homeland security in recent years, perhaps creating a void in the fight against corporate cheats and corrupt politicians.
Meanwhile, some Republicans view Kline as a potential gubernatorial candidate -- if not in 2006, when Sebelius faces re-election, in 2010. The new anti-crime unit surely would have generated plenty of favorable attention for him.
"That's one statewide elected official against another," Wilson said. "And she won because she's got the bigger hammer."
Sebelius' vetoes summoned memories of the late Joan Finney, a Democrat who was governor in 1991-95.
Finney, an ardent populist, sometimes relished confrontations with legislators, suggesting that a tough stand on even a small issue would fortify the executive branch against legislative encroachment.
Finney vetoed 69 bills and 152 appropriations line items -- even a bill creating a Kansas Sheep Commission in 1991. Lawmakers overrode Finney on 19 bills and 23 budget items, though her sheep stance prevailed.
However, Finney often viewed the Legislature with an outsider's disdain, having never served in it, while Sebelius was a Kansas House member in 1987-94.
And whatever her stated desires for remaking government, Sebelius has always exuded cool, business-sector professionalism, not the wild, political hell-raising ethos of Kansas' past.
"I looked at some of those vetoes, and frankly, a lot of us were scratching our heads, trying to figure out why," Mays said.
She vetoed these nickel and dime appropriations because her budget has grown 1,027% since she was elected. We Kansans aren't supposed to be angry at that though because she has her veto pen out. What a witch.
I wonder how I could find out whether her strategists she's hired are on the public payroll...
Hey lighten up Sis, after all she has a (R) by her name.....
She does? What did you drink for lunch? Thanks for the laugh!
You know a lot of legislators. Call some of them. The next time you go to your Young Republican meetings, ask around. Someone will have the scoop or be able to get it.
We have the RINOs to thank for this.
Isaiah 3:12 ping.
Anybody else see the irony in 'Pubbies being "outraged" because a Dimocrat vetoes spending increases?
I'd say, "Send her down here to Texas!"
OK...
She's yours!
Could be some merit in that...Looks like instead of trying to squash some of the liberal Gov's budget, the Republicans are trying to figure out how to get their fingers into the sticky mess...
Hey Itsahoot!
She's a demoRat!
Semper Fi
Sebelius is running for VP. She is burnishing her budget-crunching and abortion-supporting credentials. She doesn't care about the consequences, because she thinks she's going to be living at the Naval Observatory this time next year.
"Sebelius is running for VP. She is burnishing her budget-crunching and abortion-supporting credentials. She doesn't care about the consequences, because she thinks she's going to be living at the Naval Observatory this time next year."
Gosh I hope so then maybe we could get concealed carry passed here.
Dang! You take ail the fun out of a thread....Color me Embarrased.</p>
God...... John Kerry for president but Kathleen Sebelius out of Kansas......Talk about a nail biting decision.
The author of this article left out some important details.
I can understand why you think her veto of spending on healthy babies is unnecessary spending. That wasn't her reasoning though. The only reason she vetoed that is because that money was blocked from groups that provide abortions.
There is no excuse for her veto of the money that went to fight crime. That money had already been appropriated to the A.G.'s office. Phill Kline, the a.g., just transferred the money from one place to another, and he had legislative approval to do it. The only reason Sebelius vetoed that is because she doesn't want Kline to have anything on his resume that would look good if he were to challenger her in 2006.
There is nothing "budget-crunching" about Sebelius. Her governor's operating budget has grown more than 1000 percent in the two years she's been governor, and she's proposed a $1 billion tax increase.
I did not say she was actually budget crunching. I said she was burnishing her budget crunching credentials, which is another matter entirely. These are Potempkin budget cuts. They do nothing about the fact that spending is out of control.
The fact that she throws a sop to her abortion-supporting backers and prevents an opponent from gathering favorable publicity is a bonus.
Make no mistake that Sebelius would be as big a disaster on the Federal level as she has been on the State. But she supports higher taxes, supports abortion, opposes pregnancy, will do anything to win, and has a remarkable lack of seriousness on any important issue. In other words, she is a perfect match for the modern Democratic Party, which will find her irresistable.
Gotcha, 007! Sorry for any misunderstandings. I just didn't want anyone to have the wrong impression of her. This article doesn't do her justice, IMO.
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