Posted on 06/10/2005 3:06:32 PM PDT by aynrandfreak
It takes $853 million to make Kansas public-school funding "adequate," the Kansas Supreme Court ruled last week. The court ordered the Republican-controlled legislature to double the money for schools by July 1, and possibly quadruple it by next year. The move should concern anyone who thought the power of the purse belonged to lawmakers. Kansas' is a case where education "experts" and judges are telling legislators and the voters who elect them that no, they can't spend their tax dollars as they determine through democratic processes.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Is the Kansas Supreme Court elected?
They learned this from KCMO
No, the governor appoints them and they go through committee. No senate confirmation is needed (though the legislature has been recently discussing adding that ability).
However, in Kansas you do have the ability to vote on retainment of the judges.
I voted "no" on many of the ones that were already in trouble, but it wasn't enough.
It's already happened in New Jersey and we now have the highest property taxes in the country. The money that used to come to all NJ towns, has been going to the so called Abbott districts where it now costs over $12,000 to try to educate each pupil and the Abbott fund is out of cash due to major overspending (corruption!) I hope the lawmakers in Kansas tell their SC to stuff it. Perhaps arresting them all for grand theft would be a good start.
Our legislature is whipped.
What the she-devil governor says, goes. What the court says, goes.
They complain, threaten overrides, then roll over at voting time.
If this can happen in Kansas, it won't be long before state Supreme Courts everywhere use this tactic to make whatever changes to any budget they want.
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You mean, in places like New York:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1292299/posts
What is happening to us.... :(
Well, this state will never have a problem with activist judges for the simple reason that
Every judge provided for by the Alabama Constitution is subject to regular election, with primaries and everything else.
Meaning, in this state, a judge will never do anything that will get him un-elected.
From the link:
In 1985 a federal district judge took partial control over the troubled Kansas City, Missouri, School District (KCMSD) on the grounds that it was an unconstitutionally segregated district with dilapidated facilities and students who performed poorly. In an effort to bring the district into compliance with his liberal interpretation of federal law, the judge ordered the state and district to spend nearly $2 billion over the next 12 years to build new schools, integrate classrooms, and bring student test scores up to national norms.It didn't work. When the judge, in March 1997, finally agreed to let the state stop making desegregation payments to the district after 1999, there was little to show for all the money spent. Although the students enjoyed perhaps the best school facilities in the country, the percentage of black students in the largely black district had continued to increase, black students' achievement hadn't improved at all, and the black-white achievement gap was unchanged.
The governor of Kansas could put a stop to all this by offering -- until the state court changes its ruling -- to issue a formal pardon to any taxpayer in the state who is prosecuted for tax evasion. The court's decision is basically meaningless if the state government doesn't even have the means to collect the money the court is ordering them to distribute.
Is there any state left that's sane enough to live in??
I'm currently in Illinoi$ where I've been all my life and I want out! Now I have to scratch Kansas off my shrinking list.
The Republic of Texas.
All the state legislature needs to do is to tell the Court to go pack sand. The second thing they can do is cut the appropriations for the operation of the court.
I seriously doubt that there anything in the Kansas State Constitution that give the courts the right to make appropriations.
Already scratched Texas off my list.
•Too close to Mexico.
•About to go toll-road crazy.
•Extreme anti-smoking laws in some areas.
•Doctors have more say-so in end-of-life issues.
Next?
What does it take to ammend the KS constitution? I'd circumvent this idiot by making any constitutional reference to public schools voluntary on the part of the taxpayers.
Montana?
So far, Montana is at the top of my list.
Now if only there were jobs and water there....
Mississippi
Its warmer than Montana, real estate is cheap, and the people are friendly.
We even have elected judges to boot :P
They tryed that when public schools were first desegregated. Not gonna fly. Paying for basic education is a legitimate role for government. Running the schools is not.
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