What if the Kansas House leadership staged an investigation and nobody came?

So far, no witnesses have agreed to testify at planned hearings into Senate communications with a Kansas Supreme Court justice, and whatever information the House investigators have gathered has been unremarkable. The investigating committee canceled its Wednesday meeting and was unable to line up any witnesses for a scheduled Thursday meeting

Four state senators – including the two who have acknowledged having a school finance discussion with Justice Lawton Nuss – have formally declined to testify. Sen. President Steve Morris and Sen. Pete Brungardt, who lunched with Nuss, cited a constitutional provision that says legislators “shall not be questioned elsewhere” concerning what went into their decision-making process.

Another Republican, Sen. Roger Pine of Lawrence, simply said he had nothing to add to a statement he had made to the attorney general’s office on the Nuss matter and would give the committee a written copy of that statement. Predictably, the ranking Democrat in the Senate, Anthony Hensley of Topeka, was slightly more indignant saying his testimony would set a bad precedent and any conversations the senators had came in the course of their legislative duties and, “I don’t think it’s the House’s business.”

Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt didn’t exactly say he wouldn’t testify, but he said he couldn’t make the meeting this week because of a family vacation. Troy Findley, the governor’s chief of staff, also had a scheduling conflict.

Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, chairman of the investigative panel, tried to make the best of the witnesses’ rebuffs. In what was perhaps a subtle acknowledgment of his limited clout in this matter, O’Neal said he had decided, at least for now, not to subpoena witnesses to compel them to testify. The panel apparently didn’t really need witnesses anyway, because O’Neal said “we probably already have the information that we need to draft a report.”

Then why were these hearings attempted? O’Neal also said he may not issue a report until after the Commission on Judicial Qualifications holds its hearing on the Nuss matter on Aug. 10. If all it was going to do was piggyback off the judicial investigation, why did the House panel exist?

O’Neal’s statements seem like a tacit admission that, as many observers contended from the outset, the proper group to handle the Nuss investigation is the Commission on Judicial Qualifications. Legislators are allowed to talk to whomever they want about state business. If there was any wrongdoing in this situation, it was on the part of Justice Nuss, whose case should be handled by the judicial branch.

It seemed from the beginning that the main goal of the House investigation was for conservative House Republicans to pay back the moderate Senate leadership for championing a school finance plan that House leaders didn’t support. Since it appears the payback strategy has failed, it’s time for House leaders to pull the plug on their ill-advised and unproductive investigation.