After announcing that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and her top adviser would be called to testify at a hearing to investigate a Kansas Supreme Court justice’s conversation with two Kansas senators, Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, had this to say:

“I can’t imagine they wouldn’t. I can’t imagine a failure to cooperate – that would look bad.”

With all due respect to O’Neal, it seems that making someone look bad is exactly the goal of the House committee he is leading. Two Republican senators had lunch with a Supreme Court justice who was appointed by a Republican governor and briefly discussed the state’s school finance legislation, but it’s the Democratic governor and her chief of staff who are going to look bad?

Such is the politics of this issue. Instead of leaving the investigation of the lunch discussion to the Commission on Judicial Qualifications or even the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, the Republican House leadership has launched an investigation of its own. It isn’t hard to imagine that at least part of their goal is to deflect blame and attention to either the executive branch or to the Supreme Court that soon will be deciding the constitutionality of the latest school finance legislation.

The governor has acknowledged that Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, commented during a meeting with her that he had communicated with the court about school finance. The remark, she said, was so off-hand that she didn’t take it seriously. She also has confirmed that she has had no contact with the court about the school finance case or obtained any “inside information” on how the court might rule on that or any other case.

A spokesman for Sebelius also indicated the governor plans to cooperate with the House investigation, with or without the subtle pressure applied by O’Neal about what would or wouldn’t “look bad.”

O’Neal also said Tuesday that “I really want to do this as benignly as possible.” Perhaps that truly is his goal, but politics still seems to be getting in the way.