Sometimes the law doesn’t have all of the answers. The opinion Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison issued Thursday on appointments to the KU Hospital Authority offers clear guidance on some issues, but it leaves room for legal debate on others.

It now is up to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the KU Hospital Authority board to decide whether they will continue to debate these issues and perhaps even pursue them in court or sit down and hammer out a process that works for the hospital and the state.

The advice of the two ranking legislators on the Senate Confirmations Oversight Committee seems sound: Start the process over and work it out.

The two legislators – Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, and Sen. Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, issued a joint statement after the AG’s opinion was issued. In it, they noted that the opinion offers “the opportunity for a clean start” on the nominations and urged, “The KU Hospital is a jewel in the crown of the Kansas health care system and must not be hamstrung by political or legal bickering and disputes.”

Although most Kansans would agree with that sentiment, putting the “bickering and disputes” aside in this argument won’t be easy. It will require some good faith and compromise on both sides.

Among the questions left open to debate is how slates of nominees are submitted to the governor. Morrison concluded that although the statute doesn’t clearly prohibit the practice of submitting nominations for several vacancies at once, that the hospital board’s practice of nominating the same people for multiple vacancies could deny the governor a true choice for filling each slot.

To eliminate that problem the AG’s opinion says “we suggest” the board change its policy and submit slates for each vacancy separately, waiting for the governor to choose from one slate before submitting the nominees for the next vacancy. For her part, the governor should agree to act on those nominations quickly even though Morrison concluded that the statute places no limit on how long she can consider appointments after slates are submitted.

Representatives of the hospital and the governor’s office also were quick to stake out territory on another vague issue in the AG’s opinion: whether or not Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson is a member of the board. Parkinson was a member but submitted his resignation to the board in June 2006. According to the Hospital Authority’s bylaws, that means he no longer is on the board.

But, Morrison pointed out, those bylaws conflict with the state’s “common law” which is derived from judicial decisions. That law indicates that in order for someone’s resignation to be official, it must be accepted by the “appointing authority,” in this case, the governor. The governor says she never accepted the resignation so Parkinson is still on the board.

To further muddy this issue, the acceptance of a resignation doesn’t need to come in the form of a formal response. For instance, Morrison said, simply “recognizing the existence of a vacancy” could constitute acceptance. So the question of whether the governor informally accepted the resignation remains open.

At this point, many Kansas residents have glazed over on the discussion of this matter. They don’t care about all the legal wrangling over the board members.

It’s good that the attorney general’s opinion was sought because it clarifies some issues that even the Hospital Authority and the governor’s office didn’t seem to fully grasp a couple of months ago. But, along with the legal advice, Morrison’s opinion also refers to the use of “common sense” and the need to “abide by the spirit of the law” in resolving this conflict.

As Schmidt and Hensley have noted, the opinion gives the key parties “the opportunity for a clean start.” All involved should take advantage of that opportunity and resolve these issues for the benefit of both KU Hospital and the state.