Local Columns

Opinion: Kansas, Missouri need tax reciprocity

In 2019, the governors of Kansas and Missouri both committed to a truce, pausing the pointless, destructive tax border war. Prior to that, Kansas City-area companies would regularly leverage millions of dollars from their respective states in order to move just a few miles across the state ...

Opinion: What does it mean to protect women?

Over the last month, the Kansas Legislature pushed through anti-trans woman bills HB180 and HB2238. HB180 establishes a “women’s bill of rights to provide a meaning of biological sex for purposes of statutory construction.” In other words, the committee outlines terminology to establish a ...

Opinion: Stopgap bill won’t solve child care crisis

For the past several years Kansas families have suffered from a systemic lack of child care. Access to child care is a problem in both urban and rural areas. All but one of the state’s 105 counties have a higher demand for child care than availability. According to Child Care Aware of ...

Opinion: Another school lawsuit in the offing?

If passed into law, can Education Saving Accounts and tax credit vouchers withstand a constitutional challenge? That’s a question rolling around the Statehouse. The concern, at this point, is speculation since these two school choice bills have yet to go to Gov. Laura Kelly for her ...

Opinion: Home Rule on voting block, again

Kansas is officially a Home Rule state. It has been since 1961, when an amendment to the state constitution officially declared that Kansas cities are “empowered to determine their local affairs … except when” such actions are “limited or prohibited” by an act of the Legislature. ...

Opinion: Infamous ‘pi bill’ has lessons for Kansas

The celebration of Pi Day earlier this week reminds political scientists of the famous “Indiana Pi Bill” story — and provides an opportunity to warn Kansas legislators about the dangers of overreach and micromanagement. Pi Day is celebrated every March 14 (3/14, or the first three ...