Editorial Roundup: Kansas

Kansas City Star. March 3, 2021.

Editorial: Voting in Missouri and Kansas needs to be expanded. This law is not the way to do it

The U.S. House is expected to vote this week on H.R. 1, a massive overhaul of election and campaign law. It’s called the “For the People Act.”

The legislation is crammed with good ideas. It requires states to offer same-day voter registration in federal elections. States must use voter-verified paper ballots. Voter ID is prohibited, while a 15-day early voting period is mandatory. States must set up independent commissions to draw House districts.

At the same time, it’s a hard bill to like. As introduced, it’s almost 800 pages long, with sections on voter rights, campaign finance and ethics. It addresses foreign interference in elections, campaign disclosure requirements, even an ethics code for the Supreme Court.

It requires presidents and vice presidents to make their income tax returns public.

It proposes a voluntary matching fund mechanism for congressional campaigns. The money wouldn’t come from taxpayers, but “through a surcharge on settlements paid by corporate lawbreakers and wealthy tax cheats.” Oh.

There are simply too many items in the bill for a reasonable debate on its merits. It would almost certainly face legal challenges.

But let there be no doubt: The need for federal election reform and oversight is clear. That’s because state legislatures, including those in Missouri and Kansas, are considering another frontal assault on the right to vote.

STATE VOTER ID LAWS, PURGES OF REGISTRATIONS

The Missouri House, for example, recently passed a new voter ID law to replace the one discarded by the state’s Supreme Court. The state Senate is expected to debate the measure later in the session.

Legislators want to make it harder to gather petition signatures to amend the Missouri Constitution. There’s talk of rolling back absentee voting regulations in the state. Aggressive purges of registered voters are on the table. Mail-in voting may be reduced.

In Kansas, legislators are considering a bill prohibiting the courts or election officials from changing the deadline for receipt of mail-in votes, which would be shortened by two days.

Nationally, the Brennan Center for Justice found, lawmakers have offered more than 250 measures to restrict voting rights.

Why? “The voters of Missouri want their votes protected and counted properly,” said state Rep. John Simmons last week.

Of course they do. But their votes are fully protected under current law, and they’re counted correctly. There is no evidence otherwise. If Simmons or anyone else can prove fraud, let them do so. Send it to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

At the same time, there is an important lesson embedded in the 2020 results: When voting is easier, more people vote. In Missouri, more than 3 million voters took advantage of expanded absentee and mail-in rules to cast presidential ballots. That’s 200,000 more people than cast such ballots in 2016.

We should all want that. Republicans should want more voters - even with November’s high turnout, the party still swept elections, up and down the ballot. There is no reason voting rules need to be rolled back.

GOP stalwarts who oppose H.R. 1 claim it would intrude on a state’s right to conduct elections. Sorry. The party abandoned that argument when states supported lawsuits throwing out millions of votes in other states. If you’re afraid of nationalized elections, blame Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Derek Schmidt of Kansas for their recent craven behavior. And Donald Trump’s.

The goal is clear. All adult Americans deserve free, fair, open elections with a guaranteed right to vote and a transparent process for counting those ballots. State lawmakers should stop trying to protect themselves by blocking access to the voting booth.

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Lawrence Journal-World. March 6, 2021.

Editorial: Miles must specifically address his many accusers, or he must be fired as KU’s football coach

It is hard to deny that the University of Kansas has become a perennial doormat in college football. But it is equally as obvious that KU can’t allow itself to be in the rug business.

There are growing signs that current KU football coach Les Miles had extremely inappropriate conduct swept under the rug while he was the successful and powerful head coach at LSU. KU leaders must make it perfectly clear there can be no rugs and no brooms when it comes to such serious matters at the University of Kansas.

KU’s decision on Friday evening to place Miles on administrative leave while it investigates the matter is a good first step. Now, we all need to see some steps from Miles.

Miles, through his attorney, has denied kissing a student employee while at LSU. While he has acknowledged being alone with her in his vehicle, he has said he never did anything inappropriate with her and only sought to mentor her. That set up a scenario of a classic “he said/she said” dispute.

But the story took a significant turn on Friday, when LSU released its most recent report looking into allegations that the university’s athletic department had a history of mishandling complaints of sexual harassment. In that broader report, multiple people - some of them speaking on the record with their names attached - discussed language and actions by Miles that are inappropriate on their face.

There are employees of the athletic department who told attorneys that Miles provided specific directions about the type of student employees who should be hired to represent LSU football. Those directions were to hire “pretty girls,” and more specifically “blondes with the big boobs.” Miles has not addressed those allegations. Did he provide such direction?

At least three witnesses also referenced Miles referring to student workers as “a.m. and p.m. girls.” Miles has not addressed those allegations. Did he use that language? Again, the report found multiple people who recalled Miles referring to certain student workers looking like a “bad bowling team.” No response yet from Miles. Did he say it?

Perhaps Miles will come out and deny saying any of those things. If so, he needs to not simply deny but also explain why so many of his co-workers at LSU recalled him saying things that were so inappropriate. Are we to believe, with no evidence, that these LSU employees simply have it out for Miles? To be blunt, at this point, there are many reasons why Miles may lie about his past activity. We aren’t yet aware of reasons why these LSU employees would be lying about what they saw or heard. The court of public opinion does not work like a court of law. Miles has a significant burden to help us believe that any denial he issues is truthful.

Miles must undertake that task, make those public denials and do the hard work of winning the trust of the public. If Miles wants to remain silent, then we should never hear from him again as a coach at the University of Kansas. If Miles won’t do the work to win back the trust of the public, then KU should fire him.

Alternatively, Miles may acknowledge some of this language and attitude that multiple people have attributed to him. He may express regret, promise that he has changed and ask for forgiveness. There are some really good books that say forgiveness is a virtue. To be clear, though, sometimes you can be forgiven and keep your job, and sometimes you can be forgiven and lose your job. If Miles does acknowledge mistakes and says he has changed his attitude on women and respect, then KU will have a decision to make. That decision should be grounded in the specifics of the situation, which are still emerging. KU should err on creating an atmosphere of respect for women and one free from harassment and discrimination.

In the end, KU must be entirely confident that students and staff at the University of Kansas are protected from abuse. The most recent LSU report reminds of the importance of doing so. The report details how the student employee who alleges Miles kissed her and touched her inappropriately confronted Miles. She did so in the presence of other athletic department employees.

“This child had a dead stare … she just kept saying, over and over, ‘You know what you did to me,’” an employee who was present for the meeting told investigators. Others present described the meeting as “emotional” and “traumatic.”

KU can lose a lot more football games and never lose as much as a victim of sexual harassment.

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Wichita Eagle. March 4, 2021.

Editorial: Do we want another COVID-19 spike in Wichita? Then don’t drop the mask mandate

It was only a matter of time.

And sure enough, just days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted that state’s COVID-19 mask mandate - allowing businesses to open and crowds to gather at pre-pandemic levels - some county leaders here in Wichita are itching to follow suit.

Sedgwick County Commissioner David Dennis said he’s under pressure from constituents - 20 whole e-mails, wow - to lift mandates and reopen everything.

“I don’t know what to tell the people,” Dennis said. “I just need to know how to respond.”

Here’s what you say, Commissioner, as county health officer Dr. Gerald Minns so wisely reminded us Wednesday:

The pandemic isn’t over, no matter what politicians in Texas or Mississippi might say.

Masks, crowd limits and physical distancing are crucial to squelching the spread of COVID-19, particularly as local health officials discover more contagious variants of the disease.

Sedgwick County’s mandate needs to remain in place up to and after its current March 20 expiration date.

And leaders need to be smart and stay the course, not cave to peer pressure from our southern neighbors.

We’re so close to the finish line of our battle against COVID-19 - which, let’s not forget, has killed more than 4,800 Kansans and hospitalized more than 9,300.

Wichita is ramping up vaccinations, reopening schools and relaxing rules on bars and restaurants. After an especially bone-chilling winter, spring is in the air and restaurant patios are hopping.

We’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Why risk another surge in coronavirus cases and make the tunnel even longer?

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned states this week against rolling back coronavirus restrictions, saying declines in COVID-19 cases have leveled off and now show signs of ticking back up.

“At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” Walensky said.

“Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close.”

Texas Gov. Abbott and others have been careful to say that everyone should take personal responsibility and adhere to public health recommendations. Many will.

But many would see a walk-back of restrictions as a sign that the crisis is over and would ditch their masks. Businesses who want to continue requiring face coverings would face a new round of consternation and fury from some customers, and the rules would be that much harder to enforce.

How do we know? We’ve seen it before - and not so long ago.

Last summer, as COVID-19 cases exploded in the Wichita area and local hospitals sounded warning calls about the spread of the virus, the Sedgwick County Commission rejected Gov. Laura Kelly’s statewide mask order, opting instead for recommendations over rules.

That move proved dangerously ineffective, and when the county’s health officer ordered a mask mandate on his own authority, commissioners relented and let the order stand.

Since then, county leaders have extended the mask order several times. Masks became more commonplace in the Wichita area. Commissioners - even ones who once defied mask recommendations and crowd limits - started wearing masks during their meetings and elsewhere.

We’re all weary of restrictions and eager to return to our pre-pandemic normal. But now is not the time to let down our guard. We can’t be that runner who celebrates prematurely and gets passed at the finish line.

As we begin to see glimmers of hope and recovery, Wichita-area leaders must do everything they can to attack, control and curb the spread of the novel coronavirus - and that includes maintaining the mask mandate.

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