Five years ago, Lee Norman was trying to dissuade Kansans from ingesting chemical cleaners to prevent COVID-19, preparing for the end of a statewide stay-at-home order and deciding whether to send tests for everyone in long-term care facilities and prisons.
“This iteration of the Legislature seems to think it is entitled to redact information that could traditionally be found in a phonebook, and that it may do so in a futile attempt to shield the identity of a handful of powerful Kansans but not the rest of us,” Max Kautsch writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
The way freshman Sen. Patrick Schmidt sees it, a shorter legislative session isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Topeka Democrat said the shortened timeline for passing bills could work in Democrats’ favor.
”(Kansas legislators) are making antihuman choices that will destroy lives and rip apart families for cheap political gain. The fact that we all knew this was coming does not make it any easier to bear,” Clay Wirestone writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins banned reporting from the House chamber floor in new rules issued ahead of the legislative session, breaking from historical precedent and further exhibiting his disregard for news reporting.
A national coalition’s report says one-fourth of Kansas’ 300 nursing homes were categorized as problem facilities due to substandard care and persistent compliance issues.
”We remember Sumner’s name. But we should also remember that Sumner was right,” Clay Wirestone writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
”The release of the BIE’s investigative report on Haskell is a start. But more is needed, including a criminal investigation into the abuses uncovered by the report,” Max McCoy writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
A longtime NRA board member says hints of financial impropriety surfaced years before the New York state AG filed a lawsuit against four executives of the gun-rights advocacy organization and revealed indiscretions so disturbing the conservative political giant could crumble.
”So what if I don’t like the plastic bag ban? … We all have to do things that we don’t like for the greater good,” Clay Wirestone writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
