Kansas Speaker Mike O’Neal wants a lot more power over budget bills. And if he can manage it, he’d like to exercise it in secret.
O’Neal and his conservative cohorts are moving to adopt a rule that would prevent the House as a whole from increasing the total spending in a proposed budget once it has been endorsed by the Appropriations Committee.
Think about that for a minute. Such a rule would give the 12-member committee the power to overrule a majority of the 125-member House.
House Minority Leader Paul Davis did think about it. “This really is a power grab. We’ve taken 12 people on the Appropriations Committee and we’ve given them all crowns,” he said.
O’Neal also wants to eliminate the possibility that open debate on a budget bill might change minds and keep him from dictating outcomes. With a 92-33 majority, O’Neal shouldn’t have to worry.
But he’s all for sure things. Secret caucuses would let him and his fellow travelers write the budget bill without the nuisance of open debate that would be reported in newspapers, over the radio and television and let the public have input before the final votes were cast.
Public input on such ticklish things as the level of state aid to schools and the budgets for medical care for children and care of those with disabilities is exactly what Speaker O’Neal doesn’t want. There are, you see, a lot of Kansans with strong feelings about the importance of education, kids’ health and taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves.
But Speaker O’Neal had enough of input from the public last year, when a coalition of Democrats and moderate Re-publicans not only increased school aid but also passed a one-cent sales tax increase and agreed to finance a new 10-year transportation program.
Horrors!
That lack of discipline actually allowed the Legislature to take responsible action.
Speaker O’Neal is absolutely determined to prevent that from happening again. The odds are that he will succeed and Kansas will be the worse for it.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
Editor’s note: Such action proposed by Speaker O’Neal was indeed passed Monday evening by a vote of 76-45.
