Coordinated plan. Reduced-credit degrees. No clemency for serial killer. Duty-status system.

By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief

By Clay Wirestone

This was the plan all along.

That’s my strong suspicion after reading about and reporting on Senate Bill 105, a Kansas law passed last year that appears to give Republican power brokers a get-out-of-jail free card in this year’s U.S. Senate race.

As reported Wednesday by Kansas Reflector, the law’s text grants any Senate appointee a free two-year trial period before having to face voters. The bill’s ostensible purpose was to prevent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly from appointing a Democrat to replace Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, but the clause in question was added to the bill after its introduction.

It reads: “If the vacancy occurs on or after May 1 in an even-numbered year, then such vacancy shall be filled by election at the election of representatives in congress held two years following the year in which such vacancy occurs.”

Sounds bad, right? If Marshall were to leave for a Trump administration post — say secretary of Health and Human Services — does state law effectively cancel the fall U.S. Senate election? One assumes the Constitution would stand in the way. On the other hand, who among us trusts the U.S. Supreme Court?

TOPEKA — The Kansas Board of Regents authorized a three-year pilot project enabling leaders of the state’s six public universities to propose special undergraduate degrees requiring as little as three-fourths the course credit hours as a standard 120 credit-hour bachelor’s degree.

University proposals for development of reduced-credit baccalaureate degrees, or RCBDs, would be vetted by the nine-member Board of Regents. Under the regents’ new policy, public universities seeking approval of alternative degrees would be responsible for demonstrating there was high demand among Kansas employers for graduates who completed an academic program requiring a minimum of 90 credit hours of instruction.

TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly denied a Kansas serial killer clemency from his death sentence on Thursday.

She denied the request of John Robinson, an 82-year-old Kansas prison inmate convicted of killing eight women from the mid 1980s until he was arrested in 2000. The governor said he did not meet the criteria for clemency.

“As the existence of a credible claim of innocence or evidence of manifest injustice are absent in his request,” Kelly said in a press release, “I have denied John Robinson’s request to commute his death sentence.”

TOPEKA — Federal legislation cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas would reduce duty-status classifications of National Guard and Reserve troops from about 30 to four categories while standardizing compensation, clarifying mission eligibility requirements and bringing consistency to veterans’ benefits.

Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a late morning press conference in Washington, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education will temporarily reduce interest rates for federal student loan borrowers enrolled in auto pay starting July 1, the agency announced Thursday.

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