Property taxes. Children's Mercy. Poll workers. President's ploys. Pregnancy crimes.

By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief

TOPEKA — Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson shared with television viewers Jan. 12, 2021, a vision for how Republicans could deal with runaway property taxes.

In the reply to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s State of the State speech, Masterson promised lawmakers would address the burden of $5.4 billion in property taxes collected statewide at that time. It wasn’t an unimaginable political feat given Masterson’s authority over the GOP supermajority in the Senate and House Speaker Dan Hawkins’ control of the two-thirds Republican majority in the House.

It was a politically astute pledge, because polling consistently affirmed property tax applied to homeowners was the most hated, relative to sales and income taxes.

“We must work to enact meaningful property tax reform to allow seniors and families to stay in their homes,” Masterson vowed.

The Legislature spent the next five years nibbling on the edge of reform, but annual statewide revenue from property taxes ballooned to $6.6 billion by 2025. Legislators continued to hear from folks outraged by double-digit escalation of property valuations that triggered tax increases even when mill levies remained flat.

TOPEKA — When Children’s Mercy announced patients won’t be covered by Affordable Care Act insurance beginning Jan. 1, stressed parents vented online and some politicians blamed the refusal to expand Medicaid in Kansas.

Children’s Mercy, which has locations in Kansas and Missouri, has just one insurance plan on the ACA marketplace this year, Medica, which covers about 400 current patients, hospital leaders said in a statement. The Medica ACA plan decided to exit the market in Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas, and in Clay, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Platte and Ray counties in Missouri.

By Susan Kraus

I just got home from my mandatory poll worker preelection training. It was 90-plus minutes long, and this was just a refresher class for experienced poll workers, not the longer new poll worker class. I got an updated 51-page election board manual to review at home.

My shift will be 14 hours long: Report before 6 a.m. and work until about 8 p.m. Flat-rate pay is $130 for a shift. I could sign a fee waiver sheet and work for free. But, nah, this year I think I want to use the big bucks for something I cannot otherwise afford — a massage or a steak. Fill up the tank without swearing. Have a feel-good moment. Or donate it to Just Food, which would also result in a feel-good moment.

The way we speak is a culmination of our life experiences, according to Jeff Holliday, a linguist and professor at the University of Kansas. He and Lacey Wade, also a professor and linguist at KU, recently authored research on how people inside and outside of Kansas perceive Kansas speech.

Less than a week before Election Day, President Donald Trump’s unprecedented drive for power over elections has set the stage for a series of courtroom fights that could quickly lead to a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over the limits of federal authority.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unlawfully scrutinizing naturalized U.S. citizens and placing them at risk of disenfranchisement, civil rights groups alleged in a lawsuit Wednesday, less than a week before Election Day.

In the first three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, more than 900 women faced criminal charges for conduct related to their pregnancies, according to a new report.

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