Kansas lawmakers sent Gov. Kelly a bad school funding bill. She should sign it anyway | Opinion

Virtually all candidates in both major parties now run for office promising to be the fighter America needs. In such an angry time, that’s a message that resonates, but not every fight can be won.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is being pressed by some of her strongest supporters to fight back against those who want to degrade public schools. These allies want her to veto a school funding bill that fails to boost special education funding and expands tax credit scholarships for private schools.

Then, she’d call lawmakers into a special session, daring them to either override her veto, which they would not hesitate to do, or pass a new bill, which could be even worse. A special session would also allow Republicans to try again to pass unrelated legislation.

If we thought Kelly had a fair chance of improving the current bill in a special session, we’d say she should go for it.

With a budget surplus, there’s no real reason Kansas can’t better fund its special education programs.

But giving Kansas lawmakers intent on eroding our public schools an additional opportunity to do so is not a good idea.

Republican state Rep. Kristey Williams, who chairs the House K-12 Budget Committee, “has already said she’d love another chance to make it worse,” said Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher of Overland Park. Vouchers could be expanded even further, for example, as they were in one of the bills that was defeated.

The bottom line is this, she said: “Those of us who support education are severely outnumbered; the group of people empowered to make decisions doesn’t change with a special session. There was a time we could count on everyone in Johnson County to support public schools. Not anymore.”

“And there’s no way we’d be limited to education” in a special session, Holscher said, so more anti-trans and anti-abortion rights bills would also be back on the agenda.

Kansas lawmakers have done enough damage. Until voters decide they and their children deserve better, the more time they spend out of session and away from Topeka the better.