Lawmakers neglect Kansas problems, throw $15.7 million at border. It won’t be spent | Opinion

In the waning hours of its 2024 veto session, the Kansas Legislature stumbled to and fro like a drunken sailor, pushing some bills into law, scrapping others and holding its mouth closed tight to prevent itself from becoming violently ill.

Perhaps no single action from Thursday to Tuesday encapsulated members’ wayward legislating like the decision to earmark $15.7 million for Kansas National Guard troops to assist Texas law enforcement with the so-called migrant crisis. Despite the fact that Kansas most assuredly doesn’t share a border with Mexico and that the Guard has to be called up by Gov. Laura Kelly, lawmakers overrode her veto anyway. Great job, folks.

In case you hadn’t figured it out already, this allotment of state money doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

Kelly won’t deploy the Kansas Guard to Texas. The money won’t be spent. Sometime early next year, legislators will determine what to do with the bonus $15.7 million, perhaps spending it on ice pops or pony rides for their donors. For that matter, Kansas industry depends on immigration for meatpacking and other agribusiness jobs. With full employment, migrants fill a needed role in the U.S. labor force.

Legislators didn’t care about the facts. They wanted to fulfill an empty conservative talking point while on the campaign trail this summer and fall. Never mind the chain of command. The majority decided to serve the national political narrative above all.

“Every state in the nation is a border state at this point,” proclaimed Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, in ignorance of both geography and common sense. “Let Kansas be a part of it. It’s not much short of an invasion. We’re a little isolated up here, but it’s coming.”

Sigh. Someone needs to carry our Legislature to its bed at the flophouse to sleep this off. If you don’t, it might try more overrides.

Lawmakers heard common sense from their fellow members. They just chose to ignore it.

They might have paid attention to state state Sen. Ethan Corson, a Prairie Village Democrat, explaining his vote on the allocation: “The fact is that we the Legislature aren’t sending anybody anywhere, at any time. We never have, we never will. We won’t if this passes, we won’t if this fails. That is a decision to make for the governor, who is the commander in chief of the National Guard, and she will decide if, when and how the Kansas National Guard is used. And that point of information seems to be lost on many members of this body. So I just wanted to repeat it again.”

You can look at this exhibitionistic waste of time in a couple of ways. On one hand, lawmakers should have been using their precious minutes to pass Medicaid expansion, medicinal marijuana rules, and a tax plan that actually benefits lower- and middle-income Kansans rather than the wealthiest among us. That might have required negotiation and profound consideration, also known as work.

On the other hand, at least legislators didn’t do something actively harmful. They didn’t pass a bill targeting transgender children into law. They didn’t decide to send the entire state budget surplus to Charles Koch. They didn’t allow unlicensed sugaring practitioners — whoever and whatever that is — to work near children’s genitalia.

Perhaps we should be grateful that they wasted time on a just-for-show border bill.

This all raises the question of why legislators bother turning up in Topeka at all. If the point of the job is to spread crude political messaging, couldn’t you do the same work in front of your computer at home? Mark Zuckerberg built a haven for online cranks. If the point is to propagate political narratives untethered from reality, couldn’t you apply for a Fox News hosting gig? You have options, and they don’t involve spending hours on end at the Statehouse.

I don’t care if you’re liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. If you’re a legislator, you should be trying to solve actual problems on behalf of actual Kansans. Not allocating money that will not be spent for a challenge that we don’t face.

Pull yourself together and sober up, sailor.

Clay Wirestone is opinion editor of the nonprofit Kansas Reflector, where this commentary originally appeared.