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WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 24 • 2016
KANSAS LEGISLATURE
Senate OKs juvenile justice overhaul
Measure targets Lawrence building rules ——
Bill would stop city from creating affordable housing requirements By Nikki Wentling Twitter: @nikkiwentling
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
STATE LEGISLATORS are pictured Tuesday in the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka. Senators passed a multitude of bills on Tuesday, including one that would overhaul the state juvenile justice system.
Bill aims to reduce number of incarcerated youths By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
Topeka — The Kansas Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill Tuesday that would overhaul the Kansas juvenile justice system by reducing the number of young offenders who are incarcerated and requiring community-based therapies and other kinds of interventions to keep less violent of-
fenders out of because we’re not putting jail. every kid in detention, so “It re-priorithat we can have specialized, tizes resources evidence-based, researchso we’re spendbased programs that show ing money and they actually cut down on bed spaces on recidivism,” said Sen. Greg those kids that Smith, R-Overland Park, who are really comchaired the committee that mitting these Smith produced the bill. violent crimes, and then reThe bill, which passed on a investing the savings that 38-2 vote, was a rare example we’re getting from the bed of major legislation that respace that’s going to open up ceived praise on both sides
of the aisle, both for the content of the bill and the process used to produce it. “At the end of the day, it’s about what is right for our juveniles and how we can find programs that perhaps help them get back on the Please see JUSTICE, page 2A l Senate approves
restrictive foster care program. Page 5A
House rejects plan to raise top highway speed limit to 80 mph Topeka (ap) — The Kansas House rejected an effort Tuesday to increase the speed limit to 80 miles per hour on rural interstates, even as it moved to hike it to 70 on some other highways. The House approved a bill 106-19 to allow the state’s secretary of transportation to increase the speed limits
on rural two-lane highways and other non-interstate highways another 5 miles per hour, from the current 65. The measure goes next to the Senate. But the House’s action came after it voted
90-24 against an amendment offered by Rep. John Bradford, a Lansing Republican, to increase the speed limit on interstates outside metropolitan areas to 80 mph from the current 75. Several House members
saw increasing the top speed limit as unsafe, particularly because state law says that speeding on a highway isn’t a moving violation unless it’s more than 10 miles per hour over the limit. Thus, they said, boosting the top limit to 80 miles per hour would encourage some drivers to go 90.
Lawrence City Commissioners heard details Tuesday about a Kansas Senate bill aimed at preventing Lawrence from creating ordinances that would require a share of new housing construction to be set aside as affordable. Lawrence resident Melinda Henderson brought up the legislation, Senate Bill 366, during a public comment period at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, hours after it passed the Kansas Senate on a 34-6 vote. According to correspondence Henderson provided to commissioners, Sen. Marci Francisco, DCITY Lawrence, testified COMMISSION against the measure, saying the language was “so broad that it may eliminate other opportunities for communities to address issues of affordable housing.” Henderson asked commissioners why the city hadn’t provided testimony in opposition to the bill. “I will take full responsibility for not putting anything together on this item,” Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard said. “We had no indication that was aimed at the city of Lawrence.” The Topeka Capital-Journal reported Sen. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, said the Kansas Association of Realtors asked that the bill be passed because of discussion in Lawrence about zoning changes that would enable a portion of housing units in new subdivisions to be sold to customers at a reduced price. That type of action is referred to by some as “inclusionary zoning.” Please see HOUSING, page 2A
KU distinguished professor explores complexity of ‘solidarity’ By Elvyn Jones Twitter: @ElvynJ
Mixing in historical and contemporary stories at his lecture Tuesday, David Roediger demonstrated that solidarity is easier proclaimed than realized and can mask dark outcomes. Roediger, who arrived at KU in the fall of 2014 as a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of American Studies, signaled the conflicting nature of the word that has been rallying cry for activists for more than
a century with the lecture’s title, “Making ‘Solidarity’ Uneasy: A Keyword and Its Discontents.” Speaking to a filled Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union, the author of such works as “Seizing Freedom,” “How Race Survived U.S. History” and “The Production of Difference” illustrated the unease noted in his title with historical examples from Bacon’s Rebellion of the 1670s to the recent Black Lives Matter movement. The former has been portrayed as a precursor to the American Revolution in which indentured
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servants rose up A plaque on the against their ecolarge granite rock nomic oppression, the glaciers brought but that view overto Kansas celebrates looked those same Lawrence’s piorebels’ commitneers. They were ment to the geno“good” settlers who cide of the remainfought against the ing indigenous expansion of slavVirginia tribes, Roediger ery in Kansas, but whose land they their notation on the took after killing them in monument obscures the large numbers, he said. displaced Kanza tribe’s earThe rebellion was an lier spiritual connection to example of the celebra- the Shunganunga boulder tion of solidarity hiding that they viewed as a sacred the oppression of others, object, he said. Roediger said. A local exThe movement that ample was the Founder’s sprung from the 2014 Rock in Lawrence’s Rob- Ferguson, Mo., death of inson Park, he said. Michael Brown demon-
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strated “easy” solidarity that quickly developed between black protestors and those from the Palestinian and the transgender community, Roediger said. On the other hand, it produced scenes of white protesters participating in “die-ins” and sporting “Hands up, don’t shoot” slogans, which raised questions about white allies, unthreatened from incidents such as the Brown shooting, taking on the role of historical victims, he said. The early solidarity, such as the kind that grew
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in the Ferguson protests, can be difficult to maintain because of competing ambitions, loyalties or goals, Roediger said. Roediger didn’t provide an answer to the questions he raised, but suggested that activists embrace the ambiguous nature of solidarity. “We need to able to think of two things at once when we think about solidarity — that it is extraordinarily hard and vexed and that it is also inspiring and worth pursuing.” — Reporter Elvyn Jones can be reached at 832-7166 or ejones@ljworld.com.
Vol.158/No.55 40 pages