Lawrence Journal-World 10-18-2016

Page 1

STATUS

Big 12 decides to hold off on expansion. 1D

QUO

Japanese are working themselves to death — literally. 1B

L A W R E NC E

Journal-World

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Tuesday • October 18 • 2016

PUBLISHED SINCE 1891

Elections chief left behind Kansas scandal

Brownback says media not reporting good economic news.

Here’s why.

By Roxana Hegeman

Associated Press

Peter Hancock/Journal-World File Photo

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ews outlets in Kansas are not reporting the good news about the Kansas economy, and if they did, voters might feel differently about the impact that Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax policies have had on the state. That’s the message that Brownback himself has been delivering lately, in talks to various groups around the state, including a recent get-together with the Kansas Press Association board of directors. So when word of that conversation got back to the news desk, the Lawrence Journal-World asked to meet with the governor and let him make his case. Brownback agreed, and in the course of a 25-minute interview, he laid out his case — complete with a wealth of charts and graphs — with data that he says prove the Kansas economy is in better shape than people give it credit for. “It just never gets out,” Brownback said at the outset. “That’s what I was complaining about, because

Statehouse Live

Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com

we’ve got some really good employment numbers and small business growth numbers in the state, and that just never gets out.” Much of that, he said, is directly due to the tax cuts he championed in 2012 and 2013. And in the areas where the state’s economy seems to be lagging, Brownback blames global, macroeconomic forces, such as commodity prices in the farm and energy sectors that are beyond the state’s control. Brownback has good reason to try to shore up his case at this point. His allies in

the Legislature who helped push through the tax cuts — at least those who actually ran for re-election — suffered badly in the Aug. 2 primary, and many people say there’s a good chance they could suffer more defeats in the Nov. 8 general election. If 2016 turns out to be a “wave” election, in which the balance of power in the Legislature completely shifts, then Brownback could be in for a tough ride in the last two years of his administration. And although there’s every reason to believe that most voters who are motivated on the tax issue have already made up their minds, Brownback has an incentive for trying to make his case while he still has time. The purpose of the tax cuts, Brownback reminds people, was to spur business development and increase private sector jobs over the long term. And by putting more money in the pockets of individuals, the theory was, that would generate economic activity that would produce

revenue for the state from other sources, such as retail sales taxes, to offset the loss of income taxes. “What that was built upon is, if you get a kind of normal economic situation, that as you cut income taxes, you’ll gain it back in sales,” Brownback said. “That was the theory. That was the experience in some other areas.” Here are some of the numbers that Brownback cites to make his case. l The border wars. One of the boldest claims Brownback makes is also the most difficult to verify independently. That is the claim that Kansas tax policy has reversed the outflow of economic wealth from the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area to the Missouri side. “We were losing tax filers to Missouri for 19 years in a row,” Brownback said. “That’s us losing wealth to Missouri. Enact the tax policy, and boom. We were having out-migration

> BROWNBACK, 4A

Wichita — When Brian Newby took the helm of a federal election agency, he left behind an unfolding scandal in Kansas where he was having an affair with a woman he promoted in his previous job and used her to Newby skirt oversight of their lavish expenses, prompting a local prosecutor to investigate, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press. The affair and resulting fallout was revealed in hundreds of emails ordered released after AP sued Johnson County, where Newby was the top election official before leaving to become executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The emails — coupled with hundreds more obtained from the Kansas secretary of state’s office through a separate open records request — portray a rogue election official who berated employees and deliberately bypassed supervision. They also document a toxic workplace created by his affair with then Assistant Election Commissioner Jessica White, an apparent violation of county policy on intimate relationships with subordinates. In a June 2015 exchange from his work email to her personal address, the then-married Newby told White: “You, my little lover, are so wonderful.” In graphic language, Newby also describes a sex > NEWBY, 6A

County Commission candidates express views on jail expansion seats on this year’s gen- running as an indepeneral election ballot. dent, and 3rd District canAnswering quesdidates Democrat tions at the Voter Bassem Chahine Education Coaliand Republican Mition’s forum at chelle Derusseau. Lawrence City Hall Thellman is were 2nd District the incumbent in candidates Demothe 2nd Douglas COUNTY crat Nancy Thell- COMMISSION County Commisman and challenger sion District of east Jesse Brinson Jr., who is Lawrence precincts and

By Elvyn Jones ejones@ljworld.com

Views on the possible expansion of the Douglas County Jail and construction of a mental health crisis intervention center varied at a forum Monday for the four candidates vying of the two Douglas County Commission

L A W R E NC E

Journal-World

Cooler

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High: 75

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the eastern portions of Douglas County, including Baldwin City and Eudora. Chahine and Derusseau are contesting for the 3rd District seat of west and south central Lawrence and western Douglas County. The 3rd District became an open seat when incumbent Commissioner Jim Flory

Low: 52

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chose not to run for reelection. What emerged from the forum was that no candidate held to the position of the current Douglas County Commission, which would put the funding of the jail expansion and crisis intervention center on the same bond referendum

put before county voters. Although she is a member of the commission that publicly affirmed that position,

> COUNTY, 2A l Voter registration

deadline is today — here’s where to go. Page 2A

Forecast, 6B

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