Kansas City Star. September 20, 2022.
Editorial: Derek Schmidt wants Kansas to be more like Ron DeSantis’ Florida? Has he lost his mind?
If Derek Schmidt likes Ron DeSantis’ Florida so much, he ought to buy a timeshare in Boca, but leave the cruel immigration policies, reckless COVID-19 protocols and divisive rhetoric where it is.
Schmidt, the Republican candidate for Kansas governor, promised over the weekend that if elected, he’d do his best to make Kansas more like Florida. Kansans ought to ask if he needs to sit in the shade for a spell.
Florida has higher rates of poverty, child poverty and share of residents without health insurance than Kansas. A smaller share of people there have college degrees, and its median household income lags well behind Kansas’. Its rate of COVID-19 deaths per thousand residents is 20% higher than in Kansas.
So what in the world could Schmidt admire so much about Florida and its governor?
Their politics, of course. That, after all, is fast becoming the only yardstick leading Republican figures across the country seem to be capable of applying.
Consider the hosannas they’ve been singing all week in praise of DeSantis’ clownish scheme to trick 50 recently arrived migrants in Texas, where most of them were awaiting asylum decisions after an arduous trek from Venezuela, and give them tickets to what they thought were jobs in Boston. Instead, they ended up in Martha’s Vineyard, the wealthy resort community in Massachusetts.
It’s late summer, and of course there are no jobs in the winter in the beach town. Housing is ridiculously expensive there. And the city’s lone homeless shelter usually plans for up to 10 people a night. Suffice it to say, the arrival of 50 looking for work and a place to stay has caught the city off guard, though by all reports efforts to help the newcomers have been expansive.
The move has been heralded throughout what passes as the contemporary GOP as brilliant. Ahead of his joint appearance Sunday with DeSantis, Schmidt gave it his blessing.
“If re-routing the influx of migrants to sanctuary cities filled with some of our nation’s richest and most powerful elites will force Democrats to finally take this issue seriously — as Kansans have for decades — I’m all for it.”
Let’s stipulate: Congress is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform. And while Democrats do not have a spotless record on the issue either, it has been Republicans in recent years who have again and again taken hold of any nascent movement toward reform and drowned it in the bathtub.
Beyond reform, and a humane resolution for the so-called Dreamers, what’s needed urgently is simply money — money for more judges, more courts and faster resolutions of asylum, refugee and immigration cases.
But to claim that Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts coast, is a sanctuary city for immigrants? That’s absurd.
DeSantis is spending up to $12 million in Florida tax dollars to fly migrants from Texas to liberal enclaves. His goal: to embarrass Democrats and raise awareness of President Joe Biden’s failure to deter the flow of migrants to our southern border.
As political theater, it has its merits. It has gotten a lot of attention.
But at whose expense? The people of Martha’s Vineyard are responding just fine to the unexpected arrival of the migrants. The migrants themselves? They were used as props. Most of them have already endured more hardship in their lives than most of us ever will, only to become game pieces in a round of gotcha.
Is the U.S. any closer to a comprehensive immigration reform policy? Hardly.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was exactly right in her response during a daily briefing. “Using migrants as political pawns is shameful, is reckless and just plain wrong,” she said. “Remember, these are people who are fleeing communism, who are fleeing hardship.”
What the GOP has lost sight of is that immigration policy is about people — yes, the people in this country who expect our government to make and enforce sensible rules on the border, but also the people in crisis who are moving across that border.
To use people to score points, that’s something everyone was taught is wrong by age 10. How sad that DeSantis has forgotten that basic lesson in sharing this planet with others.
Sadder still is that Kansas’ attorney general, and would-be governor, has not only forgotten it as well, but has fallen so far into political idolatry that he’d urge his fellow Kansans to make their state more like Florida.
A vision to which every voter in the state ought to make a simple reply: No thank you.
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Topeka Capital-Journal. September 16, 2022.
Editorial: All Kansas high school athletes deserve opportunity to compete on an even playing field
We know how important words are. In this case, it’s just three, but they could change the results of state high school championships for years.
The Topeka Capital-Journal’s Rafael Garcia reports the Kansas Board of Education on Wednesday narrowly voted 6-4 to advance a proposal from the Kansas High School Activities Association to allow the organization to classify high schools by enrollment “and other means.”
This change would allow KSHSAA to create a private school modifier that would adjust the competition classification for certain private schools, based on their competitive success in recent seasons, number of low-income students and geographic location.
This is a good thing. Kansas students deserve the right to fair play. It’s become apparent that some private schools have advantages that allow them to find successes their public counterparts simply can’t. This is an attempt to level the playing field. We hope this change can do that. And if not, KSHSAA, the Kansas State Board of Education and Kansas Legislature may make another fix.
Melanie Haas, a Democrat from Overland Park, said she had talked with students about the proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
“When I asked them: ‘Is this about winning? Is this about playing?’, they said, ‘This is about not getting killed when you walk on the field,’” Haas said.
Garcia reports that per KSHSAA, only about seven private schools would be initially affected by the proposed change, should the Legislature give the organization the authority to determine classification by other means.
It’s now in the hands of the Legislature.
We’d like to see legislators take action and allow KSHSAA to do its due diligence to ensure Kansas prep athletes have even playing fields.
Garcia reports a majority of athletic directors and principals from around Kansas support the move, even if they have some reservations.
Garcia also reported some state education board members were concerned that the Legislature would shut down or ignore the forwarded recommendation, although Rep. Tim Johnson, a Republican House member and coach at Basehor-Linwood High School, had previously told the board they could count on him to at least introduce and advance a bill on the proposed change.
We appreciate this and anticipate Rep. Johnson will follow through on his promise.
In the end, this is about doing what’s best for our students: public and private. We hope this breeds strong competition and quality wins.
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