Posted on 07/08/2013 5:22:02 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
The Kansas Legislature and the Kansas Supreme Court appear headed for a colossal train wreck.
The Kansas Supreme Court is likely to rule that current funding for schools is constitutionally inadequate.
I asked Speaker of the House Ray Merrick what the Legislature would do if the Kansas Supreme Court ordered $600 million in additional funding go toward K-12 schools.
Merrick answered, “I really have no idea.”
But I do think he knows one thing for near-certain. This Legislature is not about to raise taxes, and there is likely no other way to increase spending by anything like that amount.
So what happens if the Legislature balks?
I posed that question to one of the state’s leading experts, Richard E. Levy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Kansas School of Law.
“The Legislature is not a party to the suit,” Levy said, “and, thus, any order from the Supreme Court would not apply directly to the Legislature.”
But the Kansas Supreme Court, in the “Montoy” decision, ordered that approximately $750 million more be spent on public schools, and the Legislature complied.
Levy said the Legislature complied because the Kansas Supreme Court threatened to virtually shut down all schools in Kansas — by prohibiting the executive branch from the expenditures of funds for schools — unless the order was met.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
The courts always end up being the last resort for tax and spend liberals to get their way.
Social issues like gay marriage or abortion may be one thing, but will the public stand for a court order that directly affects their pocketbooks.
Only solution is to privatize education and give poor parents vouchers. Wonder what the judges would think of that? What do you want to bet that their kids go to private schools?
A state's highest priority should be to live within its means.
It is up to the voters to decide whether the legislature's spending priorities are appropriate, not the courts, nor the media.
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that the funding system for Ohio Public Schools is unconstitutional on several occasions. The legislature has ignored them for the better part of a decade!
Maybe they could take the money from the Kansas Supreme Court budget.
The Kansas Supreme Court was packed by Governor Kathleen Sebelius in order to trump the will of citizens of Kansas, particularly in regard to the abortion industry who funded her political career. They have been running a very effective campaign to convince naive Kansas voters that Bar Association review boards, rather than voters should decide who sits on the bench. A scheme to ensure that the Left wing agenda can overturn the will of the people.
The first place to start is to eliminate the budget - for the supreme court. Gotta be some savings in there somewhere ;-)
"For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.
Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration."
My #9 - that’ll teach me to post without reading the comments first ;-)
Steve Rose is a well known far-left nutcase. You are exactly right. Every time this asshat has a chance, he advocates higher taxes. He also advocates gun bans and taxpayer-funded abortion on demand.
And exactly where does the SC get that kind of power?
Judicial oligarchy. Drunk on power and corrupt to the core.
Hamilton in Federalist 73 warned against this, both at the local level and the supreme Court. I didn’t capitalize supreme because it isn’t capitalized in the Constitution in Article 3.
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