Kansas Legislature's lurch to center cuts governor's clout

TOPEKA — Kansas has seen its once-conservative Legislature lurch closer to the center with the flowering of a bipartisan coalition bent on erasing much of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax-cutting legacy and ready to bedevil other GOP leaders.

In a week’s time, the state House approved a huge increase in personal income taxes, voted to override Brownback’s all-but-inevitable veto and approved an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program that he vigorously opposes.

Supporters of the tax bill couldn’t override the veto in the Senate, but they had a solid majority for undoing the past Brownback-inspired cuts in personal income taxes.

And it wasn’t just Brownback in the sights of Democrats and GOP moderates. When a House committee’s chairman wouldn’t take up a bill restoring guaranteed tenure that public school teachers lost in 2014, supporters forced a successful vote in the chamber anyway. In the Senate, GOP leaders proposed cutting education funding to help fix the state’s cratered budget — then saw support for the idea collapse, even with a Republican supermajority.

Read more: http://themercury.com/articles/kansas-legislatures-lurch-to-center-cuts-governors-clout