What's Right with Kansas

Posted by Carl Pope, Huffington Post at 3:43 PM on May 5, 2008.

Topeka, KS -- Well, King Coal did its best. The insiders in the Kansas political world huffed and puffed. The Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives kept a vote open for two hours while the coal industry's allies tried desperately to bludgeon four more members into voting to override Governor Kathleen Sebelius's veto of a bill denying the state's chief health officer the right to block coal-fired power plants. And when the votes couldn't be found to override the veto, some legislators threatened to hire a private lawyer with public money to sue the health office for exceeding his authority. (The coal companies, of course, have ample resources to sue on their own -- and it's unlikely that funding for the mammoth Sunflower proposal would still be alive by the time any lawsuit ended.)

But none of it worked. Kansas citizens have spoken out.The Sierra Club chapter in the state organized day and night for weeks and, instead of getting closer to a veto override, the coal forces got further away.

The initial assault by the coal industry was an ad featuring pictures of Hugo Chavez, Iran's President Ahmadinejad, and Vladimir Putin, claiming that if Kansas couldn't build the Sunflower coal plant, it would be forced to import natural gas from these three despots. Since Kansas produces no coal, but a lot of natural gas (and actually exports gas to other states), these ads didn't go down very well. And the campaign got even more frenetic as it became clear that Sebelius was going to make her decision stick. Here's a sample quote from One newspaper story on why Kansas said no to coal:

The votes of some Johnson County lawmakers proved decisive. Rep. Judy Morrison, a Shawnee Republican, and Rep. Ben Hodge, an Overland Park Republican, voted no, though both had supported the plants before. Rep. Pat Colloton, a Leawood Republican seen as a possible swing vote, also voted against the override.

Colloton said her constituents convinced her.

"'I'm amazed at how well-educated many Kansans are on issues about the environment and energy," she said.

But even after the vote it's clear that King Coal won't take "no" for an answer -- one of the state's leading political blogs reported the state of play this way:

One thing's for sure: this fight isn't over. Supporters of the coal plant say it's that important.

Legislators had hoped to wrap up their work Saturday. That's still possible, but it's also possible lawmakers could be talking coal next week.

On the same blog, one more piece of evidence that there is, indeed, something right about Kansas. Asked where they stood on proposals to have a temporary moratorium on the federal gas tax, as being currently discussed, an overwhelming majority of the respondents (at the moment I am writing, 78 percent), voted "No." And in a broad public opinion poll taken at the height of the coal fight, 75 percent of Kansans supported the decision to cancel the plants.

Yes Dorothy, this is Kansas!

And if you'd like to congratulate Governor Sebelius, you can do so on her website.