By Gina Long
The Kansas Legislature is currently recessed and scheduled to return on April 10 to finish out what may go down in history as one of the top five least effective sessions.
Voters in November told candidates loudly and clearly that they wanted property tax relief. Skyrocketing property valuations and homeowners insurance premiums are pricing people out of their homes and into an expensive and predatory rental market.
Candidates trumpeted loudly from soap boxes, stages, farmers’ markets, and front doors about how they would lower property taxes. They double pinkie promised in every glossy postcard and YouTube ad.
Incumbents and new candidates shouted from the rooftops that “this time” they *really* were going to do something about property taxes.
Yet, once again, they whiffed.
What did they do instead?
These are this taxpayer’s takeaways from this year’s session:
- Bullying schoolchildren, specifically transgender children. How much taxpayer time and money was wasted hypocritically telling certain parents what they can and cannot do for their children while extolling the virtues of parental rights?
- Bullying other legislators, specifically with threats of violence. This publicly happened twice. The bullies got a pass. At least one target faced a disciplinary hearing. We the people deserve maturity. Keep your childish antics out of our Statehouse.
- Crying about “too much government” but flexing government power to bully those least able to fight back. The voters spoke in 2022. The voters spoke again in 2024 and wanted property tax relief, not the State of Kansas patrolling their grocery carts.
- Spending a ridiculous amount of time whining about the three-day mail-in ballot grace period. It is an unnecessary and undemocratic measure based on no credible evidence of misuse or fraud. Kansas has jousted the “voter fraud” windmill before and lost badly and expensively. Virtue signaling by litigation is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Direct those funds to property tax relief, like we told you to do.
You have limited precious time to step up this session and help us, especially as looming tariffs will continue to squeeze working families and those on fixed incomes.
You can do it. The question is, do you really want to?
Carolyn Parson / April 6, 2025
Voters need to clean house at the next election.
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Priscilla Hoover / April 6, 2025
Excellent opinion piece. Thank you, Gina.
The 2025 legislative session was a gross waste of time and of taxpayer money. My hope is that all voters will remember the broken promises of the legislature when the next election cycle comes around.
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