Analyzing Governor Kelly's State of the State Speech

you were telling solemnly swear or affirm that you will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of kansas and faithfully discharge the duties governor of the state of kansas has been a jewish family that kansas got a new governor last week i'm j mcintyre and today on k pr presents its governor mark kelly's inaugural state of the state address will walk through the governor's beach section by section with analysis and context along the way by kbr statehouse bureau chief stephen koranda and bob beatty chair of the political science department at washburn university we'll get to the speech itself in just a minute but first let's spend a minute on governor tell his inauguration monday january fourteenth bobby you've seen a lot of gubernatorial inauguration sue the years what stood out to you though for the main thing is set up from

eight and governor mark kelly's on our girl was how different she was in her inaugural then when she entered the race for governor so according to these stories which may become apocryphal someday former governor castings of this on the campaign trail tells a story that she had to ask laura kelly twice to run for governor mark kelly doesn't dispute this that maybe it did happen but that does tell you that she was a relatively reluctant candidate and lysol r kelly a ticket a democratic candidate forum in the spring of two thousand eighteen she was with the relatively soft spoken and she would take quite a while to get her points across she would not hammer home point certain firmly say something someone she wasn't horrible

but there wasn't a few complaints and rumblings on the democratic side the chief daryl morey voters standing up to chris colwell and she got better as the election went along but the real transformation was an inaugural she was confident and she certainly didn't stumble over anything and she was pretty clear about what shoot want to get across so can the defense wing candidate laura kelly and governor laura kelly to me is because there's been quite dramatic and she told me that the weather she successful or not she certainly has a good idea of what she wants to accomplish and what does she hope to accomplish in their first term in office mr kelly laid out her priorities in the state of the state address on wednesday january sixteen will listen to the first few minutes and then jump into our speech with analysis from professor bob beatty and kbr

state health care program from the beginning i committed to building a strong diverse dynamic group to rebuild our state you'll recognize both democrats and republicans women and men were a mix of seasoned veterans and fresh faces all with a love for kansas and a strong desire to serve and i thank them for their willingness to take on these new challenges and if kansas legislature welcome back it fit is wonderful to see so many old friends and to get to know some of the new leaders would have it i know i'm a new role but i want to maintain my working relationship with all of you because we're all in this together how we've got to be pulling in the same direction there is

so much at stake and i look forward to working with him it's been quite a week and i'm not usually one for ceremonial than beer but i have to say i have treasured every minute from the day of service to the inauguration on the capitol steps to this incredibly surreal moment but i'm also ready to get to work man message to you this evening is both constitutionally mandated in a time honored tradition course a personalities and the dynamics change and then shift over time but the backdrop and the fundamental task at hand never change i am here as your governor for the year had to offer a blueprint for the year ahead you are here as lawmakers to enact a budget this is something that has been done one hundred and fifty seven times before

and yet something feels different tonight you know after a decade of crisis starting with the great recession and followed by a self inflicted budget catastrophe we found ourselves at a turning point we were times weary frustrated and sadly i'm trusting of one another but in the end it came down to fundamental question we had to ask what is kansas worth this was not just a matter of dollars and cents it forced us to reexamine some of our most deeply held convictions and it was a painful process but his problems piled up we had to accept reality in two thousand seventy we defied the odds acknowledge the mistake and

hit reset in an historic act of bipartisanship that is what it means to be a kansan regardless of our state's partisan break down our crowning achievements have always been one a middle ground at night were starting a chapter we must unite around the values we share we must always remember the people who sent us here they expect compromise and results but we also to strike a delicate balance in the days ahead it will require an acknowledgment of the entire kansas story is not just one fiscal year or one moment in time it is with this renewed sense of purpose and appreciation for our past struggles and our optimism from the next chapter that are probably report that the state of our state he's improved in

two thousand it offers an unmatched opportunity for kansas to continue its upward climb but for our fragile recovery to continue we must resist running to our partisan corners we must keep our eyes fixed on the task at hand and the job we were elected to do and all that begins at the heart of our communities our public schools just a few weeks ago just a few weeks restoring newspaper caught my eye it was about a young man named braxton now by someone graduate from ulysses high school and harvard university is right harvard this year at the tender age

of sixteen you graduate with a bachelor's degree in government and a minor in english and all while he is still in high school right here in kansas got big plans after graduation to urban setting off to law school prices obviously is uniquely talented student but he also reminds us what young people will accomplish when given the opportunity braxton is here tonight in these khouri with his family i ask you to join me and recognize the crescent the pain yesterday's like cracks and exemplified the transfer transformative power of

our public schools a place where all kansas children who strive can reach their potential and overcome any obstacles no matter where they come from but only if we as elected leaders hold up our end of the bargain and forcefully throughout the decades kansas has a made promises and then falling into a troubling pattern it begins with a promise from elected officials to fund our schools and then the failure to follow through on that promise that is going to change this year crowe we will and this cycle of litigation and meet the needs of our students and teachers once and for all the days of doing the bare minimum to fund our schools are over it stops now

remember just a few short years ago schools closed early because they literally couldn't afford to stay open test scores drop for the first time in a decade and class sizes crew often with more than thirty kids in a single classroom superintendents and principals struggled to hold their districts together often taking on multiple roles that of chancellor and bus driver sometimes they refused to pay just to keep their budgets above water teachers led the state and those who stayed received an average salary that ranked forty second in the country the consequences were tangible and the scars are lasting never again we're going to properly fund our schools this year and next year and the year after that every year every month every day that i'm governor

the pope and we're going to make sure our schools prepare our children for a changing economy modern classrooms with modern technology because at the end of the day we need our children to graduate high school or college or technical school so that they could find jobs right here in kansas and they can stay here and raised their families close to home when i began when i began more than the state's budget last month this was the very first decision i made no budgets reflect our priorities and my number one priority will

always be our public schools now i'm calling now i'm calling on lawmakers to act on my proposal with equal urgency to assist any effort of separated education funding from the rest of the budget this will provide a vehicle for you to consider the matter cleanly and quickly my friends we have depleted this issue in these halls in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion kansans flocked to the polls in record numbers this past year to send a message about this issue specifically now we must listen to our families our teachers and our business leaders we have a deadline to me so let's get this done

if we act decisively if we act decisively we can all share in a bipartisan victory in listening to the police state of the state address on campus of the caribbean and j mcintyre let's jump in here as we will throughout the governors state of the state speech stephen koranda is k pr statehouse bureau chief steven throughout kelly's campaign she consistently said that education would be her number one priority and she calls for working together for a bipartisan victory on this issue how likely is that will the sales pitch she's making as if we fix this in a bipartisan way we can all take credit i don't know because it was she has affected what we now know says she's unveiled their budget is she's saying let's had a ninety million dollars more per year to comply with the court without being too far in the details lawmakers added a bunch of money for schools already the court said you got most of the way their

adjusted for inflation and you should be good so the ninety million dollars would effectively do that some lawmakers say we don't have enough money to just add another ninety million dollars a year there's even been talk of reopening the formula not maybe re doing what they arty did so it's really not clear to me at this point that there's going to be enough people on board to just add that money but kevin kelly has made the argument that kansas can do this without increasing taxes that the kansas has the money to daddy and that inflation factor correct so we have about nine hundred million dollars in the bank right now are but what that doesn't take into account is other costs so lawmakers who say we can to sanders might point to things like increasing payments into the pension plan in the coming year is the fact that we want to try to undo sweets from the highway find so they say that there are these other costs we have to look at and we can't just plow more money into schools without considering the other things we need to pay

for any other news about education funding the you received as the governor unveiled her budget this week education funding is kind of the one that we expected to hear about and we kind of herbal we expected because she has been saying throughout the campaign before she was elected that we should just comply with the court that we have the money to spend so let's do it and she really made their sales pitch in the state of the city stephen i want to jump back to a specific proposals he made about school finance governor kelly said see is separating education funding from the rest of the budget how significant is that education funding is the single largest item in the budget so when you're writing the budget you do kind of think of it as its own thing so to me that wasn't a huge deal but the reason he's doing it is because she wants them to fix that and fix it fast so her plan is to separate out like you said and hopefully have a school funding fix in place by the end of february because they have to send it to the court i have the court are we what hobo prove it

and end of this years long lawsuit says she wants to do that right away and then were about the rest of the budget that takes the whole session put together a pack let's go back to that in a speech we face plenty of other problems specifically in our rural communities special i've put forth a detailed plan to address the challenges facing world kansas the majority of our hundred and five counties have lost population last year and for many years prior to that and whether it's roads broadband housing our agriculture they need our support speaker reitman and represented heinonen thank you for recognizing this important challenge as creating a new committee to focus significant time and energy on this issue and we look for the partnering with you and the other committee members moving this issue forward

the tank gunner lim rogers along with the new secretary of commerce david cohen well head up this effort on behalf of my administration in the coming days we will build an interconnected strategic plan for world economic development that leverage is our community's unique assets that developed that means developing infrastructure addressing the shortage of affordable housing and supporting agribusiness we're going to cherish our world small town way of life and we're going to make sure that the world can sense can get the support they need to thrive and there's one more way we can do that by expanding medicaid it's been the point just two weeks ago

on december thirty first mercy hospital in fort scott closed its doors after more than one hundred years in that community this quote this followed the closure of the hospital and then instantly thousand fifteen years now the folks of bourbon county will have to travel long distances for emergency care to give birth or just to get tested in according to some reports thirty percent of our state's hospitals are considered financially vulnerable in small communities across the state these facilities are at serious risk of closure of rural communities cannot survive without hospitals and affordable health care period young families seniors kansans with chronic issues

or those who'd just somehow stay healthy no one can afford to risk their safety and wellbeing by living in its beauty with out access to health care just like spending can care the states medicaid program we can help these facilities stay open and provide health care to another hundred and fifty thousand kansans no matter where they live have either made no secret that expanding this program is one of my top priorities and seventy seven percent of kansans the putin failure to act has cost kansas over to re billion dollars in federal funding that's three

billion in our taxpayer dollars we sent to the federal government that's gone to benefit other states it's three billion hours i couldn't help save kansas lives kansas hospitals and kansas communities instead we send it to states like iowa colorado indiana and arkansas or wanted the thirty three other states that have already expanded medicaid child advocates support medicaid expansion as a means of keeping vulnerable parents helped me if a low income moms and that can afford treatment for mental health or substance abuse or just everyday preventive care they can taking better care of their children and perhaps we can keep these kids in their own homes and out of our foster care system fb senator jerry moran recently

noted that rural hospitals are in a quote hanging on by a thread and he agreed that expanding medicaid could help them and just last fall governor jeff collier is a task force to address substance abuse disorders any opioid crisis also recommended expansion to ease the unsustainable burden on our hospitals and our criminal justice system we seen republican and democratic led states across the country find consensus on this issue to benefit their citizens their communities and their economies for all these reasons and so many more tomorrow's budget will pave the way for medicaid

expansion next week i will announce the bipartisan working group to finalize a path forward by kansas state there will be a plan to expand medicaid but before the kansas legislature i can imagine no better way to celebrate our state a hundred and fifty eighth birthday get by embracing policy that will make every kansas community healthier stronger and more secure please join me in this effort mtv of reasons we're walking through governor mark kelly's first state of the state address given january sixteenth i'm kate mcintyre i'm joined by bob beatty of washburn university and stephen

koranda kbr statehouse bureau chief stephen through out the campaign for governor kelly has been a strong proponent for expanding the state's medicaid program so no surprise here that's another thing we really expected to hear that the drum beat that's been happening throughout her entire campaign there are a lot of people a legislator to want to expand medicaid it has some bipartisan appeal but that's another one that's gonna turn into a big fight when she unveiled her budget she budgeted fourteen million dollars the first year for expanded medicaid said that would go up to howl between twenty and thirty million in the next year and that's another one where even some lawmakers say some republican lawmakers say those numbers don't add up they think actual cost will be much higher that's arguable but died shows that there's definitely a lot of skepticism still among the leadership to expanding medicaid but the kansas legislature has in fact expanded medicaid voted to expand

medicaid in the past correct people i remember i believe it was two years ago they sent a bill to governor brownback he vetoed it and they did not have enough votes to override the veto so yes this is more waiting to see is the leadership going to try a completely blocked the issue and then kelly and other medicaid supporters will have to bypass them or try to bypass them or are republican leaders going to try to develop a plan that expands medicaid but also includes things republicans want like work requirements may be or things like that that'll really waiting to see is how the fight kind of breaks down another thing that really surprised me in the speech is up previously governor kelly had said she was gonna put a panel together to develop a medicaid expansion plan which would be released during the session so we kind of expected that would really surprise me she said she's going to convene that group very soon and she wants a medicaid expansion bill by it end of january kansas day had to look up the date january nine nine so in just a couple weeks seemingly we will have a

medicaid expansion plan from her does that seem realistic it makes me think you know she said she's going to assemble a bipartisan panel to look into it but without such a short deadline it makes me think they're probably going to be taking medicaid proposals we've already heard in the legislature and tweaking them rather than developing something new from scratch but that's just a guess you're right it is very quick to develop something so large just a couple weeks ago kansas public radio and the cancer's news service hosted a discussion way it then governor elect haley in which sees that sea was hoping this taskforce would have a chance to look at what other states have done and to expand their medicaid funding that seems like a pretty broad mandate for a group that doesn't have much time this could again get back to a lot of the groundwork is already been laid because advocacy groups have been pushing for this issue for years and like you said before we already have of bill that

passed both chambers and was vetoed by the governors of his arty a lot of groundwork in place let's go back to them and finally another critical challenge we must address immediately a moral crisis in kansas that troubles me every day and sadly it's actually a matter of life and our foster care system is at a crisis point it requires immediate and considerable attention this is an issue i've been working on since i graduated high school i worked with troubled teens and children struggling with mental illness it has been a lifelong mission to help the most vulnerable and often forgotten children in the last few years and nothing has made me more angry than the callous disregard some agency leaders demonstrated towards our most vulnerable children and their families the

incompetence and the lack of transparency and we witnessed in committee hearings eighteen months ago made national news and it put a spotlight on this reprehensible crisis last year when i found out seventy foster children were missing i'm beside myself not only that the secretary at the time didn't seem bothered by the revelation but i demanded answers and together with colleagues and advocates we demanded change the last year the child welfare taskforce has done great work studying the problems and working towards accountability but there was only so much we can do without for cooperation and transparency the number in short of children in foster care in kansas has skyrocketed it's up forty five percent since two thousand eleven we've seen the program's charged

with helping families overwhelmed by sheer numbers in the end the case loads are dedicated social workers are certainly high china and making it challenging to provide the services needed by our most vulnerable children and their families there is not an easy answer but we must do more to protect our children this is an emergency these are our children and our communities they say the abuse neglect and worse let's remember every juror to the hague the carbon and many more children who needed her help these were children in our communities and i refuse to forget them

we must fix this now the the pope my budget provides for funding for the family's first prevention services act a landmark piece of legislation approved by congress last year it will inject millions into efforts that strength in baltimore families and prevent children from entering the foster care system my budget includes funding to hire more qualified social workers and reduce their case loads the penguins two are prized children's

initiative on where we know our investments have the greatest impact on our youngest children the penny will the state children's health insurance program to accommodate federal changes so that low income kansas children don't lose their access to health care finding finding working in partnership with my new department of children and families secretary laura howard we will rebuild the agency decimated by ideology and mismanagement in november of last year i said that in order to fix something you have to know what's going

on you have to be able to get under the hood and see what is working and what has not it was already at work and we will be transparent about what we find and we will make it right it's b i know that each of you is committed to protecting all god's children and that begins with our most needy and i ask you to join with me in this fight you're listening to the governors state of the state address on kansas public radio today on k pr presents we're walking through the speech section by section with analysis and context from stephen koranda and bobby b stephen we've heard about

education medicaid expansion and now the governor's third priority the state's troubled foster care system and the kansas department of children and families she talked about investing more in services and that they were life and death and she read the names of some kids who had died in the child welfare system the problems in dc's are not a surprise and we've known about them for a long time previous governor collier had put a new secretary in place and try to make some changes to make improvements so this isn't a surprise we now know more details about what she's going to propose i shall be proposing and eight we add everything up somewhere in the range of baby like forty million dollars to hire fifty five more social workers and more funding that will then bring down additional federal funding so shes relieved now allied in a way she's been a target isn't it big part of that is having more staff to actually work on these issues and draw down this federal funding for

programs that will hopefully keep kids in their home and out of the child welfare system completely stephen for and that is keeping your statehouse bureau chief i'm kay mcentire along with professor bob beatty of washburn university we're walking through governor kelly state of the state address and now let's go back to the governor's speech tonight i've laid out a few of our our prayers for kansas out we must restore funding to kansas schools and end the cycle of litigation we must expand medicaid so we can create jobs keep our tax dollars in kansas save our own communities and protect our most fragile families we must fix our broken foster care system and do absolutely everything in our power to ensure that our most vulnerable children are protected from neglect and violence yet there's some years things that we haven't discussed our

crumbling roads and bridges public safety higher education mental health meeting the demands of our rapidly changing economy i could go on and on and i know you're sitting there are worried that i will another time more morning my budget director in your former colleague larry campbell will walk you through the details of my first state budget recommendation delivered three weeks ahead of statutory deadlines the pain i never did that with homework in school i get it at a later this week i will convene my first official cabinet meeting during which time i'll instruct each member

to complete a thorough audit of her or his agency so we can and increase effectiveness and efficiency and we can eliminate waste and improve trade transparency by ending no bid contracts the pain we have just one more thing it covered a night and as she brings us back to where we started those breathtaking years of crisis have left kansas on the brink of collapse of kansas lost more revenue in the first year of the brownback tax plan then we lost in the entire great recession and while the time

for fear of warnings over we're not off the hook for the long term consequences of past policy decisions i'm proud honor my promise to balance the budget without raising taxes the pittsburgh if we're going to succeed i need your help to protect both sides of the budget equation until our fiscal help stabilize its as many of you have already said we must show restraint because ultimately we do not know what lies ahead kansas is

into word to historic national recessions in the last twenty years another recession will soon be upon us it's not a question of if it's a question of when and how bad unlike the last two record setting downturns kansas finds itself now completely unprepared we have no margin for error that's why we must be cautious we must be conservative and we must be fiscally responsible the pope prioritize what matters always look for ways to save and always make sure our children come first and we must

work together to write this new chapter in kansas you know throughout my time in the senate i worked with all of you as governor that will continue my door will be open and i will listen but i was elected to rebuild this state and i take that responsibility very seriously kansans want us to work together the pain he wants to work together to make a state better to provide more opportunities for children to grow our

economy and to make it possible for rural communities to thrive as your governor i plan to do just that that means cooperation compromise and bipartisanship now no one person and even the government can't act alone to achieve consensus that's the whole point working together in that spirit i promise you this i will do everything in my power to set the right tone i will listen every day to leaders from both parties and the people of the state will take the best ideas no matter where they come from work together will be easy we all know we have a very long challenging road ahead of us these past eight years of the hardship no doubt about it but we're

united by a common sense of values that spirit of neighbor helping neighbor and respect for one another and always doing right by are children those are the values that brought my family here more than three decades ago and they are the values that will brighten the federal government kansans are no stranger to hardship of hard work we don't want things handed to us we don't expect life to be easy that robert know are fierce determination is part of our history and what makes us who we are and if we work together if we put partisanship aside and kansas families first then we can truly live up to her model and asked the press and the story we write together will be one of cooperation and prosperity gospel issue

all of you and god bless the great state of kansas now let's get to work you just heard governor mark kelly the inaugural state of the state address in january fifteenth in topeka i'm j mcintyre today i'm katie orr of resents we've been walking through the speech section by section with analysis from k pr as stephen koranda at washburn university is bob at the three of us will be back along with the republican response right after this from the university of kansas this if kansas public radio ninety one by florence and ninety point three senate support for k pr percent and kansas public radio comes from downtown lawrence and local restaurants posting restaurant week to celebrate

diverse dining options in downtown lawrence with special menus through january twenty six more at warren's restaurant week dot com whether you're passionate for unbiased in depth news beautiful music are fascinating conversations you can feel that passion right here on kansas public radio show your passion for k pr and the programs that feed your mind and news that matters gift now at kansas public radio dot org slash support and thanks today on kbr presents governor lara kelly's inaugural state of the state address i'm j mcintyre joining me today are k pr statehouse bureau chief stephen koranda and professor bob beatty he's the chair of the department of political science at washburn university in topeka bob you've seen quite a few state of the state addresses over the past

decades what somebody you about this one is where governor kelly is a state of the state really different from the last eight years of sam brownback though brownback state of the states were often full of various programs tax cuts tax incentive and centers regarding economic development true throughout the state and of course is the most famous was his linking them to the us and twelve of tax cuts and business tax cuts with economic development and or cut an idea that she has three issues and she pounded those issues in the state of the state and then at the very end mentioned economic development some infrastructure and other things and says will talk about those things later so what we could say is those those term issues tax incentives or her tax cuts for business expenses of various sorts of things are the tax windfall being negotiating

chips for these three main issues that she is really really pushing and that's a that's a strategy by governor kelly so that allows for negotiators to say well you know she won't budge on a student she's gotta get some on this issue but here's all we can talk again and we can trade is that we can compromise on very different from sam brownback were those were the big issues and to show that as addictive as you watch the state of the state address what reaction did you see from lawmakers what i try to do is watch the body language watch the legislators swallowed for the speech is going on and i was admittedly was surprised at how unified the republican side was considering there are some moderate republicans that support

many of the things that laura kelly wants to do that day what standing up so when she would say something regarding medicaid expansion there's my republicans support it didn't apply that in standup so right now all that republic in party is unified at least for the state of the state and is going to hurt challenge to get those moderate republicans on these issues but i was surprised that that that happened it shows how powerful party with that those moderate republicans were not applauding and not now joining democrats on issues to tape a great you know great with them did you don't use this speech to any lawmakers after the fact and get reaction so yeah after that the state of the state the lawmakers to fall on them the lines that were used to be a conservative leadership republicans and conservative republicans moderate republicans and then of course we have the democrats and so

democrats are just so pleased to have a democratic governor and two moderate republicans were moderate republicans after the address they weren't so much during her around me because they're in a group mentality but afterwards that you know moderate publicans that i spoke to were open to discussions work were very happy with more calories ideas of cooperation compromise bipartisanship thats who mutter republicans are conservatives at this point are digging in and we don't know if it's negotiating or if it's an attempt to you know really put a roadblock in this legislative session we don't know at this point we just have to find out there's two ways this session can go in and my opinion one way would be some really tough on negotiations between the conservative republican leadership and the governor and then some some bills that come out of this that

are pretty big some form of medicaid expansion and bosworth concert was really like some form of funding for education that conservatives can claim made that a big part of it gets done somehow the other is they you dig in their heels and there is going to know i'm concerned citizen of you know medicaid expansion conservatives say heck no not a penny more for education and the ball's in keller's court meaning has to have a special session and do we have the equivalent of what we have from united states was the government shutdown equivalent being a special session where home you should she really pushes hard for me for something for just have to find out that's professor bob beatty chair of the political science department at washburn university i'm j mcintyre today

on kbr present for governor kelly stayed at the state address and now the republican response senate president susan wagle my fellow kansans we are a humble hard working and responsible people we dont spend money we don't have on expenditures we can afford and we expect the same of our government well we've had some difficult years i can happily say we have come through the worst of it as twenty nineteen began his revenues have rebounded and we have a small surplus unfortunately governor kelly's first budget would squander our fiscal recovery with a massive spending increase that would deepen our debt they require another major tax hike governor kelly has proposed expanding medicaid under a broken obamacare system while many cancers are already suffering from skyrocketing premiums in the individual marketplace in fact insurance

premiums have increased by over two hundred percent since obamacare was implemented at the same time she would have a surrender to the edicts of an unelected supreme court spending even more than that billion dollar increase already approved for public education through the year twenty twenty three a candidate kelly promised no new texas governor kelly has promised a budget that would absolutely require them the republican majority in the kansas senate stands ready to work with her former senate colleague but not at the expense of kansas families kansas workers can't demand a raise from their boss to cover new spending nor should state government in the form of higher taxes we're just now getting out the whole of the past decade it's time to put down the shovel and not deep in the hole as president of the senate i will work with the senate to pay off our debts to capers

and spent responsibly without raising taxes and that we will pass a bill that allows kansas to take full advantage of the trump tax cut governor kelly is about to fight the decoupling of federal estate tax deductions but we are not backing down we believe cancer should be able to direct interest on their mortgages property taxes and healthcare expenses the windfall from the trump tax cuts belongs to kansas taxpayers not government we want to limit government in order to create a limited opportunity that means passing a stable responsible budget that invest wisely in schools well we have already committed more money for education we need to now focus on achieving improved student outcomes we need to raise standards and achievement in our schools reward excellent teachers and emulate models of teaching success we need to transform schools so every high school graduate his career or college ready

students on an alternative track to a four year college should have every chance to succeed that's why we're going to continue to support job training and protect our investments in technical and trade schools i congratulate governor kelly on her election as governor was she earned the opportunity to lead this state kansas voters also send a more conservative legislature to topeka in twenty nineteen as written in the preamble of our state constitution we the people in kansas are grateful to a mighty god for civil and religious privileges we will continue to stand for conservative kansas nineties such is life liberty and fiscal responsibility we will defend second amendment rights because every law abiding citizen has a right to defend themselves and their families we will fight for greater choice in competition in the health insurance

marketplace ninety eight thousand cancers families have suffered from skyrocketing premiums under obamacare they deserve more affordable options and we will work with the trump administration to offer them we believe the best long term source of revenue for government is job creation not higher taxation now is not the time to spend money we don't have on programs we can't afford we've tried that and it hasn't worked now is the time to unleash job creation and spread opportunity far and wide to bring economic review it was a sin to the hustle and bustle of our inner cities and to the rolling plains of our most rural counties i have fifteen grandchildren they are my pride and joy i want a brighter future for them and for every child in kansas a brighter

future requires wise fiscal stewardship for their sake will pass a responsible budget pay off your debts and invest in education for kansans working in today's economy we will pass on the full benefit of the trump tax cut so they can have more money in their pocket to save for the future these other priorities the senate republicans because they are the priorities of the people of kansas we hope the governor joins us in pursuing the path to prosperity and invest more in our people not bigger government thank you and may god continue to bless the great state of kansas that's senate president susan wagle of wichita she delivered the republican response to go back alleys state of the state address stephen koranda what did you hear in that gop response so senate president weigh gold made it clear that yes we elected a democratic governor here in kansas but kansas is

also send a more conservative legislature to the statehouse so conservatives still have a strong voice they actually have the single strongest voice in the legislature and she made that clear and she laid out some pretty bright lines on issues like medicaid expansion saying they basically don't want to do that we shouldn't be doing that and she'd before the budget was even released said governor tell his proposals are going to make it so we don't have any doubts any more so than our budget basically doesn't want to she's come at this pretty hard and definitely did not come at it with an attitude of working on some of these big issues obviously there are things that will work together on but she made it very clear that on things like medicaid expansion they do not see a height to lie step away from the state the state for just a moment and the cartel is very first day in office and she took a pretty bold move having to do with lgbt q protections for state employees can you bring us up to speed on that this is something that she had talked about before and if people remember governor sebelius i think it was two thousand seven

put it an executive order in place that barred discrimination or harassment state agencies based on sexual orientation gender identity governor brownback rescinded that executive order in twenty fifteen and he said it was because those types of present protections should be created by the legislature not by the governor sole mr kelly had said she would put them back in place and she did her first day in office she signed an executive order but it even goes a little bit farther so it protects employees and state agencies from discrimination or harassment were also extends to state contractors and i asked her about that and she said one year stay contractor year a de facto employer cause you're doing work for the state being paid with tax dollars and you should abide by the same rules that's stephen koranda kbr statehouse bureau chief we've also heard from bob beatty chair of the political science department at washburn university we've been walking through the governors state of the state address on today's k pr percents if you like hear the governor's address in its entirety without interruptions

it's available on our website kansas public radio dot org you can also find all of steven fernandez reports and kansas politics as well a stories from the kansas news service that website again is kansas public radio dot org i'm j mcintyre kbr present as a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas