4A
Friday, November 4, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Hancock is a fresh, new outlook for 3rd District
Voters in the Kansas Congressional 3rd District will elect a
woman to Congress. The only question is whether it will be political novice Judy Hancock, Democrat, or five-term incumbent Jan Mewers, Republican.
This is Meyers' first term representing much of Douglas County and the University of Kansas since it was added to her district during reappropriation. Meyers has done an adequate job representing her constituents in Congress. But the 3rd District, which also includes Johnson, Miami and Wyandotte counties, has the opportunity to elect a fresh, new voice to Washington with Hancock. Voters should select that new voice.
Hancock is an international attorney in Johnson County who is knowledgeable on a vast array of issues. She is a former trade negotiator under both Presidents Carter and Reagan. Hancock has firsthand knowledge from her government service and law firm about how expanding international markets can affect trade for companies in the Third District. She was a supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement and is generally supportive of GATT.
To continue to expand markets and free-trade possibilities, a strong and clear voice is needed. And Hancock provides that voice.
Hancock is another candidate who has suggested the idea of creating a commission to suggest cuts in the federal budget. The commission would provide its recommendations to Congress, which would be given one vote either up or down—to vote for spending cuts.
This is an excellent idea.
Members of Congress are reluctant to cut individual programs one at a time for fear of hurting their own district in the long run. However, the commission idea allows members of Congress to cut the budget in one vote — making judgments based on what the
KANSAN ENDORSEMENT Kansas House - 46th District
Congresswoman Meyers opposes this idea, saying it is up to Congress itself to make the cuts. However, Congress isn't doing it. She claims that more Republicans and less Democrats in the Congress would also help cut the budget faster.
country needs, instead of what serves their individual districts.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Meyers' campaign was her signing of the House Republicans' "Contract with America." Though the contract has many good ideas it would like to bring to a vote,it advocates cutting taxes significantly while increasing spending on defense significantly. These ideas are naturally exclusive at a time when the federal government should be becoming leaner. This contract signals a return to Reagan/Bush supply-side economics, which increased the national debt.
Signing the contract was an irresponsible move by Meyers. By signing it, she signaled her loyal allegiance to the House Republican leadership before her alliance to her constituents. Hancock has mocked the contract as a "Contract on America." While that may be going too far, Hancock is more on target than Meyers.
Jan Meyers has been an adequate Representative for the 3rd District, but the district's voters, including KU, can do better. Judy Hancock is a fresh, new voice who has no allegiance to Bill Clinton, other Democratic leaders or other groups. Her efforts will be focused on making Kansas and the United States a better place to live. She deserves your vote and a seat in Congress.
KANSAN STAFF
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Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin are required to use this format.
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As Election Day draws near, we are bombarded with the last flurry of political advertisements and empty campaign promises.
Welfare reform, crime talk lacks bite
Most of the time I am able to ignore this idiotic rhetoric. But this year I cannot ignore the constant harping on the issues of welfare reform and crime.
Alas, the rhetoric is devoid of any real intellectual substance.
Do these candidates think that voters are stupid enough to believe that the solution to crime is more prisons or tougher sentences? How many of these crime fighters have spent any time in a prison cell?
I think that it should be mandatory for these law-and-order types to spend a night in a cell with an inmate who just has come out of solitary confinement and is looking for a little affection. Would that put a stop to these asinine ideas about jurisprudence? At least it would give them some hands-on experience with incarceration.
When exactly did our society become so preoccupied with incarceration, anyway? I agree that there
COLUMNIST
are some people who are beyond rehabilitation. But not first-time offenders. Maybe if these politicians could manage a few minutes of cognitive activity, they would realize that we should spend the money on early intervention.
NICOLAS SHUMP
The question becomes. Why these two issues? That's easy. Politically these issues affect people who have virtually no political clout. In short, people like Jan Meyers, Eric Schmidt, Carla Stovall and Richard Schodorf are nothing more than opportunistic, pinheaded bullies who are trying to win an election at the expense of the politically powerless.
Yes, that's right.
We should spend money on improving the life of all of our citizens. Maybe if we did that, people would have less desire to commit crime. Maybe if we had a real commitment to the inner cities, then we could bring the entire country into the first world.
country is more willing to help starving children abroad than it is to help children in its own ghetto. Why is a child in Somalia or Haiti more deserving of help than a kid in Newark or East St. Louis?
dinate amounts of money, which pales in comparison to the drain generated by Social Security.
It has always disturbed me that our
Let's face it. Politicians talk the talk, but they don't give a rat's ass for the poor.
At best it is a case of benign neglect, at worst it is a calculated effort to keep the underclass in a state of permanent subservience.
This, of course, explains the politicians' rhetoric about welfare reform. Let's get those lazy, no-good welfare recipients off their asses and back to work. So what if the current minimum wage is insufficient to support a family? Who cares if there is not enough adequate day care for families with children? Forget about the lack of health care for those people who are trying to lift themselves out of poverty.
And while you're at it, let's ignore the statistics that show that most people are off welfare in less than two years anyway! Instead, let's claim that welfare is costing the taxavers inor-
But in the words of The Replacements "Well, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting drunk. In a black and white picture there's a lot of gray bunk."
When I was growing up, I was naive enough to buy the whole idea about the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Bunk is exactly what these politicians are giving you. They are not trying to serve the people. They are only serving themselves.
Victoria Shump is a Lawrence senator in comparative literature.
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sheik condom ad stupid, effective
Mr. Carson Elrod: I will try to make this short and sweet—just like a commercial.
The law says only that business cannot tell lies about its products or services. In the Sheik condom advertisement that you wrote about in the Nov. 1 issue of the University Daily Kansan, there were no lies.
A business has one responsibility and one responsibility only: to make money.
And an advertisement's only responsibility is to lodge itself in that part of your brain where memories are stored.
Looks like it did its job well.
Doeks like it we do job well. Otherwise, I agree with you. "Study in spurts...get some," is a stupid slogan. And I like the way you write. It makes me think and motivates me to write things like this — like Sheik made you write your column.
Jason Edwards
Lawrence freshman
Waging wars against GTAs could hurt undergraduates
Just when the graduate teaching assistants seemed to have won a victory, Gus Bogina, R-Shawnee, has declared another war.
Our beloved chairman of the Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee has fired the first shot.
He vowed on Oct. 28th to support freezing all funding for GTAs at the University of Kansas should the GTAs decide to form their own union.
There's nothing like a threat to promote the spirit of fair play and negotiation.
What could Bogina have hoped to gain by this remark?
Perhaps he meant to intimidate the GTAs, hoping that they would suddenly give up the fight for better pay and wages.
I hope he is wrong.
Such comments only illustrate to me, the non-GTA, why the GTAs think they need their own union. I am beginning to understand why the announcement on Oct.18 granting GTAs the status of state employees was such a big deal.
We undergraduates usually don't pay much attention to this sort of thing. But garbage always smells, and this sort of comment simply reeks.
Luckily, Bogina is not the only person in the Kansas Senate. He might like to think that he can single-handedly stop any increase to this section of the Kansas budget, but he can't. He has to find people to help him.
HEATHER KIRKWOOD
Keep in mind that the forming of a union doesn't mean that the battle is won. It only means that it can start. Should a union be formed, it would then have to negotiate for any pay or benefit increases.
What could Bogina be so afraid of?
Could he be afraid that the GTAs might ask to be treated fairly?
Could it be that they might want the same things other members of the work force enjoy, such as health care?
We can see to it that he doesn't find support on this issue. Politics are funny, especially around November.
I'm sure the GTAs appreciate their tuition walkers, but that doesn't pay
their medical bills. It also doesn't address other concerns, such as the amount of time GTAs with standard, half-time contracts of 20 hours actually work.
Keep in mind that GTAs teach one-third of the classes at KU. The University can hire six of them for the cost of one professor.
Also keep in mind that while they are called graduate teaching assistants, they often take on the roles of a teacher.
In many departments, the GTAs teach classes, write and grade tests and assign and grade homework.
Why do I, the undergraduate, care about what the GTAs get in the way of benefits? I care because many of my
classes at this University have been taught by GTAs. Sometimes I wouldn't have known the name of the actual supervising professor if his or her name had not been on the syllabus.
For the most part, the GTAs I've had have done a wonderful job.
They worked very hard and were very concerned about the work they were doing.
Yet, what will happen to their attitudes about teaching here if they are not treated well?
Some, of course, are so dedicated they would teach for free if they weren't worried about paying the bills. But bills are legitimate concerns.
Bogina was quoted in the Laurence Journal-World as saying "If they are going to increase their benefits, they are going to reduce the number of GTAs, no doubt about it."
I think the GTAs who have taught my classes care more about the quality of my education than that.
Do you suppose that Bogina thought about how such threats, should they be carried out, will affect the education I am receiving at KU? I doubt it.
Heather Kirkwood is a Wichita Junior in magazine Journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin