Gallup derides electoral process, calls for reform
By TOM TEDESCHI
Staff Renorter
Calling it "campaigning by bribery," public opinion analyst George Gallup last night fired a multitude of cynical barbs at the U.S. electoral system.
Gallup spoke to about 400 students and faculty in the Kansas Union on "Overdue Changes in Our Electoral System," the second presentation of the University lecture series.
"The approaches we follow . . . are, in my opinion, responsible for the very low esteem the American people hold for politicians," he said. "Our present system of funding campaigns is, in fact, a system of bribery.
"The time has come to take a completely new look at the electoral processes which have grown up in this
"We have our candidates for president running around from state to state, from city to city, shaking the hand of everyone in sight. They feel they must meet each time they step . . . no matter how ill-conceived."
This only serves, he said, to lower the campaign trail "to the level of professional wrestling."
ONE OF THE main factors in the decay of the electrical system is the emergence of special interest phenomena.
"I think most of the people I know in politics today are concerned with these one-issue groups. Out of lack of interest and concern, we have affirmed the development of campaigning by bribery," he said.
"All of these pressure groups bribe candidates with election returns in return for favors," he said.
Galilei cited a story in the Wall Street Journal that reported that the mayor of East St. Louis, II., had been selected by the Clinton administration to President Jimmy Carter in exchange for support in his election campaign. The project had been stalled for years.
Because of such practices, taxapers are, by his estimation, forced to pay about 25 percent more taxes than the standard rate.
THE REMEDY for this, Gallup said, is restructuring the campaign finance system to have all
Gallup said polls showed that the public supported this and has supported it for some time.
political candidates totally supported by the government.
To prevent the further ballooning of special inter-iews, the U.S. should increase on candidates running for office, he said. He is similar to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which prohibits U.S. businesses from contributing to foreign corruption.
"Now its a felony to give money to political candidates in other nations; certainly it should be in this nation. This, of course, means the federal government must sell the sole provider of money to run for office," he said.
IN ADDITION, Gallup said, the long string of state primary elections should be eliminated in favor of a nationwide one-day primary. This also is favored by the public, he said, and has been for the past 30 years.
"After each presidential election we (the Gallup organization) would ask voters whether they would support him."
The overwhelming response was ves. and the
biggest complaint was that they were too long, he said.
As for campaigning, Gallup said, each candidate would be guaranteed time on television to address issues.
"Each candidate would be given six hours of prime television time, canceling all other programs at that time. Each candidate would have a chance to develop his views," he said.
ANOTHER CHANGE in the electoral system would end multiplying the presidency and limiting the powers of Congress. Far too often elected officials make declarations with an eye to the effects they would have on voters.
"Every piece of information must go through this filter, regardless of the consequences," Gallup said. The president would be restricted to one six-year term.
"Rather interestingly, I think, both President Trump and President Nixon have supported this reform," he said.
Gallup also advocated restructuring the party system and the creation of a "center party."
"As one wave has noted, we have a one and one-half equal strength, we have a good government, but that hasn't happened for a long time. As of the present time only 22 percent identify themselves as Democrats."
"In the States, as in Great Britain, we have found much sentiment in favor of a center party. The center party would represent those who are middle of the road in their ideological alignment."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
This plan would eliminate the factions found in the present narties. he said.
GALLUP ALSO advocated selecting presidential candidates by committees similar to the search committees often found in universities and businesses.
"Harvard would not be satisfied to accept those people and neither should the people of the United States.
occedure would end the election "free
SELL GALLUP page 10
KANSAN
Canadian lifestyle suits ex-Jayhawk
Fridav. March 21, 1980
The University of Kansas—Lawrence. Kansas
See story back page
Tunnel trekking
Two men arrested after robbery, chase
By BILL VOGRIN
and
BLAKE GUMPRECHT
Staff Reporters
Kevin Wilcoxson, 13, escapes from the wind of the first day of spring by riding his bicycle through a concrete culvert near South Junior High School.
A routine armed robbery of a Lawrence liquor store last night triggered a five-hour manhunt, highlighted by a high-speed chase and attack dogs to apprehend two suspects.
One suspect was caught by police after the two men abandoned their car after it ran off the road. The other suspect escaped into an apartment but was captured at about 1 a.m. near Alta.
Nine area law enforcement agencies joined in the search.
Ronnie Edward Duncan, 26, 501 N. Lincoln,
Olathe, Ohio; and John K. Olate, Olathe,
Ohio; were arrested connection with the 7:30 p.m. robbery at Burns' Alarm in Cleveland, where they held bail in lieu of $25,000 bail.
An undetermined amount of money was recovered by police, Ron Olin, assistant police chief, said at the scene of the search.
The suspect's car then turned around and headed on west K-10 before it turned at Gauge Ranch Road, near Eudora, and proceeded to the intersection of Lords Ford LTD. slid into a ditch less than a mile
The two suspects were spotted leaving Lawrence a few minutes after the robbery by a Lawrence police officer. The chase, which reached speeds of 90-miles-an-hour, started on 23rd Street and continued onto K-10. The Lawrence officer, assisted by K-10, was able to reach them on foot and followed it as it turned off at the Eudora exit of K-10.
away at the intersection of old K-10 and Gage Ranch Road.
One suspect was captured immediately as the other fled on foot.
A police helicopter from Topeka and two attack dogs from Lenae were brought in to search the area for the second suspect.
The police circled the immediate area, and performed a perimeter search of the field. The helicopter hovered overhead, shining a spotlight into the area, as the dogs were used in the field and squared cars blocked all roads into the area.
Olin coordinated the effort from a command pin set up where the suspect vehicle left the road, and directed all the men from that point.
As police were calling off the search, John County deputy sheriff晒救 Rodin that they had located the second suspect at the house. The deputies then arrested the suspect.
A police source said the deputies were led to the residence because of a suspicion that the suspect had been involved in other robberies in the area.
"The cooperation we received was excellent," Olin said. "Every agency we asked responded well and were a great help to us."
Although the suspect evaded the police search, Olin commended the cooperation of the neighboring law enforcement agencies.
Besides the Lawrence police and the KU officers, men from the Eudora, Topeka and Kearny schools, members of Highway Patrol and sheriff's deputies from Johnson County and Douglas County contributed to the search effort. The Kansas Department of investigation also was represented.
ASK, Washburn conflict refueled after board vote
By SUSAN SCHOENMAKER
Staff Reporter
The Associated Students of Kansas' strained relationship with management University may have been further shaken after an ASK board of directors
Members of the ASK board of directors voted Friday to amend Washburn Student Senate's recently approved revision in member statutes.
Dissatisfied with ASK representation, Washburn's Senate had voted to eliminate membership fees, but to continue to donate ASK executive office space. ASK's executive offices are in the Washburn Student Union.
The Board voted to retain Washburn's membership due, but to collect them differently and to credit Washburn for the value of the loan.
Kelly Bender, Washburn's newly elected Student Senate president,
said she was surprised by the board's decision.
"I'm a little shocked that they are not going to go along with the guidelines we set." Bender said. "Generally, our decision was a positive one."
Craig Templeton, ASK board of directors chairman, said that the Craig hospital arrived at its office after careful deliberation and that the board had discussed the matter.
BENDER SAID the issue probably would be discussed at the
Senate's next meeting March 9%
"I think we came up with a fair and equitable way to assess membership," said Templeton. "There was a question on how we were ever going to sell their membership payments to the senators back home—they'd think we were a welfare agent for Washburn.
"We laid down a way for Washburn to play for their membership." WASHBURN WAS the only ASK member organization that paid membership dues by a flat rate. Washburn paid $22.00 a year. It will now asked to pay 25 cents for each full-time student each openset.
one board assessed the value of the ASK executive office a $5 to $7 a square foot, totalling between $1,700 and $2,300. Washburn's Senate does not pay rent for ASK office, but the Union was funded by student fees.
"We laid down a way for Washburn to pay for their membership."
"We were writing a blank check by saying yes, give us the office space and we'll keep you as members," Templeton said. "Our decision was weighted only by our desire to have Washburn in the organization."
Templeton said the Board was not concerned about the possibility of loss of the ASK office, but was motivated by a desire to keep the Board informed.
See ASK page nine
By SCOTT C. FAUST
Fish feud fermenting
Staff Reporter
its survival of the fittest – the fittest fish that is—in the Kansas Legislature.
A bill backed by a group of Hutchison sixth graders to make the channel cattail the state fish, approved 109-10 this week by the House, awaits Senate committee action, but the catfish faces a challenge from Kansas minnows, the Topeka shiner.
The cause for the Topека shiner, or Notropia topea, is supported by a group of KU systematics and ecology graduate students who are sensitive to the catfish, or tetraclavatus.
But Senate President Ross Doyen, R-Calif., said it would be possible of committee there was a possibility it would be amended on the floor to make the Topoika shiner, or even the bass or carp.
The fish that finally gets the nod will join the buffalo, sunflower, bumblebee, meadowlark and cottonwood tree as state-designed plants and animals.
DOYEN SAID that state fish legislation was "not all that earth shaking," but that the bill would receive Senate consideration and probably senate approval.
In a Darwinian survival contest, the odds would apparently be on the punctatus, and such is the case in the Kansas Legislature.
Principal Pat Lemmon of Rosewell School in Hutchinson, where the catfish bill originated, said her students were not ready to give up their fight.
Lemonm said the students were prepared to go to Topeka to testify in the catfisher's favor, as they did for the House committee, and they were sending packets
"I know the kids are really dedicated and they're really earnest," Lemmon said. "They think they have a chance.
of catfish information to Doyen, minority and majority leaders, and other key senators.
STATE REP. Dean Hinshaw, Hutchinson, who introduced the bill this year and also introduced it two years ago when it failed to get out council said.
the lobbying efforts of the children had a positive effect.
- The fish is native to all major Kansas river systems.
- The fish helps the environment, cleaning rivers and streams by eating dead fish, insects, crayfish and mollusks
- A poll of nearly 500 Hutchinson residents showed popularity for the move
- Student supporters of the catfish say the catfish should be made aquatic king in Kansas because:
- The bill would promote the state catfish-raising industry.
- The fish is the state's most commonly caught for fishermen. Figures from the Kansas Fish and Game Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all of all fish caught in the state are caught.
- Having a state fish would promote Kansas tourism and end the perception that Kansas is without water, let alone fish.
But Frank Cross, curator of fishes at the KU Museum of Natural History, whose students are backing the Teopika smith.
disagreed with some of the procatfish claims.
CROSS SAID that the catfish was common in all states, but the shiner was prevalent only in Kansas, and that nearly all fish were clean scavengers to some extent.
"My students decided that if there was going to be a state fish designated," he said, "it would be kind of nice to have a fish that is more distinctive Kansan."
The students have no legislation for the Topeka shiner, but have a letter to Doyen request he consider the fish as a delicacy. The letter was stained by 22 persons.
CROSS SASID the Topope shiner, which was originally common across Kansas but became extinct in the latter half of the on threatened species list. The Topope shiner population began dropping sharply from 2013 to 2015.
The Shiner is three inches long. It lives in stable, cool and clear pools and small streams. Cross said.
He called the Shiner "a pretty little fish with bright red fins" and said it was more characteristic of the prairie than the catfish.
He said it was named in 1800 after a Washburn University professor sent a specimen he had taken from the Shumanga-greek in Topeka to a specimen in Greece.
CROSS DISASSOCIATED himself somewhat from the graduate students' efforts.
"I don't know that it has any real significance to naming something the 'state,' he said. "It just means it's typical or representative that it belongs
"I don't think the whole issue is important enough to be spending an inordinate amount of time on."
Candidates to avoid state until just before election
By BLAKE GUMPRECHT
Staff Reporter
Kansas' first presidential primary is only 11 days away and still only one major candidate has set foot in the state.
Only Democratic candidate Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who spoke at the Democratic Washington Day dinner in Topeka last month, has tried to woo the state's voters in person.
But all three major Republican candidates have scheduled visits for next week. The primary is April 1.
Ronald Reagan, the GOP favorite, will visit Wichita Sunday, where he is scheduled to speak at a campaign rally and Lamar J. Roberts at a closed p.l.m. luncheon.
He will also speak at 2:30 p.m. at Wichita State University before leaving that afternoon for a food-dining dinner in Oklahoma City.
Reagan will return to Kansas the following Sunday for a rally and fund-raiser at the Glenwood Manor Hotel in Overland Park, Kan.
Anderson has also scheduled a fund-raising lunch at Topeka's Ramada Inn that day, and will attend a fund-riser in the Kansas City area.
REP. JOHN B. Anderson of Illinois will visit Lawrence, Kansas to Topeka and Wichita during a two-day trip Wednesday and Friday.
In Kansas City, he will attend a dinner at the Kansas City Bar Association in the Crown Center Hotel at 6:30 p.m., and a rally at the Riverside Civic Center.
GEORGE BUSH, former ambassador to the United Nations and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is scheduled to visit the state next Saturday with stops planned in Topeka, Kansas City and Wichita.
Bush will fly to Wichita Saturday for an afternoon rally and fundraiser.
He'll travel to Topeka that night for a 6:30 p.m. fund-raiser at the Ramada Inn and scheduled to be in Kansas City, Kan., by 8:30 p.m., where he will be the keynote speaker at the College Republicans state convention at the Glenwood Manor Motel.
Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, a former Bush aide, will campaign for Bush in Lawrence, McKenna, Manhattan and Salina today. He is scheduled to appear at a Bush rally in the Forum Room in the Kansas Union at 10:25 a.m.