The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
KANSAN
Monday, March 30, 1981 Vol. 91, No. 121 USPS 650-640
Public outcry kills bill to limit investments in money-market
By BRAD STERTZ Staff Reporter
It came through the Legislature like a thief in the night and will go to its almost assured death today as a prisoner, shackled by the jeers of the authorities, people like KU graduate student Roland Schenk.
The issue is a tacked-on amendment to an otherwise innocuous banking bill. The amendment would severely limit the convenience and availability of money-market investment funds.
Money-market funds are investments that can be purchased for short periods with high interest rates and small required deposits. Some money-markets require deposits as low as $100 for interest as high as that on a $10,000 savings account. But back is that the money-markets are not insured.
THE AMENDMENT, which passed the House by a 73-2 vote, would limit the investment opportunities of more than 40,000 Kansas small investors—people like Schenk.
"I'm convinced that money-market is the way to go for the student investor." Schenk, a business graduate student, said "In the past, I have gotten loan money and put it in a credit card. I've been able to get it and can put the money in a high-interest account and I don't have to let the money get all tied up.
"With a money-market account I can withdraw about $500 chunks, which is ideal for school, and I get about three times the interest that I would in a bank account."
The tale of the amendment reads like a suspense thriller, one in which the evil-deer sneaks up on his victims, catching them unaware, shocked and outraged.
THE AMENDMENT began its journey to controversy as simple Senate Bill 131 - a bill that would have better defined new types of banking accounts.
Just before the bill was scheduled for its final vote, the metamorphosis transpired.
Without public hearing, without committee debate, this mild bill gained a leech-like success.
states, the question of the viability of money market funds was raised.
But before this, amendment made by State Rep. Jerry Andre, R-Merriam passed out of the public's reach, the cries of outraged investors, stoked by the complaints of money-market brokers, have stopped the amendment in the Senate.
NOW THAT the Senate has been faced with the full burd of constituent outrage, that amend- ment was necessary.
It seems that nobody wants to come out in support of the amendment. House Speaker Wendell Lady, a former supporter, said the House Republican only allowed to raise the issue to the public's attention.
Even some supporters of the bill in the House have retracted their support, claiming that under the stress of the vote, they did not have the power to realize the implications of the amendment.
A AT A PRESS CONFERENCE Friday, Lady, R-Overland Park, said he had been assured by Senate President Roy Doyen that the Senate amended the amended bill pass through without debate.
"I would hope to put the bill in a conference committee and then hold hearings on it," Doyen, R-Cordonia, said about the amendment. The bill was issued issue full hearings before the session runs out."
If the session does run out, however, the bill probably would be shelved until next year's session. If the Senate does approve the bill, then it will not be criticized and the bill at a press conference Friday.
"The whole issue of the money-markets should not have gone through the House without both sides of the issue having their say." Carlin said. "I think it would be like I will be able to deal with it on my agenda."
THE QUESTION that remains in the minds of the amendment's opponents was how the legislators could have let such an apparently unopposed issue pass.
"It is of the magnitude that it merits more than procedural passage by the Legislature."
State Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Lawrence, a representative who voted for the amended bill,
"I think it took almost everyone by surprise," Charlton said, "but the problem with the vote on the issue was not that there was confusion, it was just that there was very little time to decide one way or the other on the sides that were presented on the House floor."
said the problem rested in the need to make a snap decision on the matter.
Charlton said that she did not have the time to sift out the bad from the good points in the bill and voted as she had in a preliminary vote on the bill to remain consistent.
"In the question of retired persons' pension funds that are included in the amendment, it seemed to be a matter of whether to have the pensions with a 15 percent insured interest rate, or to have a 19 percent interest rate that was insured," she said. "That's the kind of thing I voted for."
EVEN NOW, Charlton does not think that the idea behind the amendment is all bad.
"A lot of money has been flowing, not only out of this state, but out of this country because these funds," Charlton said. "It is not often that I will be on the side of the banks against the small investor, but in this case I think there is some merit to the idea."
Charlton said that since the vote was taken on Thursday, she has received about a half dozen phone calls asking about the vote that she calls "unfortunate, but got distrous."
One of the people who called Charleton was beset with fear and he called Charleton to have her explain贝他.
"I had been considering getting a money-market certificate for next year," Schenk said. "With the interest that I could make off the money-market, I can easily afford to buy some of it." Charlton came up on concern about Hap. Charlton's vote was to find out if this would be available for me next year."
WITH THE AMENDMENT, Schenk was afraid that the money would not be there for his investment. He said that he was hoping and was ready to accept the amendment not get past the Senate.
"I hope that this does not pass," he said,
because with the extra $400 to $501 I could earn
money for the day.
More than 250 runners turned out Saturday for the "Dam Run." a 10,000 and 20,000 meter race sponsored by KU Recreational Services. The race was from gate Park to Clinton Dam and back.
Leavenworth convict hopes key locks out violent past
By KIRK TINDALL Staff Reporter
LEAVENWORTH-Willie Bosket was initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa scholarship society in the spring of 1890 when he was a graduate of Princeton with a bachelor's degree in psychology.
He was given his Phi Beta Kappa key in a simple ceremony at the Leavenworth Federal Auditorium.
Monday Morning
years of his life. His grade point average was 3.97 on a 4.0 scale.
Bosket is a man who, by his own admission, is not easily moved. But receiving his key was an emotional experience for him—the culmination of the most rewarding experience of his life. He was presented his key teachers and other prison students looked on.
IT IS NO SMALL irony that Bosket, a man who has spent all but five years of his adult life behind bars, would be given a key, a key that won't unlock a single door at Leavenworth. But it does represent the only escape into Bosket, an escape into books and ideal.
JOHNE RICHARDSON/Kansan staff
"I had never been in an environment where ideas were exchanged—esoteric ideas, philosophies. Basket said. "I found myself in the situation it in. I took off—I found myself."
Most of Bosket's life was spent getting an education of a different sort. He grew up on the streets of Harlem, "a street kid doing street stuff."
It was street stuff that gave Basket the second most intense educational experience of his life, his years in the Eimira Reformatory for Boys.
"It was stupid. Just a bunch of street kids who what you do on the streets," he said. "It was bad."
BOSKET'S FACE is tense when he talks about Elmira, and it is easy to see that some
Bosket was 15 when he was arrested for the liquor store robbery, and 16 when he went into Elmira. He is now approaching 40. At an age when most Phi Beta Kappas are wearing three-piece suits with their keys dangling from them, they may have vests. Bosket wears prison fatigues that lack pockets to display his key, even if he were, as he said, "into symbols of that sort."
of the fear Elmir inflicted on a 16-year-old street kid still remains. There are scars, too—real scars, across the ridges of his eyebrows, or scars from the chin, broad deep scars on his forearms.
"It was a very physical environment and one had to become very physical to survive in that environment and remain whole," he said.
Bosket is not a bitter man. Yet he has trouble talking about the environment he is living in and has lived in for most of his life. An environment that has grown worse since he received the Phi Beta Kappa key. He is afraid that he will seem negative.
"I am a very positive person," he said.
"I've had it to isolate myself. The atmosphere is very conducive."
See BOSKET page 5
Tomorrow it will be warmer with a high in the upper 78s.
Winds will be out of the west to southwest at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight will be clear to partly cloudy with a low in the lower 40s.
It will be sunny and warm today with a low in the middle to upper 60s, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka.
Power failure hits residence halls, Towers
By KATHY MAAC Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
A power outage in west Lawrence late Saturday night left students stranded in elevators, and the auxiliary lighting system at Towers malfunctioned. KU police said yesterday.
The two-hour power failure, which started about 10:15 p.m., was caused by a blown transformer at 15th and Kasol streets, a Kansas Power and Light snooksman said.
The substation serves the west of Woch Auditorium, including the Daisy Hill residence hallls, the Towers and Meadowbrook Apartment, and the Rockknocked out in the Perry and Lecompton areas.
The Computer Center also was down as students were guided through campus buildings
FIREFIGHTERS TURNED off the Tower's auxiliary灯 after reports of smoke in Tower D, Fire Chief Jim McMain said. Carbon monoxide fumes from the gas-powered motor were eliminated after the generators were shut down.
The auxiliary unit generates electricity for the auxiliary' emergency exit signs and stairwell lights.
"We will be checking out the auxiliary system and make sure we get it working well." J. W. Jones
Residence halls and the Towers are both equipped with emergency lights, except the halls' lights are battery-powered and the Towers' are gas-powered. he said.
According to John Fuldner, Springfield, Mo., senior, who was in the Towers during the blackout, the fumes spread throughout Tower D. The firefighter then moved toward Tower D to the generator room to shut down the system.
TWO PEOPLE were rescued from the elevators after being trapped for about 20 minutes.
Students also were rescued from an elevator at Lewis Hall, Kathy Rose, Lewis assistant resident director, said. However, they were released by a resident before maintenance personnel arrived.
"It was more of a party-type atmosphere," Carol Schiavone, MColllum assistant resident director, said. "Everybody handled it really well. Nobody panicked."
"People were hanging around and playing backgammon in the bathrooms where there were lights," she said. "They were trying to make the best of it."
Other residents described the blackout atmosphere as wild.
STUDENTS In Templin Hall got roldy after the electricity went out, according to Vince Ferguson.
"Two bottles were thrown out the window," he said. "People get crazy when the lights go out. You have a lack of electricity and all hell breaks loose.
"You know what happened in New York, don't you?"
A party on the seventh floor of Ellsworth Hall
occupies about electricity, Mark Tinsley,
Merrigan sophomore.
"People still partied even though it was dark," he said. "We had a live band, which had to stop."
THE COMPUTER CENTER temporarily shut down to reset its system, according to David Gardner. Healy junior and the senior student at About 48 people were in the center at the time.
"the computer has a pretty fail-safe system," he said. "It stores everything that was being at the time it shut down. To my knowledge, no one lost their computer program."
Facilities Operations also reported no major problems during the blackout, according to director Thomas Anderson. After the power was off, the building heated and cooling motors in campus buildings.
High winds caused spot shortages yesterday in central Lawrence. KP&L dispatcher Nancy Riley
Power was out yesterday from 5 p.m. to 6:20 in the 800 blocks of Illinois, Louisiana and Indiana streets. The 1700 blocks of Tennessee and Kentucky streets also had power failures, probably because of high winds or blown transformers, she said.
Legislature considers drug paraphernalia bill
By MARC HERZFELD
Staff Reporter
Head shop owners and opponents of legal paraphernalia are fighting over a bill in the legislature that would outlaw the sale, possession and advertising of drug parapher-
The bill passed through the House with almost no opposition and is now being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. If the bill becomes law, the sale of drug paraphernalia to minors would be a felony to adults and other offenses would be a misdemeanor.
Leading the fight for the bill is State Rep. Robert H. Miller, R-Wellington, sponsor of the bill. Heading the opposition is Topeka attorney Dick Brewer, lobbyist for an organization of head shops, the Kansas Retail and Trade Cooperative.
"Government and the free enterprise system," Miller said, "are allowing this paraphernalia to be advertised and merchandised just like hot dogs and apple pie."
"The idea that you're going to stop or curtail drug use," Brewer said, "by curtailing some of its implements is like saying you're going to cure cancer with aspirin."
THE BILL. Brewer said, would make a pipe that is legal in a tobacco shop illegal in a heat shop.
But State Sen. Jane Eldridge, R-Lawrence, a member of the Judiciary Committee, argues that packaging and advertising of the paraphernalia would show illegal intent. If marijuana is illegal, she says, then accessories also should be illegal.
Steve Flack, owner of Exile stores in Lawrence and Overland Park, called the bill "historic."
The law also might present legal problems. A similar law in Ohio was declared unconstitutional in federal court last year, Miller, a former prosecutor, and the defect in the Ohio law had been corrected.
"You can get rolling papers in any grocery store," one said.
BUT JOHN SOLBACH, D-Lawrence, said that the bill might be unconstitutional and that the governor should act.
Customers interviewed in Lawrence's head shops agreed.
"It's not going to stop me from using drugs," another said.
The impact the bill would have on drug use is uncertain. DON Flesher, owner of Mother Earth in Topeka and president of the Kansas Retail and Consumer Bank, said the bill would have no effect on drug use.
Lawrence has three head shops, White Light Paraphernalia, 704 Massachusetts; Bokonon Imports, 12 E. Eight; and Exile Records and Tapes, 15 W. Ninth.
Eric Voth, a fourth-year student at the University of Kansas Medical Center who testified in favor of the bill, said the bill would impose the "atmosphere of drug abuse" in head shops.
"Very young people are targeted," he said, water pistol-pipe combination and a Frisbee stick.
Voth said the paraphernalia industry financed the "pro-pot lobery" attempting to stop the bill. The lobby was trying "a heck of a lot of slippery maneuvers to get around the bill." he said.
One question surrounding the Kansas bill is enforcement. Solbach compares the law to the Missouri law, which he said does not have
INTENT is an important part of any criminal law, he said. Just as an electrician could own a burglary tool for legal purposes, so a tobacco chemist was not permitted to intent was not to smoke controlled substances.
Lawrence Assistant Chief of Police Ron Oln
the bill would be enforced, although it would not
that the judge
For now, the bill is in the Senate Judiciary Committee. State Sen. Elwaine Pomeroy, R-Topkea, chairman of the committee, said the bill requires more study before being sent to the full Senate.
BUT SOLBACH, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, predicted that the Senate would approve the bill if the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended it.