WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23, 2002
STATENEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7A
Senate to expand terrorism law to livestock
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A Senate committee will move quickly on legislation to protect livestock and crops from terrorism, its chairman said yesterday.
The measure would expand a law enacted last year that gave the state greater authority to respond to and contain outbreaks of infectious disease in livestock.
This year's bill would add plants to the law and make it a felony to infect plants or animals. In addition, the bill would make convicted terrorists eligible for the death sentence if the infection of plants or livestock resulted in death to humans.
State Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Derek Schmidt,
R-Independence, said he was aiming for approval of the bill by the full Senate within two weeks. The panel heard testimony yesterday.
"Experts on bioterrorism tell us that the terrorists' goal is not always to kill but to create domestic dislocation or economic havoc," said state Agriculture Secretary Jamie Clover Adams to the Senate Agriculture Committee.
"The impact of an intentional introduction of a plant disease would be devastating to the Kansas economy," she said, noting that annual agriculture sales are about $34 billion, with wheat sales totaling $1 billion alone.
Last year's measure made it a felony to knowingly infect livestock with foot-and-mouth disease and was a response to effects
the disease had on the livestock industry in Europe.
Todd Johnson, spokesman for the Kansas Livestock Association, said the 2001 legislation and the outbreak in Europe prompted Kansas producers to implement their own biosecurity plans, work with state agencies to develop emergency preparedness plans and begin educating producers and consumers.
But since Sept. 11, he said, "The possibility of an inadvertent introduction has changed to the threat of an intentional terrorist attack on our agriculture industry."
Schmidt said the bill was similar to the work of committee that studied the state's needs for greater agroterrorism security last fall.
Adams asked the committee to
change language of the bill that could be construed to impede markets for nurseries, greenhouses and grain markets, as well as restrictions that could be placed on plant pathogen research.
Schmidt said the committee was likely to consider those changes.
"We want to be certain that we don't step over a line," Schmidt said. "We want to make sure our response is well-coordinated and targeted."
Today the Department of Agriculture and several industry groups plan a news conference at the capitol building. The participants are expected to announce activities related to agroterrorism preparedness and the appropriate response.
Court approves new sexual predator law
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Kansas' sexual predator law should be the final word on the statute, Attorney General Carla Stovall said.
"I don't think that there needs to be another dollar spent to take the sexual predator law back to the Supreme Court," Stovall said after the high court issued its ruling yesterday.
Stovall has successfully defended the law in front of the nation's highest court twice. It has become a model law for 19 states.
Yesterday's ruling stemmed from the state's appeal in the case of Michael T. Crane, convicted in 1993 of sexually assaulting a video store clerk and exposing himself to a tanning salon attendant in Johnson County.
When Crane was about to be paroled in 1998, prosecutors went to court to have him committed to a state hospital. A jury in the civil trial found him to be a sexual predator, and a judge sentenced him to be confined at Larned State Security Hospital.
In July 2000, however, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered a
new civil trial on the sexual predator question. The Kansas justices said the judge erred in failing to tell jurors they needed to find that Crane was completely incapable of controlling his dangerous behavior.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may keep violent sexual offenders locked up after their prison issues if they prove that offenders lack "some" self-control. Juries do not need to find that an offender lacks any self-control, the court said.
However, the ruling did not offer states any guidance on how to address an inmate's lack of
control.
Stovall argued the case for Kansas on Oct. 30. She had also argued the 1997 case of convicted pedophile Leroy Hendricks, which led to the high court's ruling that Kansas' sexual predator law was not unconstitutional.
Laws similar to Kansas' have been adopted by Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin.
Kansas Senate could cut money for schools to avoid new taxes
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A Senate committee began its review Tuesday of two Republican leaders' budget plan by agreeing to sponsor a bill to help public schools avoid facing spending cuts.
The Ways and Means Committee has scheduled three days of hearings on the plan, which is designed to balance the budget for the state's 2003 fiscal year without increasing taxes. The state faces a projected $426 million gap between expected revenues and spending commitments for fiscal 2003, which begins July 1.
One key provision of the plan would reduce state aid to public schools by $39 per student, to $3,831 from $3,870, in the current school year, then freeze at that level for fiscal 2003.
The committee agreed to sponsor a bill that would make it easier for school districts to dip into their reserves and issue debt to cover expenses, as long as the debt would be paid off with property taxes.
"I think it's probably justified given what we're about to do to them," said Sen. Christine Downey, D-Newton.
Senate Democrats like Downey have found plenty to dislike in the GOP budget plan, but they are not sure they can prevent it from getting out of
committee.
The proposal was drafted by Chairman Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, and Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, who also serves on the committee. Morris and Kerr want the committee to act quickly, to allow debate by the full Senate next week.
The Kerr-Morris plan is an alternative to Gov. Bill Graves' proposal to raise $228 million by increasing cigarette, sales and motor fuels taxes and vehicle registration fees. Graves has argued that tax increases are necessary to avoid cuts in education and social service programs.
Kerr and Morris propose to cut the current $4.5 billion budget by about $85 million, or 1.9 percent, then freeze spending for fiscal 2003. The result would be a state budget slightly smaller than the one in place for the state's 2001 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Kerr and Morris also would dip into the state's rainy day funds for $104 million and divert $20.6 million from the state's 1998 legal settlement with tobacco companies, used now for children's programs.
Most agencies would have their current budgets cut 2 percent, then frozen. Spending on public schools and higher education would be cut only 1.2 percent, however.
Kaw Nation purchases native Kansas homeland
The Associated Press
COUNCIL GROVE — More than 128 years after the U.S. government forced them out of the state that bears their name, the Kaw Nation is returning to its homeland.
In January 2000, the nation purchased 168 acres of its native land southeast of Council Grove, in the neosho River valley along Little John Creek, with plans to develop a historical park to honor the nation's Kansas heritage.
nage.
"This is where we came from. This is our home," said Clyde McCauley, executive vice chairman of the Kaw Nation. "I feel the most important thing for the Kaw people is to migrate back to our culture to purchase the land we once owned."
For the past 100 years, McCauley said, the Kaw had been trying to purchase the land back. Finally, in early 2000, the tribe closed a $108,000 deal with the property's owner. Willis Huston. The tribe is also buying Kaw burial grounds and campsites scattered throughout Kansas.
The 168-acre purchase is more than just keeping their heritage. McCauley said, but also about culture and beliefs.
Today, the Kaw Nation has about 2,500 members. Its plan is to develop a hiking trail that takes people around these sites and helps them learn more
"In Kaw culture, the spirits return to where we last lived," he said.
This is where we came from. This is our home."
Clyde McCauley executive vice chairman of the Kaw Nation
about the tribe that once lived there, McCauley said.
Farmland also will be turned back into native prairie grasses and an abandoned railroad corridor, known as the Flint Hills Nature Trail, will be turned into a hiking and biking path on which residents can travel to the site.
McCauley said the entire project should take three to five years.
JoAnn OBregon, executive secretary of the Kaw Nation, said Kaw members were still discussing what to name the preserve, adding it would probably be named after a Kaw chief.
She said the preserve officially will be named April 20 during a "Cedar Ceremony," or a praver ceremony, at the park.
Ron Parks, curator of the Kaw Mission State Historical Site at Council Grove, said the nation members also planned to plant 807 burr oak trees —representing the 807 Kaw listed on the 1862 U.S. Census. The trees would be planted along nine miles of the Flint Hills Nature Trail, from Council Grove to a few miles west of Bushong.
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