CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, October 27, 1992
3
Congressional candidates debate spending, scandals
Kip Chin / KANSAN
Democrat Tom Love, left, Libertarian Frank Kaul, center, and incumbent Republican Jan Meyers are to represent Kansas' 3rd District in the U.S. House.
Challengers assail incumbents' records in televised forum
By Kristy Dorsey
Kansan staff writer
Excessive government spending was one of the major topics discussed by U.S. Congressional candidates during a televised forum last night at City Hall, Sixth
Republican Jim Van Slyke, 2nd District U.S. House of Representatives candidate, attacked incumbent Democrat Jim Slater's involvement in the House check-bouncing scandal.
"I think most people are aware that Congressman Slattery wrote 50 bad checks on the House bank," he said. "The people are sick of government abuses."
Van Syke emphasized that the only way to bring change to government was to elect new representatives.
"I think it's time for a change in Congress," he said. "Jim Slattery isn't a bad guy, but he's been in Congress now for 10 years. In order to change the way things are, we've got to change Congress, and that means changing your own member of Congress."
Slattery was unable to attend last night's forum but was represented by spokesperson Jim McLean. McLean defended Slattery's House banking record.
"Congressman Slattery simply used an overdraft protection system as it was explained to him." McLean said.
Other issues on which the candidates disagreed included congressional term limits, with Van Slyke supporting them and Slattery opposing; private education financing, with Van Slyke favoring tax credit vouchers for parents who want to send their children to private school and Slattery opposing them; and flag burning,
with Van Slyke stating he would protect the U.S. flag from desecration while pointing out that Slattery voted against legislation prohibiting flag burning.
Candidates in the 3rd district U.S. House race keyed on Congressional members' use of free postage, which is known as franking. Democratic candidate Tom Love attacked incumbent Jan Meyers' use of franking privileges.
"The current incumbent has spent several hundred thousand dollars in unsolicited mass mailings." Love said.
Meyers defended her use of franking privileges and her voting record on other Congressional perks.
Meyers also said that she had voted against all Congressional pay raises since taking office.
Libertarian candidate Frank Kaul said he would work to end Congressional franking privileges. He said his platform emphasized reducing government size and federal taxes.
Other candidates appearing at last night's forum included Douglas County Commission 2nd district contenders Jim Chappell and Ralph Tanner; 3rd district County Commission candidate Louie McEhaney; Douglas County District Attorney candidates Jerry Wells and Ramyse; and Douglas County Treasurer candidates Nancy Hempen and Pat Wells. The forum will be rebroadcast at 7 p.m. Monday on Sunflower Cablevision Channel 6.
Crime victims' rights and property taxes addressed
Kansas constitutional amendments set for vote
By Delin Cormeny Kansan staff writer
Kansans may vote to pass two amendments to the state constitution on the general election ballot Nov. 3. One amendment would guarantee certain rights to victims of crimes, and the other would revise the state's property classification system, which would affect property taxes.
The victims' rights amendment would allow victims to be present at the accused's hearings, be informed about the criminal justice process and allow them to speak at sentencing or any other time the court deems appropriate, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of the accused.
Victims currently have statutory rights that guarantee basically the same rights listed above, but the proposed amendment would give victims constitutional rights equal to their accusers.
This proposal also would enable victims to take action against individuals who deny them these rights. They would not be able to seek money damages but would be able to obtain an order forcing recognition of their rights.
The amendment also says that inadvertently denying victims their rights during the accused's judicial process would not be grounds for a mistrial, for setting aside a plea or for voiding a verdict.
A vote in favor of revising the property classification system would change the assessment rates for specific property classifications, such as commercial, residential and industrial.
These assessed rates are applied to the appraised value of property to determine the assessed value. County mill levies are then applied to the assessed value to determine how much will be paid in property taxes.
The proposed amendment would give most commercial real property owners a break by decreasing their assessment rate from 30 percent to 25 percent. The rate for property owned by not-for-profit groups, such as fraternal organizations and veteran's societies, will also
Understanding tax jargon
**MILL** - One mill is $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
**Levy** — The total number of mice collected by a political campaign. **Appraised value** — The market value of property.
subdivision, such as a school, city, county or township.
**Appraised value** — The market value of property.
**Assessed rate** — A percentage rate assessed on property. In Kansas, residential property is assessed at 12 percent. A home with an appraised value of $10,000 will have an assessed value of $12,000. Commercial property has an assessed value of 30 percent. A business with an appraised value of $10,000 will have an assessed value of $30,000.
Valuation — The sum of the assessed values in a particular political subdivision.
To determine property taxes, multiply the assessed rate by the appraised value and multiply the answer by the total mill levy.
go down from 30 percent to 12 percent. Those groups have yet to be defined by the Legislature. Residential rates will go down as well, but not as much as commercial and not-for-profits. These rates will decrease from 12 percent to 11.5 percent.
To offset these decreases, rates on business machinery and equipment will increase from 20 percent to 25 percent. The rate for utilities will increase from 30 to 33 percent. This increase potentially could be passed on to utility customers.
The overall effect of the proposed amendment would be to reduce the valuation of all property in Kansas by $400 million, from $14.6 billion to $14.2 billion, and to increase the property tax burden on residential property by about $2.5 million statewide.
Property valuation in Douglas County would go down by $12.8 million.
If the amendment is defeated, the current system will remain intact.
Also included in the property tax classification amendment is the granting of authority to future legislatures to classify and tax recreational vehicles. Such vehicles will be defined by the Legislature but will probably include motor homes, campers and travel trailers.
Dole agrees with Perot that deficit will be Congress' largest problem
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
By Kristy Dorsey
Kansan staff writer
The event was held at the Holiday Inn Holdome, 200 McDonald Drive, and was cosponsored by the Lawrence Rotary Club and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.
The federal deficit is the number one problem facing Congress next year, Dole said, giving independent presidential candidate Ross Perot credit for injecting that issue into the presidential race.
said. "I would say yes, he is going to have a better plan."
"I know he is going to have a new team around him, that's for sure" *for*
"We have to deal with the deficit," he said. "I think Perot is right about that." Dole said that if Bush were re-elected, the president would have a better plan for dealing with the deficit than what he had during the past four years.
Health-care reform will be a difficult issue to resolve because people in government have widely varying ideas about how the system should be improved, Dole said. He said that he did not favor the idea of completely rebuilding the health-care system.
"Do we throw out the present system which covers 200 million people pretty well?" he said.
President Bush's plan of tax credits, vouchers and 100 percent health-care deductions for the self-employed was the best solution for reform that the Congress could follow, Dole said. He said that the Canadian health-care plan, a solution touted by some as the answer for U.S. health-care reform, would probably not work in the United States.
"There are about 40 million people in Canada and about 240 million in America," he said. "So what works well in Canada may not work here."
eign aid, saying that the United States should invest a few billion dollars in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Republics because investment would create new foreign markets for the United States, slow down the arms race and possibly bring 50 to 100 years of peace to the world.
"It seems to me that we have an obligation to make democracy work in a lot of those places for a lot of good reasons," he said.
Dole also addressed the issue of for-
Despite what the current polls say, Bush has a good chance of being re-elected, Dole said. However, he joked about his position in Washington if Bush was not re-elected.
Larissa Johns, president of the chamber's government communications task force, said that Dole's sense of humor made him a successful speaker.
"If that happened, I would sort of be the number one Republican in town," he said. "But, come to think of it, I've got to be elected too."
"He is very charismatic, and I think
U. S. Sen. Bob Dole speaks at a joint meeting of the Rotary Club and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce. Pictured are Chamber president Dave Evans, left, Rotary president Jim Henry, second from right, and KU Chancellor Gene Bulig.
Patrick Tompkins / KANSAN
he answered the questions put to him and didn't go around the issues," she said.
Barbara Ballard, director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource
Center and Democratic candidate in the 44th district state House of Representatives race, said that she thought Dole provided a lot of information in his speech.
"This was not really a campaign speech," she said. "I found him both entertaining and informative. I really appreciate knowing his attitude on the issues."
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