Wednesday, February 28, 1979
3
ASK lobbies in Topeka
By CAROL BEIER
Staff Reporter
TOPEKA—More than 80 students from the Associated Student of Kansas labs hoy organization visited state legislators on Friday and K fifth annual mass laby day in Topeka.
Or, at least, they tried.
Several students, including some or KU's 25 representatives, said they had difficulty finding the legislators because of their age. The Kansas House session at 11 a.m.
One student, Rick Kastner, Wamego sophomore, said he had tried to contact nine legislators during the morning and had been unable to talk to any of them. He did, however, leave messages with their secretaries.
"We've done all we could," Kastner said. "At least they know we were here. That's a start."
And persistence paid for the students who stayed to lobby during the afternoon, Steve Young, KU representative on the ASK board of directors, said. He said the students were also getting a better luck finding legislators in the afternoon when the House was not in session.
HANNES ZACHARIAS, executive director of ASK, said the purpose of the hobbie day was not to change the opinions of staff and colleagues but to increase the visibility of ASK.
"The idea that a student would come up here could have a dramatic effect. Visibility is the key," he said.
Although Zachariaz and his staff lobby the Kansas Legislature full time, he said that it was important for senators andASK represents to see the students ASK represents.
In a January poll conducted by Mike Harper, former student body president, 67 of 69 legislators who responded to the mailed questionnaire said they had heard of ASK. Sikty-one representatives and senators said they had had personal contact with ASK, which KU joined last fall.
VESTERDAY LOBBY day began with a breakfast for students and 35 legislators at the Washburn University student union. After the breakfast, students made the rounds of the legislators' offices. Students made 35 appointments for the students.
University Daily Kansan
Kate Hofstetter, administrative assistant for ASK, said she sympathized with the students' difficulties in finding the legislators.
"We set up appointments as best we can.
It is frustrating," she said. "Even if you want to see a few people, you can make a day of it. Our time is that tight."
Two KU students said the lobby day would have benefited from better timing.
John Hambricht, Wichita junior, said,
"For one thing, we should have been here
about a month ago. We're catching the tail
of the action."
The session is more than half over.
YOUNG SAID HE neglected that the students had only limited experience in their studies.
"It's too bad we can't do this more often and get more consistency in the organization. By the third time we came up, we'd be pros," he said.
However, George Gomer, student body vice president, visited with State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence, and said he was pleased with the discussion.
"Of course, he already supports us. We're not gaining new support but it helps to keep in contact," Gomez said.
Glover said ASK had as much influence as any other lobbying organization.
“Every lobbist is suspect because he is only interested in the certain things his lobbies for and not the whole picture,” she said. “But that’s really nothing peculiar.”
GLOVER IS sponsoring a bill to reduce the penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Passage of the bill is one of ASK's five priority issues.
The other priorities are voter registration by mail, improvements in landlord-tenant regulations, maintenance of the school program and minimum wage for students.
Zacharias said last week that voter registration by mail was a lost cause. He said he did not expect the voter registration bill, now before the elections committee, to reach the floor of the House. He said yesterday that ASK members were concentrating on their four other priorities.
"We're hitting very strongly on the money issues. Marijuana is also important for the legislators to get constituent feedback. Students are part of that constituency and their opinions carry weight," he said.
Students were not the only group competing for the attention of legislators yesterday. More than 100 representatives from the Nurses' Association also roamed capitol hallways to lobby in support of planned parenthood legislation.
"There have been swarms of them all over the place," one secretary said.
Ardent testimonies urge revival of death penalty
By GENE LINN Staff Reporter
THE FIRST witnesses yesterday were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Butler, whose daughter was stabbed 23 times when she was murdered in July, 1973.
These arguments were countered by opponents of the death penalty. They urged the legislators to vote against capital punishment, a poll showing that most Kansans favor it.
However, other witnesses said the death penalty was not a deterrent and told senators they should vote against the death penalty even though many people were for it.
The previous Kansas capital punishment law was overruled in 1972 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the existing capital punishment laws unconstitutional.
"WE ELECTED you to do what we don't have the time, skill or inclination to do," said Judy Davis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.
TOPEKA- In a debate that was emotional at times, some witnesses yesterday urged a Kansas Senate committee to recommend that the death penalty be reinstated.
"In August, 1974, they were trying to parole our daughter's murderer," Florence Butter said. "You've since learn then we and his mother would be paroled parole board to try to keep this man in (al)
"We elected you to study, weigh and make informed decisions on the issues," she said.
The witnesses told the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee that capital punishment would deter murders and that the majority of Kansans favored it.
The committee is now considering three death penalty bills to decide whether Kansas will join at least 30 states that have signed laws that criminalize law laws designed to meet Court guidelines.
"I pray for the enactment of the death penalty as a deterrent to murder."
"But these studies say Kansas would have to execute 12 murderers to prevent one murder," he said. "It's not worth the trouble."
"It defines common sense to say that a "gitarist's function is simply to echo the current commit."
"Three young black prisoners told me once that fear of the death penalty would definitely cause them not to commit murder," he said.
Another witness said that if a death penalty law was enacted, it should require elected officials in the state to be witnesses and executioners.
He said some people said there were audits that proved that capital punishment is ineffective.
William Arnold, KU associate professor of Sociology and a member of the Kansas Citizens for justice, said the public would be shocked at how much if people realized it would not deter crime.
Mrs. Butler, who disavowed any desire for revenge, said she spoke publicly for the death penalty because "it is easier to come home when you how I feel toward to sit at home and cry.
"In a 1973 Harris poll that showed that more than two-thirds of the public favored the death penalty, 48 percent of the respondents said they would not favor it if imprisonment would be just as good a deterrent," he said.
THREE OF them, he said, proved that the patient was ill before or after well-publicized execution.
"My objections to capital punishment come from my personal experience," the witness, Arthur Wilson, director of the Kansas Citizens for Justice, said.
"On July 19, 1977, convicted cop killer Roy E. Schultz escaped from Lansing," Baehn said. "A week later he was arrested in Illinois for kidnapping an Illinois family and attempting to rape the family's 5-year-old daughter."
Topeka Police chapel Don Rogers also said the death命中 could be a deterrent.
Arnold told the committee about a number of studies that he said showed that people with diabetes can live longer.
ANOTHER PROPONENT of the death penalty, Ted Baehnli, said capital punishment would keep some convicted murderers off the grid and committing violent crimes again.
Another opponent of capital punishment,
Baehni the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Topeka Lodge number 3.
"The people who want the death penalty are the same people who elect you folks to be president."
Mr. Butler said polls showed that the majority of Kansans were in favor of capital
"I covered the last two executions in Kansas in 1965 for some Kansas television stations," he said. "After the execution, I was physically ill for several days because of my personal feelings of guilt as a taxpayer paying for the executions."
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