VOL.100, NO.123
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1990
(USPS 650-640)
House OKs Regents budget
NEWS: 864-4810
Amendment on abortion nearly added
Kansan staff writer
By Rod Griffin
Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA - The House yesterday approved the Board of Regents budget after debate on 17 proposed amendments.
Attempts to increase student salaries by 5 percent, to increase the other operating expenditures budget to the Senate recommendation of 3.5 percent and to provide a 100 percent fee release were defeated.
The House approved for the University of Kansas an 80 percent graduate assistant fee waiver, a 2 percent increase in other operating expenditures and the use of funds raised by a new $15 application fee
Debate beamed emotional when State Rep. Kent Campbell, D-Milton.
vale, introduced an amendment that was designed to prohibit the use of state funds for abortions.
"This amendment simply prohibits the use of state dollars for abortions at the University of Kansas Medical Center." he said.
State Rep. Rochelle Chronister, R Neodesha, said doctors across the state would not refer patients to the Med Center if abortions could not be performed because women could not receive complete care.
"You are denying women 'the best care in the state because that is what we provide at the Med Center," she said, with tears in her eyes. "This has been implementing amendment that has ever been offered on this floor, and I oppose it."
But State Rep. Darrel Webb, D-Wichita, staunchly supported the measure.
"I think it is time for those of us opposed to abortion to stand up and be counted," he said.
Webb said he was born in 1933 at the height of the Depression
"I'm sure if my mother had known
some of those pro-choice people, they would have told her what to do about me." he said.
The amendment failed 42-81.
Sixteen other amendments were offered but only two passed.
State Rep. Kerry Patrick, R-Leawood, introduced two amendments that would have restored funds to the Margin of Excellence.
The Margin is the Board of Regents three-year plan to bring the total financing of its seven institutions to 95 percent of their peer schools and to bring faculty salaries to 100 percent of their peers.
His original amendment would have taken $6.1 million from graduate degree programs at Regents schools, eliminating some duplicate programs. Another $5 million would have been taken from the state's education program. The money would have been canceled for undergraduate programs.
"Obviously the Board of Regents is unwilling to address the unnecessary duplication not only of undergraduate but graduate programs," he said.
"Do we want to have two mediocre programs or one quality program?"
The amendment was soundly defeated.
State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, said that base budgets must be restored before the Margin was considered.
A second effort by Patrick met with demise. The second proposal would have restored the entire $16.3 million requested by the Regents.
Eventually Patrick found success with an amendment that would require state agencies, including Regents schools, to take competitive on collection services provided by not collection agencies or lawyers.
"I believe this amendment could save the Med Center $1 million or $1.2 million." he said.
The only other amendment passed by the House was introduced by State Rep. Clyde Graeber, R-Leavenworth. The amendment would prevent the Regents from allowing select out-of-state students to pay instate tuition rates.
House kills cigarrette tax bill
Bv Rod Griffin
Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA — The House took unusual measures yesterday to kill a cigarette tax bill that would have partially financed the Margin of Excellence.
Speaker of the House Jim Braden, R-Clay Center, scolded representatives like an angry father when they were going to be a jeer during a normally vote.
"I hope you people are proud of yourselves," he said. "I'm embarrassed. This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous."
Braden said it was the first time in 16 years that he had seen the motion to adopt the committee report defeated. Failing the motion kills a House committee's recommendations and amendments to a bill.
The House's action rejected the House Taxation Committee's recommendation to amend the bill to include a 50 percent increase in the wholesale liquor tax and to restore it in which it was passed by the Senate.
The Senate bill would have increased the tax on a package of cigarettes by 5 cents and the tax on an additional 10 percent, from 10 percent to 15 percent.
A motion to send the bill back to committee, made by State Rep. Jess Branson, D-Lawrence, was defeated, opening the bill for debate.
State Rep. Delbert Gross, D-Hays.
'To single out a group of people who smoke to fund higher education is wrong.'
State Rep. Delbert Gross D-Hays
ook the lead in opposing the bill.
State Rep. Fred Gatin, R-Atwood, argued that Gross was trying to get the job done.
"To single out a group of people who smoke to fund higher education is wrong," he said. "All Kansans want to be educated for higher education in Kansas."
"We have all kinds of tax bills in
Kansas that are discriminatory and affect only one group of people," Gatlin said.
State Rep. Gary Blumenthal, D-Merriam, proposed an amendment that would have eliminated earmarking the revenues for higher education and put the money in the state general fund.
"Rep. Blumenthal has been here for eight years, and for eight years I've been waiting for him to bring me back." State Rep. Ben Moanmaw, JR.Dighton.
But Moomaw did not get a chance to cast his vote of support.
Gross proposed an amendment to strike the enabling clause of the bill, effectively killing it. The enabling clause defines when the bill will take effect.
The motion passed by a 49 vote margin, 37-86, killing the bill.
Eric Montgomery/KANSAN
Tunnel vision
Donna Lusco, Prairie Village senior, looks outside from the walkway between Malott and Haworth halls. Lusco was making her way through the walkway after visiting her enrollment adviser yesterday afternoon.
Senate cleans up bill for emission control
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate, after a decade-long struggle to strengthen federal air-pollution controls, wrapped up debate yesterday on a $21 billion clean-bair air bill that will include emissions on car and factory emissions
A vote was scheduled for last night amid widespread speculation that the bipartisan bill endorsed by President Bush would have little trouble passing.
Bush did some long-distance lobbying yesterday as he planted a tree in a park in downtown Indianapolis.
Commission elects Martin-Smith mayor
Senate approval would shift focus on clean-air legislation to the House, where a similar bill is being written by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the panel chairman, plans a final vote by week's end, sending the measure to the House floor.
"I am proud of this proposal to cut smog, acid rain and toxic pollution, to make America cleaner and safer," Bush said. "I urge the Senate to act not merely for this generation but all the generations to come."
By Kathryn Lancaster
Kansan staff writer
Lawrence city commissioners took 10 minutes from their weekly meeting last night and elected Shirley Martin-Smith mayor. She was appointed by a 3-1 vote with former Mayor Bob Schumm abstaining.
Mayor Bob Schumm abstaining.
After Schumm turned the gavel over to MartinSmith, the commission unanimously elected Bob Walters vice-mayor.
According to commission rules, an election
must take place annually and a separate vote must take place for each nomination. Three commission-
Martin-Smith
ars are elected every two yars, and all five commissioners select a mayor. The next election is in April.
The mayor has no special voting powers but often is asked to speak at public forums and represent the city at various functions.
Mike Rundle also was nominated for mayor last night.
Although Schumm recommended him for the position, commissioners Martin-Simon, David Penny and Bob Walters voted against Rundle.
After the meeting, Rundle said he was disappointed by the outcome of the vote and by the lack of discussion that went into the process.
"It is obvious that people had made the decisions before discussing the issue."
Commissioners need to provide more input as to their reasons for the
more crucial decisions made, he said.
Rundle, who often stresses the need for commission consensus, said its failure to provide that feedback made decision-making more difficult.
Rundle said he felt he should have been elected because of his large voter constituency. Last year Rundle was not chosen but not served as mayor.
He said he thought that MartinSmith worked "to seize whatever perceived power there is in the office."
Martin-Smith said she was dismayed to hear Rundle's opinion and said she would have no greater voice in decision-making.
"I am one of five votes," she said.
"My voice is not dominant."
Although it took only 10 minutes to reach a decision, she said commissioners gave great thought to electing a mayor.
"It's one of the most intimate decisions a commission will make," she said. "Commissioners, once they know enormously are thinking about being mayor."
She said that being elected mayor was a great honor.
"Being mayor is ceremonial, but it shows that other commissioners have confidence in your ability," she said. "It meant a lot to me, just as getting elected meant a lot to me."
Kansas football player steers kids away from gangs, drugs
Robert Vaughn, Kansas football player, lifts weights in Anschutz Sports Pavilion
Kansan sportswriter
Robert Vaughn had never done that sort of thing.
Eighty people attended the PTA meeting that Vaughn spoke at in his hometown of Aurora, III., in the summer of 1897.
He was nervous, so nervous that his lips cracked each time he tried to speak. He had the shakes and cold fingers and was sweating.
Jeffrey Scull, Vaughn's legal guardian, recalled that speech.
"I remember that he was nervous, but he did well," Scull said. "People were really impressed. It is not too often you'll see a kid get up and say, 'I'm a former gang member.'"
Nearly three years later, Vaughn has perfected his speaking abilities.
"He's getting to be a real ham at it," Scull said.
Five years ago, Vaughn, now a red -shirt freshman cornerback on the Kansas football team, was not trying to get people to stay out of gangs. Between the ages of 13 and 15, he was talking to troubled teenagers at school because he was incarcerated off and on
During those two years, Vaughn was a member of Insane Deuces, a
When Vaughn returns to Aurora, he talks to young people and encourages them to stay away from drugs and gangs.
Vaughn quit the gang and usage of marijuana and cocaine. Since then, Vaughn has counseled several hundred elementary school children in Aurora and Yorkville, III.
gang in Aurora. When he was 15, he met Scull, the 'director of Aurora Township Youth Services. Scull told Vaughn that there was a better way to live and steered him away from the Deuces.
"I do speak to some gang members and tell them there is another light, another way of life," Vaughn said. "I can inspire me, I consider myself an inspiration."
"Giving speeches reminds me of
"With the kids, I want them to look at me as a role model because I experienced this stuff."
See VAUGHN, p. 13
In November, Vaughn joined Oakland's pitcher Dave Stewart in a joint hearing of the U.S. Senate's Judiciary and Human Resources committees in Washington. They talked about the potential wounds that fruit inflict on children and their families.
WASHINGTON — The national debt totals more than $3 trillion for the first time in history, the Treasury Department reported yesterday.
National debt jumps above $3 trillion
The Associated Press
When the national debt reached $3 trillion on Monday, it meant that it would cost every man, woman and child $12,000 to pay it off.
"The debt subject to limit did go over $3 trillion on Monday," confirmed Peter Hollenbach, public affairs officer for the Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt.
The actual level of public debt subject to statutory limit at the end of the day Monday was $3.023 trillion. That's $100 billion under the statutory limit of $3.123 trillion. The national debt stood at $2.989 trillion Friday.
Hollenbach said that despite a growing number of income tax receipts at this time of year, he believed the numbers would increase as long as the budget is not bad proce-
Analysts have said the target for fiscal 1990 has all but been abandoned, with some suggesting the actual imbalance for the year will total $160 billion to $165 billion.