VOL.100,NO.66 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
THURSDAY NOV. 30,1989
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS: 864-4810
A crowd of about 1,500 people voice their opinions for lawmakers at a rally calling for a repeal of property tax increases.
Jennv Abia of Wichita expresses her displeasure.
Tax protesters rally at Capitol
By Derek Schmidt and Holly Lawton Kansan staff writers
By Derek Schmidt
TOPEKA — Toting signs that said "Tax Rape" and "They lied to us," more than 1,500 people rallied yesterday on the south steps of the Capital and demanded relief from shifting property taxes.
“It’s the first time in my years of public service that I have seen the sheer panic that has spread across the width and breadth of this state,” State Sen. Ed Reilly, R-Leavenworth, told the crowd.
The crowd chanted, "Where's the governor?" and "We want Hayden." However, some protesters, apparently confused about the governor's name, yelled, "We want Hagen."
After the hour-long rally, more than 250 protesters flocked into the statehouse and tried to push into Governor's office, calling his name.
Dennis Taylor, Gov. Mike Hayden's chief of staff, calmly met them at the door and said the governor was at a meeting away from his office. Hayden later met with about a dozen protesters in the parking lot, but the meeting, he announced two tax relief measures he would support.
Taylor said the rally did not represent a cross-section of Kansas citizens.
Extra Capitol police and Kansas Highway Patrol officers guarded the statehouse halls, but they reported no trouble.
up, other people's taxes — and they're not in this room — go down." he told the protesters.
"When some people's taxes go
An eclectic group of people gathered for the rally, which was organized by the Kansas Association of Realists. Business suits were interspersed with blue jeans, overalls, cowboy hats and jogging suits. People of all ages turned out. Teabags, a symbol of tax protest referring to the Boston Tea Party, dangled from some eyeglasses.
"We don't need to spend all this time trying to figure out who's to blame in this," said State Rep. David Miller, R-Eudora. "We need solutions."
Miller called for a special legislative session before Dec. 20 to remedy tax problems.
"We're worried about an economic catastrophe," he said. "You have to tell the legislators that you're mad as hell and that you're not going to take it anymore."
One protester carried a sign that said, "Thank John Carlin for reapraisal." Another sign said, "Remember when you vote: Hayden's gang speaks with forked tongue."
See RALLY, p. 14
Margin may be in danger of cuts, lawmakers say
By Derek Schmidt
Kansas staff writer
TOPEKA — Financing for the third year of the Margin of Excellence may be in trouble, several lawmakers said yesterday.
House Minority Leader Marvin Barkis, D-Louisburg, said that Gov. Mike Hayes's budget probably would not include full finance
ing for the Margin.
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.
"Ask the man down there in the governor's office," Barkis said when asked whether the Margin
Hayden, who is developing the budget he will propose to the Legislature in January, declined to say whether he would recommend full financing for the third year of the Margin.
"I'd have no comment on that at this point," he said. "I haven't reviewed the funds for education programs at this point."
Asked whether he would consider using money from the Margin of Excellence to finance property tax relief, Hayden paused, then said, "I didn't say that."
However, Hayden did say he would consider financing tax relief from the state general fund.
"Obviously, anything that would
See MARGIN, p. 14
Gandhi quits post as prime minister
The Associated Press
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi rescinded yesterday, and for only the second time since independence in 1947 his Congress Party did not claim the right to form the next government.
Opposition parties began trying to assemble a coalition.
"The people have given their veridia he said in a televised speech last night."
Gandhi submitted his resignation to President Ramaswamy Venkataraman and said he was ready for the role of opposition leader.
"A new government will be formed. We extend to them our good wishes and offer them our constructive cooperation," said the 45-year-old former airline pilot, who won his own Parliament seat overwhelmingly for a third time.
Congress won more Parliament
seats in last week's elections than any other party but was far short of a majority.
The Congress Party has been out of office on once since independence
National Front leaders predicted yesterday that they would choose the next prime minister, but differences arose among the five parties.
A meeting was delayed until tomorrow so legislators from the alliance could try to persuade his main leader, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, to take the job. Singh has repeatedly said he does not want it.
"There will be trouble in the party if V.P. Singh is not elected prime minister," said Jaipal Reddy of Janata Dal, or People's Party, largest of the five parties in the National Front.
Singh is a former Gandhi minister and ally who has become his most prominent political foe.
Left-handers encounter chair problems at KU
Marc Roskin, Northbrook, Ill.,
senior agreed with Birch.
His media law classroom, like most lecture halls on campus, has no desks to suit lefties. Birch said he wished the University had more desks for lefties. He said 10 to 15 desks in each lecture hall would at least provide an option for left-handed people.
As a lefty, Roskin said, trying to take notes in a desk made for a right-handed person is uncomfortable.
"You have to sit crooked or pull another desk over next to you and turn your whole body to write," he said.
"If they wanted to sit in the righthanded desks near a buddy, they could do that," Birch said. "But at least the onion would be there."
By Liz Hueben Kansan staff writer
Ewdin Birch sat leaning to his right with his left arm bent in an awkward hook-shape so he could take notes in class without bumping elbows with
He said most people didn't realize that left-handed people had to make adjustments when it came to little things, such as sitting in a classroom.
Birch, Kansas City, Kan., senior, is left-handed.
Birch said, "It's aggravating because you have to turn and re-position yourself and you end up writing slovow."
Roskin said that sometimes he would be in a room with free-standing chairs that would have only one chair. He said the rooms should have more.
"There should be at least one lefty desk in every classroom and maybe they could designate some in a row for aureum hall, like maybe four," he said.
Jim Modig, campus director of facilities planning, said that the fixed seating in lecture halls was a part of the design package of a building.
He said that he didn't recall whether the problem of lefty seating in lecture halls had ever been brought to his attention but that his office had considered buying free-standing, left-handed desks.
"We've considered finding chairs that are more ambidextrous, but we haven't found a particular style of chair that appears to be something we would want to purchase for that purpose, as far as quality," he said.
The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigating agency, said problems existed in every major federal department and agency. The GAO said the government's carelessness about how its money was spent was years' old in some cases and blamed the Reagan administration deregulation and staff cutbacks for much of the problem.
"There have been some conversations about left-handed chairs, but I don't know if we have a particular head count of the average number of left-handed people per room or not."
KU law grad taking right-to-die case to Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — About $60 billion, or more, in taxpayers' money is likely to be wasted by the federal government in the future due to antiquated accounting systems, lack-adjusted management and hollow commitments to do better, Congress was told yesterday.
Report says U.S. could waste $50 billion in mismanagement
The Associated Press
Kansan staff writer
Bill Colby, a KU law school alumnus, has been working for the past three years to help a woman retain her right to die.
"There is a seemingly neverending and costly trail of mismanagement, abuse and illegal acts involving federal programs," the
GAO said in the report to the Senate Government Affairs Committee.
Nancy. Cruzan, Carterville, Mo., was 28 when she was in a car accident Jan. 11, 1983. According to court documents, the state trooper who arrived on the scene found Cruzan face down on a country road not far from her home.
Comprroller General Charles Bowers said that the government needed to make a major investment in state-of-the-art accounting and financial management systems but that he did not know how much that would cost.
He recommended the appointment of a government-wide "chief financial officer" to control government spending. Also, deputies at each major agency would be required to file detailed financial reports.
He will have his last chance to defend her rights when he goes before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 6.
Bowsher said the multibillion dollar scandals involving the savings and loan industry, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Energy Department's troubled nuclear plants were likely to be followed by billions in fraud, waste and abuse for a common reason — lousy management.
He thought she was dead, but paramedics revived her. The neurosurgeon who operated on Cruzan expressed concern because of the length of time she had been without oxygen. But her parents refused to give up.
Three weeks after the accident, Joe and Joyce Cruzan allowed a feeding tube to be inserted into Nancy's stomach, because they believed she would wake from her coma. Nine months after the accident, she was moved to the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mt. Vernon, Mo., where her parents visited her daily, trying to extract some reaction from her.
By Beth Behrens
Colby, an attorney for the Kansas City, Mo., law firm Shook Hardy & Bacon, said the main problem was that the dog kept alive by only the feeding tube.
The Cruzans decided in 1986 to remove the feeding tube, but they were told by the probate judge overseeing their daughter's guardianship that they would need a court order to
take her home and remove the tube.
And that is where the Cruzins' came from.
"Her brainstem is almost completely intact," he said. "Her breathing, food processing, urinary production, all of that works, but her brain has been replaced by fluid. She is a shell of what she used to be and certainly to no end. It's certainly no end that she would choose.
"Doctors say she could live 30 to 40 years. It's possible she won't, but she could because she is getting very good care."
He said the state paid $130,000 each year through Social Security benefits to keen Cruzan alive.
Colby was put in touch with the Cruzans through the American Civil Liberties Union.
Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, said the Cruzans didn't have the financial capabilities to take the case to court.
He said that the ACLU was paying for the court costs but that the attorney fees, which were probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, had been donated by the law firm.
Colby said he was arguing that Cruzan had the right to refuse medical treatment and that in keeping her
Kurtenbach said the AGLU's interest in the case was to gain personal rights.
on the feeding tube the state of Missouri was invading her body. He said that if a life-and-death decision had to be made by someone other than Cruzan, her parents should decide instead of the courts.
In the fall of 1987, the family won the right to remove the tube at a Jasper County Circuit Court hearing. Colby said the judge's decision was
"Nancy Cruzan is being asked to subject her body to incredible intrusion by the state," he said. "Her wishes and the wishes of her family are invading. The authorities say to invade her body is an indecent act."
influenced by personal anecdotes from friends and relatives, such as Athena Comer's testimony, Comer, Cruzan's housemate, testified that Cruzan had stated she would not want to continue life in a vegetative state.
The Missouri Attorney General stopped the family from removing the tube by appealing to the state supreme court, where the first ruling was overturned, 4-3.
The Missouri Supreme Court decision stated that the state had an unqualified interest in life. The court did not consider testimony from family and Friends as in the first hearing.
See CASE p. 6