Sen. Sam Brownback has pretty much locked down his gubernatorial race with Democrat Tom Holland, and is already measuring his office for curtains and scouring the budget for cash to fund a new job to repeal laws he doesn't like or are out dated.
He doesn't have a lot of details for the so-called "Office of Repealer," but, he says, the reason he wants someone (presumably a political ally) to handpick laws for repeal is that, well, there are too damn many laws.
"Because everything is always additive," he told KSN-TV in Wichita. "It's always,
you've got a problem, add a statute. You've got a problem, add a
regulation." And the small-government advocate/apple of George Clooney's eye doesn't like that.
An example, he said, of what his shiny new bureaucrat would look into pulling
off the books is the legislation that stopped the development of the
Holcomb coal power plant Sunflower Electric Power Corp. kept trying to build.
"Regulation that was put in place that blocked the Holcomb power plant
from going forward -- I don't think that was a correct call in the first
place," Brownback said. That's alarming language, and it makes the
position sound like the job will be responsible for attempting to
repealing all laws from the past that Brownback doesn't agree with.
Maybe he should change the title "Office of Legislative Hindsight."
Holland, who has been a state legislator since 2003, says the office is a
ridiculous idea. "Why we need to add an additional shadowy layer of
bureaucracy is beyond
me," he said.
Not that he wants all laws to remain in place. He's just pointing out
that there already are officials who repeal laws: Legislators.
Holland says more than 1,700 laws have been voided during his time
in Topeka. "That is one of the things we do in the Legislature -- we
repeal
outdated statutes," he told the channel. And, judging by the polls,
he'll have plenty of time in the future to repeal laws the old fashioned
way.
Showing 1-5 of 5
