Point/Counterpoint: KS Supreme Court

Your True Crime podcast keeps listeners on the edge of their seats. But here's the real mystery. Why isn't it making more money? Odyssey Creator Lab is here to solve that. We host your show for free. No fees, no catch. You focus on the suspense. While our sales team brings in advertisers and revenue, stop leaving money on the table. Apply now at Creators.odicy.com and turn your passion for true crime into real revenue. Look who's sitting next to me right now. It is Dion Kelly Loeffler from the Wichita Eagle. Good morning. How are you? It's good to be here, man. Good. Do you like it here in our studio that's air-conditioned? Oh, yeah, it's beautiful, you know. I mean, it's beats the heat. Got all these monitors and screens and stuff. Isn't that, yeah, that's fun. Keep track of a lot of things here. Hey, you're here for a reason, of course. It's time for Point Counterpoint, the biweekly feature here on KNS. So let's get things revved up after Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have changed how Supreme Court justices are selected in the state. Wichita Eagle columnist Dionne Kelly Loeffler argues that Republicans should take the hint and stop trying to reshape the court. specifically taking aim at the Sedgwick County Republican Party for urging voters not to retain Chief Justice Eric Rosen and Justice Larkin Walsh. So have Kansans really settled the debate over the direction of the court, or is a retention election exactly where voters should continue having their say? All right, let's dig into this issue. I believe Mr. Kelly Loeffler will start us out. I'd be happy to. I, you know, when I look at the, when I look at the votes that we've taken, we've taken two votes on reshaping the court, and both of them have failed, you know, rather substantially. And, you know, when I saw the, when I saw the post from the Sedgwick County Republican Party saying, well, you know, now we have to go out and unelect these two justices. It's like, why? You know, I mean, it seems like the people of Kansas have spoken twice and said that they pretty much like the court and they pretty much trust the court to do its job. And if there was some malfeasance in office or something like that, I'd be all for voting against a judge's retention. But in this case, it just seems to be that, you know, the party is having trouble. accepting that they lost, and that's not a reason to remove Supreme Court justices. The post he's referring to Ted is on earlier this week, the Sedg County Republican Party, full disclosure of which I'm the chairman, reminded voters that this November, Chief Justice Eric Rosen and one of the other justices, Larkin, Walsh, are up for retention.

We do the retention votes, and the party reminded voters that they're up for retention, and we are encouraging voters to vote not to retain those. And Dion thinks, obviously, that we should stop. encouraging that. And, you know, my response to it is pretty simple. I mean, you know, you're right. We lost the Supreme Court election rather handily. I would say to that, first off, I would say 30% voter turnout. We were outspent five to one by the ACL of New York, the Planned Parenthood, and George Soros. And when you get a bunch of outside money with a bunch of misinformation, that's what happens. And when you only have poor voter turnout. That's also what happens. But, you know, we lost the battle. It doesn't mean you give up. Where we believe, fundamentally, Republicans believe that we are in an ideological war against a liberal, out-of-control court. And if that's what we believe, at our core, that we are battling against an unconstitutional court, then you don't give up the war just because you lose a battle. So why should we... quit just because we've lost a couple of fights. That's not in the nature of you don't give up just because you lost a couple of fights, Dion. Well, the people of Kansas don't seem to think that these justices have done anything wrong. But not all the people. You just got 30% voter turnout. 30% of the people. Well, that's your fault for doing it in a primary election then. I agree. You know, Ted, you are completely right. But either way, when you say the people of Kansas die on, that's not an accurate statement. 30% of the people showed up. We don't know what all the people of Kansas think. We can go back to value them both. We can go back to value them both. And that was almost twice as many voters. I think we know what Kansas voters think. 70% of them don't care. There you go. They don't care enough to get out of their car and go vote. You're right, Ted. But we so again, Dion, you can't say the majority of Kansasans. want to keep their judges because we don't know because the majority of Kansans didn't show up to vote. And that's, you're right, Ted, that's incumbent on us. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans have to, and we own that. Republicans own that as chair of a party. I own that. My counterpart over in the Democrats across the aisle, she owns that. We have to do a better job of getting our voters out to the polls. And I think, you know, I've actually had a conversation with the leadership in both chambers about... I don't think we should have done this on the primary. I'm not in elected office. I think they should have put it on the general election where we'd have had a better voter turnout. Typically in November, I bet you they'll get a 60% voter turnout. I hope so. So they should have done it. They didn't, you know, hindsight. Well, they didn't because they thought that if they had it on a Republican dominant primary. We don't know that. We do know that. Well, you're saying you're.

Wow, I'm amazed. They've been doing it for years. They've been doing it for years. I mean, I wasn't aware that you were Professor Xavier. Unvalue them. I mean, I watched Susan Wagle on the phone with Dan Cursion trying to force him to get the, well, Susan Wagle and Dan Cursion aren't in the legislature anymore. But this time around, I don't know why they put it on the primary. The bottom line is we have to do a better job at voter turnout. And until we know. definitively how voters say, and even if we do, we're fighting a fight. We stand on principles. Republicans believe this court is corrupt. Republicans believe this court doesn't represent Republicans. Why is this court corrupt? Because we believe that they're fundamentally making decisions that are political and that do not represent our beliefs, and we will continue to fight that. And that's our job. So you don't like some of the decisions they've made. That's not corruption. We do not believe that they represent. the fundamental beliefs that we believe. I do not believe that, for example, that the Supreme Court of Kansas has the right to tell the legislature how to spend money. The legislature has the power of the purse, to give you a good example. The legislature has the power of the purse. Actually, the Constitution gives them that power. You're right. The Constitution gives them the power of the purse. If they're not fulfilling that constitutional duty, then the court. You know, let me finish. The legislature has the power of the purse, and yet the Supreme Court is dictating how much the legislature has spent. Right now, that's unsustainable. If we continue down this path, The state of Kansas will be bankrupt. We will be fiscally insolvent. And it's because the court is requiring us to spend increasingly more money. The court doesn't have that authority. It is a constitutional crisis. And at some point, we have to stand up to them because they are usurping their authority. So we fundamentally have a disagreement and we will continue to fight. The court has the authority to say, legislature do your job and the legislature can say we did thank you very much we appreciate your opinion thank you for sharing and the uh and that's what needs to happen at which point then we can appeal to the united states supreme court for a decision and that's what i think needs to happen well that'd be interesting wouldn't it there you go ten there we go oh yeah just kick it upstairs kick it to the kick it to the superior to the higher court which is what i think never nothing's ever gone wrong with that all right uh once again If you want to catch. Oh, yeah. Folks want to read Dion's article. He didn't call me out personally, but you basically did. If folks want to read that, that's available at Kansas.com, right? Well, we can still be friends, right? Oh, God, we're always friends. Last night, I went down to the humidor and had a cigar and a martini. I wish you'd been there. We could have had a lot of fun. And that is one of the beauties of this, is that he and I can disagree on an issue and still be friends. And I hope we need more of that in politics. Absolutely. That does it for another edition of Point Counterpoint every other Friday right here on KNSS with Dionne Kelly Loeffler from the Wichita Eagle and John Whitmire of KNS. It is 746. Now we have a local business update coming up from editor Kirk Seminoff in the Wichita Business Journal. He'll tell us about a 10-year action plan for downtown Wichita. Find out what that's all about coming up next on KNSS.

Sometimes historic events suck. But what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast, chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade, from the 18th century to the 20th. Original music and immersive sound design accompany us on our storytelling journey. Listen to and follow History That Doesn't Suck. An Odyssey podcast, available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.