Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, recently elected from the Kansas 2nd, took a strong stance against granting retroactive immunity for telecoms that broke the law by letting the government listen to your phone calls without a warrant.
"I am adamant about protecting the Constitution," she explained. "They're giving nothing in return for it. We're not getting any more security and they're shredding the Constitution."
It's worth pointing out that the telecom trade association isn't even interested in this immunity.
But that isn't the only sanity growing in the Sunflower State these days. A grand jury empanelled by disgraced former Attorney General Phill Kline (the extra "l" is for "lame-duck") to paw through medical records from family planning clinics determined that no wrongdoing had taken place. Kline and his anti-abortion allies have been pursuing this Planned Parenthood clinic for years, desperately seeking a peek at the details of what's going on in the uteri of Johnson County's women. He lost his re-election bid over that effort, and then continued it after his party installed him as a county District Attorney.
Turns out, he still couldn't make the charges stick. It's said that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. I guess Kline isn't that good a prosecutor, or Kansans are just smarter than Kline gave them credit for being. In any event, Kansans showed good judgment by firing Kline, and the grand jury did the right thing by stopping yet another of his panty-raids.
Stephen has some good background on the underlying dynamics in Johnson County. And Blue Tide Rising reports on the huge turnout at the annual gathering of Kansas Democrats.
More evidence that the Kansans are alright . . .
The House did pass that bill seeking to grant permission to Sunflower Energy to build those coal-fired plants in Holcomb, but not by the 2/3 majority needed to override Gov. Sebelius' not-if-but-when veto.