On Saturday in Topeka treasurer Steve Fitzgerald explained a number of reporting problems facing the Kansas Republican Party: A number of governmental agencies have had problems with us because of inaccurate and untimely reports.  This stems from poor — or non-existent — record keeping, ignorance of and disregard for regulations, lack of attention and oversight, and [...]Read More>>

Audits released Wednesday show Gov. Mark Parkinson and state Senate leaders are missing millions of wasted tax dollars when they claim they must raise taxes to balance the budget because spending cuts are exhausted. Auditors presented two reports to the Legislative Post Audit (LPA) Committe. One found potential savings of $537,200 per year in the $4 [...]Read More>>

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that businesses and  unions may spend freely on political campaigns, but this ruling only affects federal races in Kansas. “It won’t affect us at all” was the response from Carol Williams, the executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission.  Williams said that 24 states had corporate and union contribution bans but [...]Read More>>

[Updated 1/25] Topeka.  State Rep Don Hineman (R, Dighton) will face an ethics civil fine hearing at the Feb. 17 meeting of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission.  After a 10-minute, closed executive session on Wednesday the commission announced the hearing would be about a violation of KSA 25-4153a.  This law deals with accepting contributions from lobbyists or PACs after [...]Read More>>

Ron Keefover, Kansas Supreme Court spokesman, today announced a formal 2-count complaint against former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.  Read More>>

In the most recent reporting period, Kansas candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate raised $8.7 million, spent $3.3 million and have $8.4 million in the bank. The FEC Candidate Summary finally has nearly all the data for the reporting period ending Dec. 31, 2009.   Kansas data were extracted from this national file and are [...]Read More>>

KansasWatchdog caught up with Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher while he was in Kansas last week. Joe was catapulted from playing with his son in the front yard of his Ohio home to national symbol after an impromptu exchange with presidential candidate Barak Obama. His questions about the American dream and Obama’s answer about income redistribution were [...]Read More>>

A fresh report from the Kansas Legislative Research Department (KLRD) shows that school district employment across Kansas is down, but nowhere near the 3,704 positions claimed in a survey delivered to the 2010 Commission in June. According to KLRD’s accounting total school district employment is down 875 from the 2008-09 school year. School districts are facing additional [...]Read More>>

President Barak Obama’s first State of the Union speech has generated some heat overnight. Three  particularly telling observations are generating some buzz. Supreme Court Rebuke From David A. Patten on Newsmax: Obama objected to the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that the First Amendment does not allow Congress to restrict the rights of corporations and unions to run [...]Read More>>

C-SPAN posted this Wordle tag cloud of President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address: Read More>>