NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson Chamber and NAACP held their candidate forum on Tuesday, but without any Republican primary winner participation. As part of his opening statement at Tuesday's forum, Democratic Rep. Jason Probst talked about working together with his Republican colleagues when he is in Topeka.
"We have some really good conversations about different philosophies and different ideas and about how we can blend those together to create the best policy possible," Probst said. "I think a lot of times, there's kind of an idea that everyone is fighting all the time in Topeka. While that is certainly true some of the time, there's a lot of time that we actually have very good conversations where we can agree and where we can talk to each other and share ideas and come out of it with really good policy ideas and a deeper understanding of each other. Which I think, at the core, is what we need to get back to in government and politics. If we do a better job of understanding one another, then I think we can make better policy all around."
Probst also said that the food sales tax reduction that was passed by the Legislature was done through a conference committee and not through an amendable bill.
"We never actually voted on this sales tax bill in the House," Probst said. "There was never an opportunity for us as rank and file legislators to take a vote on this sales tax issue. The reason is that leadership was terrified of what would happen if we had a chance to start meddling with this bill. This is one area where Republicans and Democrats agreed. We thought that the food sales tax should happen now and it should happen in full. We had the money. We've never had this kind of money in the state and despite the fact there are people, so called conservatives who run all the time on wanting to give money back to the taxpayers, when they had an opportunity to do it, they did not."
Probst actually doesn't have a problem with allowing legislative oversight of administrative rules, as is on the ballot as a constitutional amendment in November. His argument is, they can do that already.
"There's a little concern about how it might be implemented and used in the legislature," Probst said. "Right now, if the legislature wanted to invalidate an administrative rule, they could create statute and pass it with a majority vote and they would be able to overturn that administrative rule. The difference is, they'd have to be smart, not lazy, and they'd have to take a little time with it. Underneath all of this is that the legislature does not take enough time with legislation. We do sloppy work. We do that because we're in a hurry and because frankly, we're not always electing the best people."
District 104 Democratic candidate Garth Strand also was at the forum and answered the same questions.