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"This is an immense victory for the health, safety, and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access," said one advocate.
Reproductive rights defenders on Friday cheered a pair of Kansas Supreme Court decisions reaffirming the right to abortion and striking down various restrictions—rulings expected to impact people beyond the Midwestern state, given how many patients must now travel for care.
"The state devoted much of its brief to inviting us to reverse our earlier ruling in this case that the Kansas Constitution protects a right to abortion. We decline the invitation," Justice Eric Rosen wrote in the decision against Senate Bill 95, which outlawed a common abortion procedure for second-trimester pregnancies called dilation and evacuation (D&E).
Rosen was referring to the court's 2019 ruling that "Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights affords protection of the right of personal autonomy," which "allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life—decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy."
The justice wrote Friday that "S.B. 95 does not further patient safety, it compromises patient safety," noting that "as the district court found and the state did not contest, S.B. 95 eliminates a safe and common medical procedure and leaves patients subject to procedures that are rarely used, are untested, and are sometimes more dangerous or impossible."
The court's other new ruling was about what critics call targeted restrictions on abortion providers (TRAP) policies. Both decisions were 5-1—with Justice Stegall Caleb dissenting and Justice K.J. Wall not participating—and followed Kansas voters rejecting a proposed anti-choice amendment to the state constitution in August 2022.
"Now the Kansas Supreme Court has decisively reaffirmed that the state constitution protects abortion as a fundamental right."
"Kansas voters made it loud and clear in 2022: The right to abortion must be protected. Now the Kansas Supreme Court has decisively reaffirmed that the state constitution protects abortion as a fundamental right," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which was involved with both cases.
"This is an immense victory for the health, safety, and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access," Northup added. "We will continue our fight to ensure Kansans can access the essential healthcare they need in their home state."
The anti-choice ballot measure's failure two years ago came shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversedRoe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—which bolstered GOP efforts to further restrict reproductive rights at the state level, forcing patients to more frequently travel for abortion care.
Kansas allows abortion care up until 22 weeks of pregnancy and has seen an influx of healthcare refugees from states that have imposed bans. The Guttmacher Institute said last month that "in Kansas, clinic numbers increased by 50% (from four to six) between 2020 and 2023, and the number of abortions rose by 152% (an increase of 12,440)."
Despite the fresh wins in court, the broader battle for reproductive freedom continues in Kansas. As KMUWreported Friday:
Several new abortion laws took effect in Kansas earlier this week, but one of them—a law requiring doctors to ask patients getting abortions their reason for doing so—is being challenged in court. A Johnson County judge said Monday that doctors could add the law to a larger lawsuit they brought against a handful of older state abortion restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period. The judge agreed to temporarily block the older laws while the case proceeds.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment told providers it will "not, for now" enforce the abortion reasons law, providers said Monday. The health department has not responded to requests seeking to confirm that.
The Center for Reproductive Rights noted Friday that it "is currently representing abortion providers in another ongoing challenge to several onerous restrictions including a law forcing providers to falsely tell their patients that a medication abortion can be 'reversed,' an unproven claim not based on medicine or science."
As context, the median household income in Kansas is just shy of $70,000, meaning that Mr. Koch’s windfall would be the equivalent of more than 12 years’ worth of income for the typical Kansas household.
Last week, both houses of the Kansas legislature approved a significant tax cut centered around replacing the state’s graduated rate income tax structure with a flat tax instead. The bulk of this would flow to upper-income families, mostly through lowering the state’s top income tax rate from 5.7 to 5.25 percent. This tax cut would be especially lucrative for the state’s wealthiest individual, billionaire Charles Koch. We estimate that Mr. Koch could expect to receive a tax cut in the neighborhood of $875,000 per year. As context, the median household income in Kansas is just shy of $70,000, meaning that Mr. Koch’s windfall would be the equivalent of more than 12 years’ worth of income for the typical Kansas household.
It bears noting that an $875,000 annual tax cut is more than 7,500 times larger than the $116 average tax cut that the middle 20 percent of earners could expect to receive under this legislation.
The figure below combines data from the ITEP Tax Microsimulation Model with an off-model analysis performed using data on Mr. Koch’s finances that were reported by Pro Publica and Forbes. According to the ITEP Model, the top 1 percent of earners in Kansas would see far larger tax cuts under this legislation than anyone among the bottom 99 percent of families. The $6,608 average tax cut going to top earners is 57 times larger than the average cut for middle-income earners and 114 times larger than the average cut for the state’s lowest-income residents. But some members of the top 1 percent, almost certainly including Mr. Koch, would receive tax cuts far larger than $6,608.
The ITEP Model analyzes tax impacts across the income scale for all state and local tax types. But the model’s ability to estimate effects at the extreme reaches of the economic scale, particularly at the state level, is limited by IRS restrictions on reporting of top earners’ incomes and deductions. Typically, the highest income group for which we report tax data is the top 1 percent of earners. Supplementing our model data with additional data on the nation’s wealthiest families allows us to offer a fuller picture of tax impacts than the model alone can provide.
Without access to Mr. Koch’s Kansas tax filings, it is not possible to compute his precise tax cut with certainty. But a reasonable estimate can be arrived at using federal tax return data reported by ProPublica.
That reporting indicated that Mr. Koch enjoyed an average federal adjusted gross income of $213 million dollars per year across the six-year period spanning 2013 to 2018, and average federal taxable income of approximately $141 million per year. Adjusting those figures to account for differences in state and federal definitions of taxable income, and growing them in line with recent increases in Mr. Koch’s wealth as reported by Forbes, leads us to conclude that his state taxable income is likely in the vicinity of $194 million today. For somebody with an income at that level, the tax bracket and exemption changes contained in the legislation that recently passed the Kansas legislature would provide a tax cut of roughly $875,000 per year.
Choosing to cut taxes for high-income families in Kansas will inevitably require the state to do less of something else instead, be it fewer teacher pay raises, less frequent infrastructure maintenance, or any number of other reductions in public services.
Mr. Koch could also expect to receive additional sales and property tax cuts under the bill, but those would amount to little more than a rounding error relative to the far larger windfall he would receive from the top income tax rate reduction.
It bears noting that an $875,000 annual tax cut is more than 7,500 times larger than the $116 average tax cut that the middle 20 percent of earners could expect to receive under this legislation. Similar, it is more than 15,000 times larger than the $58 average tax cut that the state’s lowest earners could expect to receive.
Across the country, state revenue and budget outlooks are rapidly becoming less rosy than they have been during the last few years. As surpluses dwindle and some states begin to face shortfalls, the tradeoffs associated with deep tax cutting will become harder to ignore. Choosing to cut taxes for high-income families in Kansas will inevitably require the state to do less of something else instead, be it fewer teacher pay raises, less frequent infrastructure maintenance, or any number of other reductions in public services. Lawmakers should imagine what Kansas could do for its residents with $875,000 a year, and then ask a simple question: is that money better spent on helping our communities thrive, or lining the pockets of a single billionaire?
"The Record should sue not only to deter future searches of its newsroom, but to protect journalists and news outlets around the country from future illegal raids," said one press freedom advocate.
The local prosecutor behind last week's police raid on a Kansas newspaper and its co-owners' home—which has been widely decried by media outlets and press freedom advocates—agreed on Wednesday to withdraw the related search warrant and return seized items including computers and cellphones to the Marion County Record.
"On Monday, August 14, 2023, I reviewed in detail the warrant applications made Friday, August 11, 2023 to search various locations in Marion County including the office of the Marion County Record," said Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey in a statement. "The affidavits, which I am asking the court to release, established probable cause to believe that an employee of the newspaper may have committed the crime of K.S.A. 21-5839, Unlawful Acts Concerning Computers."
"Upon further review however, I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized," he continued. "As a result, I have submitted a proposed order asking the court to release the evidence seized. I have asked local law enforcement to return the material seized to the owners of the property."
Ensey noted that "this matter will remain under review" until the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which is now responsible for the probe, may submit findings to his office for a charging decision. The KBI Wednesday said that "this investigation remains open" and "will proceed independently, and without review or examination of any of the evidence seized on Friday."
KSHB 41 reported that the Record's lawyer, Bernie Rhodes, "says all items that were seized as part of the raid have been released back to the attorney representing the newspaper," and "a forensics expert is on standby to examine the items that were seized."
Rhodes toldThe Washington Post that the withdrawal of the warrant was "a promising first step" but "it doesn't do anything to undo the past and regrettably, it doesn't bring back Joan Meyer," who lived with her son, Eric Meyer, the Record's co-owner and publisher.
According to the targeted newspaper, "Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal police raids on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office Friday, 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home."
Echoing Rhodes, PEN America's Shannon Jankowski said in a statement Wednesday that "the withdrawal of a search warrant against the Marion County Record and the return of seized devices after a raid by law enforcement is a first step toward accountability in this unconscionable breach of press freedom."
"While withdrawing the search warrant is the correct step, Marion County tragically cannot undo the death of the newspaper's 98-year-old co-owner Joan Meyer, who collapsed and died after police rifled through papers and seized materials from her home," she stressed. "Nor can law enforcement reverse the damage that has resulted to the newspaper staff, its confidential sources, and the chill on press freedom writ large from the raid. PEN America continues to stand in solidarity with the Record and urges that those responsible for the raid be held to account for violating the newspaper's rights."
Leaders at the Freedom of the Press Foundation similarly called for accountability on Wednesday, with deputy director of advocacy Caitlin Vogus saying that "the Record and the public deserve to know why the Marion police decided to conduct this raid and whether they gave even a moment's thought to the First Amendment or other legal restrictions before they decided to search a newsroom."
"Government officials who think they can raid a newsroom should be on notice that there are consequences for searches that violate the law," Vogus continued, noting that the newspaper has threatened a lawsuit. "The Record should sue not only to deter future searches of its newsroom, but to protect journalists and news outlets around the country from future illegal raids."
In this case, Freedom of the Press Foundation director of advocacy Seth Stern argued, "authorities deserve zero credit for coming to their senses only after an intense backlash from the local and national media and an aggressive letter from the Record's lawyer."
"These kinds of frivolous abuses of the legal system to attack the press are intended not to win but to intimidate journalists," he said. "Usually, after accomplishing that goal, authorities are able to drop charges quietly to avoid embarrassing themselves in court. It's good that this time the process is playing out publicly, thanks to the media attention this case rightfully received."
Despite several obstacles created by local law enforcement seizing electronics and reporting materials, the Record published on Wednesday—with a front-page headline that declared, "SEIZED... but not silenced."
"Phyllis Zorn, a staff reporter, said she had heard of the term 'all-nighter,' but she didn't know it to be real before," the Kansas Reflectorreported, noting that newspaper staff finished the pages of Wednesday's edition just after 5:00 am and Eric Meyer made it home at 7:30 am.
The publisher told the Reflector that "if we hadn't been able to figure out how to get computers together, Phyllis and I and everybody else would be handwriting notes out on Post-It notes and putting them on doors around the town, because we were going to publish one way or another."