JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Today we come to the “Roll Call of Fools” — this particular roll call having taken place in the Kansas Legislature.

Area residents are achingly familiar with the tragic death last August of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab, who was decapitated while riding on “the world’s tallest water slide,” Verruckt, at Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, KS.

In the aftermath, newspaper stories revealed that Wyandotte County had virtually no regulations pertaining to amusement park rides and state regulations were shockingly weak.

Caleb, of course, was the son of a state legislator, Rep. Scott Schwab, an Olathe Republican.

As you would expect of elected officials spurred on not only by public safety in general but by a tragedy involving one of their own, the Kansas Legislature came forward with proposed legislation to significantly tighten and improve state regulation of amusement park rides.

Among other things, the legislation required that experienced inspectors examine rides annually and that ride operators inspect them daily. It also raised insurance requirements and established registration and permit fees.

All those things make perfect sense, right? Legislators realized state law left a gaping hole in the regulation of amusement park rides, and they set out to fill the void. Who could be against this new legislation?

Who could possibly be against it?

Well, as the law of averages dictates, I suppose, there almost always will be some people who can look common sense and logic squarely in the eye and avert their gaze.

Thimesch

When the bill that had been settled on came before the 125-member House of Representatives recently, one representative voted “no.” Sitting in the same room with Scott Schwab, Jack Thimesch, a Republican from Spivey, a little town an hour west of Wichita, cast the only dissenting vote.

I don’t know what he said on the House floor that day, if anything, but The Star reported today that he opposed the bill because his constituents asked him to.

Sure. I guess we’re supposed to believe voice messages from constituents angry about stricter amusement ride regulations piled up on his cell and office phones.

The Star quoted Thimesch as saying:

The inspection deal, you don’t want to put anybody on a ride that’s unsafe. But to that same point, you know, when it has an age limit and a height limit and a weight limit, that has nothing to do with inspection of how the piece of equipment runs. It has to do with being responsible for your grandkids or your kids to put them on that ride if you know they’re not old enough, tall enough or heavy enough.

Holy shit! I cannot believe he — or anyone — would say something like that. Basically, he was wagging a blaming finger at Scott Schwab for not monitoring Caleb at Schlitterbahn that horrible day.

The Star’s story doesn’t say when Thimesch made that statement — whether it was on the House floor, which I doubt, or later. However, on the floor that day, Scott Schwab made a touching speech, saying: “I love every one of you and thank you for everything you’ve done for our family. But this bill is really not about Caleb. It’s for the next kid who goes someplace in Kansas for a fun weekend.”

He was also unbelievably gracious as the vote approached, saying lawmakers should vote however they saw fit. “If you feel like this (legislation) is too much growth, I will not count it against you,” he said.

**

Thimesch, then, is Fool No. 1…But we’ve got two — no, make it three — more.

When the vote came up in the Senate, two out of 40 senators voted no. They were Sen. Rick Billinger of Goodland and Sen. John Doll of Garden City.

Billinger

Perhaps Billinger and Doll were emboldened to vote no because Scott Schwab wasn’t sitting among them at the time of the vote. Or maybe it’s because they live w-a-a-a-y out there in western Kansas, where about the only amusement ride is hopping on a pig in a pen.

In an April 9 newsletter to constituents, Billinger said:

“I had several concerns with this legislation because it took away the small home-owned carnival exemptions, which is in the current law. Another concern of mine was over the regulations concerning whether the ride operators need to have training. The new legislation will also require higher insurance limits.”

What I take from that is Billinger was concerned the new law might require saddles on the pigs.

**

Doll

I couldn’t find anything regarding why Doll voted no, but I left him a voice message and sent an email, and this afternoon he returned my call to explain his vote. He said he represents 10 western Kansas counties and that several have county fairs that include amusement rides. Some people connected with those fairs lobbied him to vote against the measure, he said, saying that they had run their rides without any problems for decades and were concerned, among other things, about liability insurance rates rising and having to hire outside inspectors.

Doll said he is a friend of Scott Schwab and added, “It was a very hard vote.”

I told him I thought his view reflected the inherent friction that often exists between urban and rural interests and concerns. He agreed. I also said I thought he should have taken a broader view and considered the welfare of all Kansans and not just how the new regulations might affect several counties in western Kansas. Obviously, he didn’t agree with that.

When I told him he wasn’t going to like my post, he said criticism didn’t bother him and added, “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I understand.”

Before signing off, I told him I respected him for calling me, even though he had to know I was going to be critical in what I wrote.

**

That leaves only one more senator to be called out. And she’s local.

When the Senate voted, Mary Pilcher-Cook of Shawnee took the truly cowardly way out: She voted “present.”

Pilcher-Cook

I’ve covered politics a long time, and, to me, an abstention has always been the most maddening vote. Usually, the abstainer has sat through debate and discussion of the issue at hand and simply refuses to take a stand, often fearful of alienating someone or some people on one side or the other. In other words, no guts.

After reading up on Pilcher-Cook, however, the vote didn’t surprise me too much.

Barbara Shelly, a former reporter and editorial-page writer for The Star wrote an interesting story about Pilcher-Cook in The Pitch last October. It started out like this:

“Mary Pilcher-Cook has served 14 of the past 16 years in the Kansas Legislature, and she has been uniquely consistent: In all that time, her fascination with the sex lives and reproductive choices of Kansans has never waned.”

Sounds like One-Issue-Mary.

Shelly went on to say, “She has done more than her part to keep the Sunflower State filed under K-for-Krazy in the American imagination.”

Enough said, huh?

…The fools notwithstanding, Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill yesterday, and it will take effect soon.