Non-paywalled archive.is link.

Some Kansas lawmakers want to use STAR bonds to finance new stadiums for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. After Jackson County voters rejected a county sales tax for the teams in April, a Kansas proposal would authorize STAR bonds with 30-year terms to pay up to 100% of the cost of building a new stadium across the state line.

Fully financing a Chiefs stadium could mean issuing $2-3 billion in STAR bonds, and potentially $1.5 billion to $2 billion for the Royals. Never before have STAR bonds of that size been issued. As of 2020, $1.1 billion total in STAR bonds had been issued in total, according to a state audit. The Chiefs-Royals proposal could triple that.

It is far from certain whether such a massive project could pay for itself solely with sales tax revenue.

Non-payalled link here.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed the results of a 2022 vote in which Missourians overwhelmingly approved a measure forcing Kansas City to pay more for its police. The extraordinary decision found that Missouri voters were misled by statewide officials when they approved the measure, called Amendment 4. It calls for a new election to be held in November. Judge Paul C. Wilson wrote in the opinion that the financial estimates on the ballot question that voters saw in 2022 failed to “concisely and accurately advise voters” of its impact on Kansas City.

Some softball questions aimed at outgoing House members. Still kinda interesting. Especially when it comes to the Congressional salary question.

Should be an NYT Gift link, with no paywall.

Basic article from Reuters on polling and what things in results mean or don't mean. Not at all in-depth but it is interactive. Always fun to play with sliders and buttons.

Archive.ph link if paywalled.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is threatening legal action against Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas after the mayor made comments suggesting the city would benefit from immigrants seeking asylum in cities such as New York coming to work in Kansas City.

Ohio officials rejected a plan from Democrats to get President Joe Biden on the November ballot after the party scheduled its convention past a state election deadline.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned Ohio Democrats earlier this month that Biden is at risk of not making the Nov. 5 ballot. State law requires officials to certify the ballot 90 days before an election − which is Aug. 7 this year − but the president won't officially be nominated until the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19.

Lawmakers could pass an exemption to the 90-day deadline by May 9, as they did in 2020 when both parties scheduled their conventions too late. But the chances of that are slim: Top Democrats said they're deferring to the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee, and Republican leaders are unlikely to lend a helping hand.

Jackson County voters handed the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs a major setback on Tuesday, rejecting a stadium sales tax extension that would fund a new downtown baseball stadium and renovations at Arrowhead Stadium.

Question 1 would have repealed Jackson County’s existing 3/8th-cent sales tax and replaced it with a tax at the same level that extends until 2064. The results mean that sales tax will end in 2031, when the Royals and Chiefs’ leases expire, and can only be used on the existing Truman Sports Complex properties.

“No” prevailed with 58% of the vote, compared to 42% “yes” votes.

Should be noted that the split was the same in both Kansas City (within Jackson County) and Jackson County (outside of Kansas City). KCEB administers elections in Kansas City (within Jackson Co), while the Jackson County Election Board handles the rest of the county. Turnout was exceptionally high in both jurisdictions; 24% by KCEB [PDF], and 34% for JCEB.

Gifted link should be non-paywalled (Archive.is link if desired).

The United States House of Representatives voted narrowly on Tuesday to impeach Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, in a precedent-shattering vote that charged him with willfully refusing to enforce border laws and breaching the public trust.

In a 214-to-213 vote, Republicans barreled past the solid opposition of Democrats and reservations in their own ranks to make Mr. Mayorkas the first sitting cabinet secretary in U.S. history to be impeached.

Gifted link should be non-paywalled (Archive.is link if desired).

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) preemptively rejected the Senate’s $95 billion national security package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other U.S. allies, saying in a statement that the package’s failure to address U.S. border security makes it a nonstarter in the House.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/11011730

[Submitted link is an NYT gifted link,](In a Setback for Beijing, Taiwan Elects Lai Ching-te as President) so should be a free to all to read.

Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, who has faced sustained hostility from China, won the island democracy’s presidential election on Saturday, a result that could prompt Beijing to step up pressure on Taiwan, deepening tensions with Washington.

For many of the millions of Taiwanese citizens who lined up at ballot booths on Saturday, the vote centered on the question of who should lead Taiwan in an increasingly tense standoff with its much larger, autocratic and heavily armed neighbor, China.

[Submitted link is an NYT gifted link,](In a Setback for Beijing, Taiwan Elects Lai Ching-te as President) so should be a free to all to read.

Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, who has faced sustained hostility from China, won the island democracy’s presidential election on Saturday, a result that could prompt Beijing to step up pressure on Taiwan, deepening tensions with Washington.

For many of the millions of Taiwanese citizens who lined up at ballot booths on Saturday, the vote centered on the question of who should lead Taiwan in an increasingly tense standoff with its much larger, autocratic and heavily armed neighbor, China.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/10682799

Corcoran had been sinking, steadily, for years because of persistent overpumping of groundwater by major landowners in the Tulare Lake Basin that has sent the valley floor into a slow-motion collapse. And the levee raises made in 2017 — a multimillion-dollar effort funded by local property tax hikes and the prison system — were no longer up to the job. Ultimately, the state agreed to pour $17 million into another round of levee engineering in an effort to save the town.

Farmers, meanwhile, were frantic as the basin’s phantom lake reemerged for the first time in 25 years and floodwaters surged onto croplands that had not flooded in modern times. The same overpumping that was sinking Corcoran had caused geologic transformations across the basin. What was once high ground suddenly wasn’t; infrastructure critical to drainage had in some cases shifted; water flowed in unexpected ways.