TOPEKA | Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal will be asked to testify next week before a legislative panel investigating a conflict of interest complaint filed against him.

The lawmaker who filed the complaint, House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat, is set to testify before the panel Thursday.

The panel is looking into O’Neal’s work as an attorney representing a coalition of business groups in a lawsuit challenging a legislative budgeting decision. Democratic lawmakers filed the complaint, saying O’Neal’s legal work is at odds with his role as the top House lawmaker.

O’Neal argues he did nothing wrong and that no rules bar lawmakers who are lawyers from taking cases against the state.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. David Paterson’s press secretary on Wednesday became the fourth top staffer to quit amid dual scandals, resigning just hours after her boss publicly proclaimed for the first time that he did nothing wrong when he talked to a woman who had accused one of his top aides of abuse.

 Paterson also said Wednesday on a radio show that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, whom he appointed to the seat, threw him “under the bus” by suggesting he might have to resign over his role in the abuse allegations.

 In a separate scandal that threatens his administration, Paterson’s lawyer on Wednesday released a harsh critique of an ethics violation against him for accepting World Series tickets, and the state’s former lobbying chief called the ticket investigation “an ethical lynching” of the state’s first black governor.

    Here's Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri on the House floor this week urging a vote against the health care bill. 

CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge refused Wednesday to postpone the June start of ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption trial, brushing aside defense attorneys' claims that they won't have enough time to prepare.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel also dismissed defense attorneys' concerns that U.S. Supreme Court decisions expected by the end of June could unfairly complicate the trial.

Zagel said he saw no reason not to start the case June 3 as scheduled.Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and other charges. Prosecutors say the former governor schemed to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat and used his power to illegally pressure potential campaign donors.

Defense attorneys had urged Zagel to postpone the start of the trial to Nov. 3 to give them time to wade through the sea of paperwork in the case and because the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the so-called honest-services fraud law, which is among the laws Blagojevich is accused of breaking.Blagojevich and his businessman brother Robert are charged, among other things, with illegally denying the taxpayers their honest services. The Supreme Court is considering three cases that challenge the law, which critics say is too vague.

Defense attorneys argued that their opening statements would be ruined if they used them to explain the honest-services law only to have the Supreme Court wipe it off the books.

But Zagel said attorneys should not be talking about the law in their opening statements, and instead should outline for the jury what the evidence would show."The issue in this case is simply who did what, when and what was in their state of mind when they did it," Zagel said.He said he would tell the jury about the law at the end of the trial.

After the hearing, Blagojevich attorney Sheldon Sorosky told reporters that the defense would do the "absolute best" they can, even though they didn't get the extension they had hoped for.

"Judge Zagel is right that the facts are the facts," Sorosky said. "That's certainly a fact of life."

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s two U.S. senators have split over attempts to rein in congressional spending earmarks.

 Republican Sen. Kit Bond was in the majority Tuesday when senators rejected a proposed two-year moratorium on earmarks for particular projects. Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill voted for the temporary earmark halt.

 McCaskill also supported an amendment that would cancel funding for transportation earmarks that are at least 10 years old but have spent less than 10 percent of their money.

from Cong. Cleaver press release 

Senior House Financial Services Committee members Reps. Michael Capuano (D-MA) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) made the following statements after Moody’s Investor Service yesterday changed the way municipal bonds are rated.

Previously, Moody’s and others rated municipal securities, which historically have had extremely low default rates, on a different scale. As a result, this had the effect of driving up the costs to cities and states.  Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Reps. Capuano and Cleaver pushed for legislation to end this unfair treatment and to ensure that municipal government bonds are rated based on their ability to repay the debt and their historical default.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Companies that hire unemployed workers will get a temporary payroll tax holiday under a bill that easily won final congressional approval Wednesday.

 The bipartisan 68-29 vote in the Senate sends the legislation to the White House, where President Barack Obama has promised to sign it into law.

 It will be the first of several election-year jobs bills promised by Democrats to be enacted into law, though there’s plenty of skepticism that the measure will do much to actually create jobs.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Lenexa businessman is defending a newspaper ad he says he took out to notify the public about Kansas Supreme Court justice Carol Beier’s trip to California.

 Doug Johnson has been seeking to unseat Beier, but said he didn’t place the ad Monday in the Topeka Capital-Journal in order to arouse questions about her recent trip to a law school conference.

 Beier judged a moot court proceeding over the medical rights of transgender patients at the conference.

 Two lawmakers say the ad’s goal was to criticize Beier for what is a common public appearance by justices.

Guh nih-heh on cot hoo iss guh nih-heh on jowel on cot. Enjoy...

Missouri needs to fix public defender system

Photos: Cleaver's mobile office 

Kansas should consider selling state assets

The Show-Me Institute -- a think-tank funded by anti E-tax activist Rex Sinquefield -- moves to St. Louis where it will now be subject to the city's earnings tax, a bill to eliminate several sales tax exemptions was tabled in the Kansas House and even if it comes back, it would only apply to coin-operated laundries, and state Sen. Jolie Justus Tweets about the Missouri Senate's vote on a K2 ban. 

   It’s a week of high political drama, and high anxiety in Washington.

   From the White House to Capitol Hill, Democrats are scrambling to find 216 votes in the House to pass an historic health care reform bill.

   But if they do, will the Senate follow through and adopt the legislation without any tinkering?

   A lot of House Democrats don’t trust their Senate colleagues. They worry that Senate Democrats will further massage a bill that the many in the House, if it passes, will have already swallowed hard to accept.

     A group involved in the effort to dissuade Missourians from signing an earnings-tax-related petition may be violating state campaign law by failing to file a required disclosure with the Ethics Commission.

   The group is called Missouri Jobs With Justice.

   Here's the problem.

   Workers for another group -- Let Voters Decide --  are now gathering signatures that could lead to a statewide vote that could, in turn, lead to a local vote on repealing the E-tax in Kansas City and St. Louis.

   Opponents of the petition drive are handing out fliers urging voters not to sign.  At the bottom, the fliers say they're "Paid for by Missouri Jobs with Justice."  The flier also refers to a website which urges people not to sign the petition.

from the nyobserver 

To the list of transgressions that may have led to the unceremonious departure of former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers--wearing expensive things; talking about the president's brand; not screening reality television stars--add that she apparently didn't send out Christmas cards.

Or, at least, she didn't send them to the right wealthy donors, who proceeded to rise up and ousted Ms. Rogers, a source told Politico.

"While such a slight may seem insignificant, it can carry major repercussions," writes Jeanne Cummings, who uses the Christmas card issue in the lead of a piece about dissatisfaction among President Obama's wealthy donors.

from msnbc

There have been lots of stories today on the latest legislative tactic Democratic leaders are considering using to try and pass the Senate health-care bill through the House.

This has a variety of names, including its technical one -- the "Self-Executing Rule," the more colloquial "Deem and Pass," or by what Republicans are calling "The Slaughter Rule." (This is named after New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.)

Some stories have implied that there would not be a vote. For example, the Washington Post had this headline today: "House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it."

BOSTON (AP) — Edmund Dinis, the former prosecutor whose political career sputtered after he oversaw the grand jury investigation into the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s involvement in the Chappaquiddick case, has died. He was 85.

 Dinis, who championed causes important to Portuguese-Americans throughout his life, died of natural causes Sunday at an assisted living center in Dartmouth, Mass., said Henry Arruda, general manager of WJFD-FM, the Portuguese language radio station Dinis owned since 1975.

 Dinis had already served on the New Bedford City Council, in the state House of Representatives and the state Senate by the time he was elected prosecutor in 1959 for a jurisdiction that at the time covered Cape Cod and the Islands.