Kansas State Sen. Karin Brownlee charged Thursday that the Kansas BioScience Authority has become more political under Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Brownlee, an Olathe Republican, said KBA appointments often are not scrutinized by the appropriate Senate committee. She said she was considering an attempt to rewrite the law governing the appointment process when the Legislature convenes in January.

Brownlee’s comments came after Sebelius was criticized for the unexpected removal of K-State president Jon Wefald and KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway as non-voting members of the board.

The two were ousted in favor of a Board of Regents representative and a Regents lawyer. The Board of Regents administers state colleges in Kansas.

A Sept. 27 column by a former BioScience Authority board member, Dolph Simons, publisher of the Lawrence Journal World, suggested the action to replace Wefald and Hemenway was taken by the Board of Regents at the behest of Gov. Sebelius.

“The governor, urged by some powerful behind-the-scenes players, engineered the replacement of the highly effective KBA chairman,” Simons wrote. “Several original directors resigned or were not reappointed and were replaced by individuals much more aligned with the governor’s goals and plans for the authority.”

Regents Chairwoman Donna Shank has indicated the university presidents were replaced because other Regents institutions wanted broader representation on the board. But Simons said the BioSciences board "has been transformed into a highly partisan body with politics playing too great a role."

Rep. Kenny Wilk, a Lansing Republican who, along with Sen. Nick Jordan wrote the law that created the BioScience Authority, told Kansas Liberty he was  disappointed at the Board of Regents action.

“I can tell you that our specific legislative intent when we wrote the bill was that the chancellor of KU and the president of K-State were to be on the board,” Wilk said.

“That’s not to take anything away from other Regents institutions," he said, "but KU and K-State are the two designated research universities in Kansas and we thought they deserved positions on the board.”

Wilk said that while he was not aware of any specific evidence that suggested Sebelius was exerting influence to have political allies appointed to the KBA board, "it wouldn’t surprise me if she has dabbled in the appointment process."

The Governor’s office did not respond to a Kansas Liberty request for comment.

Both Brownlee and Wilk said while they believed the KBA board had become more political, they did not detect any political favoritism in the $52 million in investments the board announced it would make in FY 2009.

“But our vision was always to have a board with more of a private sector, entrepreneurial attitude,” Wilk said. “Since a year ago last summer, when the original chairman was replaced and several new board members were appointed, it’s turned into another bureaucracy. It’s like any other state agency now, and that wasn’t our vision.”

Brownlee agreed that when the BioSciences initiative was conceived, legislators wanted the board to be composed of individuals with some expertise in related fields.

“I don’t think people like John Carlin (a former Democratic Governor) or Dan Glickman (former Democratic Congressman) are really what we had in mind,” she said.

Brownlee said some members of the KBA board were “off-session nominees” who were vetted by an interim Confirmation Oversight Committee before their nominations were forwarded to the full Senate for confirmation.

She said she did not believe the interim committee necessarily had the subject matter expertise or background knowledge to consider nominees to the bioscience board.

“They should be scrutinized by the Senate committee with specific knowledge about the subject matter,” she said.

Wilk agreed, saying it made sense "that these nominees should have to go through the appropriate Senate committee, and not the interim committee."

“It’s probably an easier path to get to the full Senate going through the interim committee than it would be through the Commerce Committee," he said

The Kansas BioScience Authority is governed by an 11-member board of directors. The Governor is not solely responsible for all appointments. The Senate president and minority leader, the House speaker and minority leader, and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation all make nominations. The Kansas Board of Regents is responsible for appointing two non-voting members, who do not require Senate confirmation.

Brownlee said by and large, the KBA had done a good job.

“Kansas used to not be on the radar screen in the area of biosciences. Now we’re among the top 10 bioscience regions in the country.”

Brownlee is chairing an effort to pass a sales tax in Johnson County to finance bioscience-related initiatives and programs. 

- Phil LaCerte

Resources:

• Read the current appointments statute.
• Read Simons' Lawrence World-Journal column.
  

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