Tag Archives: Kansas

Exclusive: More than 1 million acres of U.S. cropland ravaged by floods

Justin Mensik, corn and soybean farmer, attends to his cattle at his farm in Morse Bluff, Nebraska, U.S. March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Humeyra Pamuk

By P.J. Huffstutter and Humeyra Pamuk

CHICAGO/COLUMBUS, Neb. (Reuters) – At least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of U.S. farmland were flooded after the “bomb cyclone” storm left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water this month, satellite data analyzed by Gro Intelligence for Reuters showed.

Farms from the Dakotas to Missouri and beyond have been under water for a week or more, possibly impeding planting and damaging soil. The floods, which came just weeks before planting season starts in the Midwest, will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year.

“There’s thousands of acres that won’t be able to be planted,” Ryan Sonderup, 36, of Fullerton, Nebraska, who has been farming for 18 years, said in a recent interview.

“If we had straight sunshine now until May and June, maybe it can be done, but I don’t see how that soil gets back with expected rainfall.”

FILE PHOTO: Paddocks at Washington County Fairgrounds are shown underwater due to flooding in Arlington, Nebraska, U.S., March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Humeyra Pamuk -File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Paddocks at Washington County Fairgrounds are shown underwater due to flooding in Arlington, Nebraska, U.S., March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Humeyra Pamuk -File Photo

Spring floods could yet impact an even bigger area of cropland. The U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned of what could be an “unprecedented flood season” as it forecasts heavy spring rains. Rivers may swell further as a deep snowpack in northern growing areas melts.

The bomb cyclone of mid-March was the latest blow to farmers suffering from years of falling income and lower exports because of the U.S.-China trade war.

Fields are strewn with everything from silt and sand to tires and some may not even be farmed this year. The water has also destroyed billions of dollars of old crops that were in storage, as well as damaging roads and railways.

Justin Mensik, a fifth-generation farmer of corn and soybeans in Morse Bluff, Nebraska, said rebuilding roads was the first priority. Then farmers would need to bring in fertilizer trucks and then test soil before seeding, Mensik said.

The flood “left a lot of silt and sand and mud in our fields, now we’re not too sure if we’re going to be able to get a good crop this year with all the new mud and junk that’s just laying here,” Mensik told Reuters.

CORN CONCERN

For farmers, “the biggest concern right now is corn planting,” said Aaron Saeugling, an agriculture expert at Iowa State University who does outreach with farmers. “There is just not going to be enough time to move a lot of that debris.”

To be fully covered by crop insurance, Iowa farmers must plant corn by May 31 and soybeans by June 15, as yields decline dramatically when planted any later. Deadlines vary state by state. The insurance helps ensure a minimum price farmers will receive when they book sales for their crops.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecast on Friday farmers would increase corn plantings by 4.1 percent from last year, but the estimate did not account for the flooding.

Nearly 1.1 million acres of cropland and more than 84,000 acres of pastureland in the U.S. Midwest had flood water on it for at least seven days between March 8 and March 21, according to a preliminary analysis of government and satellite data by New-York based Gro Intelligence at the request of Reuters. The extent of the flooding had previously not been made public.

The flooded acreage represents less than 1 percent of U.S. land used to grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton, sorghum and barley. In 2018, some 240 million total acres of these crops were planted in the United States, USDA data shows.

Iowa, the top U.S. corn and No. 2 soy producing state, had the most water, covering 474,271 acres, followed by Missouri with 203,188 acres, according to Gro Intelligence. That was in line with estimates given to Reuters this week by government officials in Iowa and Missouri.

Gro Intelligence used satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Near Real-Time Global Flood Mapping product, to calculate the approximate extent and intensity of flooding.

Gro Intelligence then identified how much of this area was either cropland or pastureland, according to data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Gro Intelligence analysts cautioned the satellite imagery did not show the full extent of flooding in Nebraska, where officials declined to provide acreage estimates to Reuters, or in North Dakota. Nebraska’s governor has said the floods caused agricultural damage of $1 billion in his state.

Cloud cover or snow on the ground makes it difficult to identify the flood waters in NASA satellite data, said Sara Menker, chief executive of the agricultural artificial intelligence company.

LOST CATTLE

In Missouri, floodwaters covered roughly 200,000 acres in five northwest counties adjoining the Missouri River as of Wednesday morning, said Charlie Rahm, spokesman for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Columbia.

In Wisconsin more than 1,000 dairy and beef animals were lost during winter storms and 480 agricultural structures collapsed or damaged, according to an email from Sandy Chalmers, executive director of the Wisconsin state office of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

In the Dakotas and Minnesota, melting snows in coming months will put spring wheat planting at risk. Gro Intelligence found nearly 160,000 acres have already been flooded in Minnesota.

“That’s yet to come and we will deal with that at least until the middle of April,” said Dave Nicolai, an agriculture expert at the University of Minnesota.

(Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Humeyra Pamuk in Nebraska; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek and Karl Plume in Chicago; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Simon Webb, Matthew Lewis and James Dalgleish)

Flooding will go on in storm-ravaged U.S. Midwest; $1 billion in damage, 4 dead

FILE PHOTO: A flooded parcel of land along the Platte River is pictured in this aerial photograph at La Platte, south of Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Drone Base

(Reuters) – The flooding that devastated the U.S. Midwest is likely to last into next week, as rain and melted snow flow into Kansas, Missouri and Mississippi, the National Weather Service said.

Floods driven by melting snow in the Dakotas will persist even as Nebraska and Iowa dig out from storms that have killed four people, left one missing and caused more than a billion dollars in damage to crops, livestock and roads.

“It’s already not looking good downstream for the middle and lower Mississippi and Missouri (rivers) into Kansas, Mississippi and Missouri,” Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the NWS’s Weather Prediction Center, said early Wednesday.

The floodwaters have inundated a swath of Iowa and Nebraska along the Missouri River, North America’s longest river. Half of Iowa’s 99 counties have declared states of emergency.

“That snowpack is still there and it’s going to keep melting, and that’s bad news,” Oravec said.

About an inch of rain is predicted for Saturday in the region, Oravec said. “It’s not a lot, but any precipitation is bad right now.”

Vice President Mike Pence toured some of Nebraska Tuesday and promised to help expedite federal help to the region.

FILE PHOTO: Homes sit in flood waters after leaving casualities and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, with waters yet to crest in parts of the U.S. midwest, in Peru, Nebraska, U.S., March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Karen Dillon

FILE PHOTO: Homes sit in flood waters after leaving casualities and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, with waters yet to crest in parts of the U.S. midwest, in Peru, Nebraska, U.S., March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Karen Dillon

Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin and Mississippi all declared states of emergency after the floods, which stemmed from a powerful winter hurricane last week. The flooding killed livestock, destroyed grains and soybeans in storage and cut off access to farms because of road and rail damage.

Authorities said they had rescued nearly 300 people in Nebraska alone, with some rivers continuing to rise. Rescuers could be seen in boats pulling pets from flooded homes. Some roadways crumbled to rubble and sections of others were submerged. In Hamburg, Iowa, floodwaters covered buildings.

$1 BILLION IN DAMAGE

Nebraska officials estimated flood damage for the state’s agriculture at more than $1 billion so far, according to Craig Head, vice president of issue management at the Nebraska Farm Bureau. Head said that was likely to grow as floodwaters recede.

“It’s really too early to know for sure how bad this is going to get. But one thing we do know: It’s catastrophic for farmers,” said Matt Perdue, government relations director for the National Farmers Union. “We’re hoping it’s only $1 billion, but that’s only a hope.”

Nebraska officials estimate the floods have also caused $553 million in damage to public infrastructure and other assets, and $89 million to privately owned assets, according to the state’s Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday.

The water covered about a third of Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, home to the U.S. Strategic Command, whose responsibilities include defending against and responding to nuclear attacks.

The Army Corps of Engineers is distributing 400,000 sandbags to operators of 12 levees along the Missouri River in Missouri and Kansas that are threatened by flooding, the Army Corps said in a news release on Tuesday.

Roads leading to the Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper nuclear plant near Brownville were engulfed by floodwaters from the Missouri, but the facility was still operating safely at full power on Tuesday.

The plant operator was flying staff members and supplies to the plant by helicopter, power district spokesman Mark Becker said.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; additional reporting by Karen Dillon in Brownville, Neb., Gina Cherelus in New York, Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia, P.J. Huffstutter and Mark Weinraub in Chicago and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Larry King)

Mike Pence to visit Nebraska amid deadly floods

Lanni Bailey and a team from Muddy Paws Second Chance Rescue enter a flooded house to pull out several cats during the flooding of the Missouri River near Glenwood, Iowa, U.S. March 18, 2019. Passport Aerial Photography/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will visit Nebraska on Tuesday to survey the devastation left by floods in the Midwest which have killed at least four people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

The floods, the result of last week’s ‘bomb cyclone,’ a term used by meteorologists to describe the powerful winter hurricane, inundated stretches of Nebraska and Iowa along the Missouri River. It swamped homes, covering about a third of the U.S. Air Force Base that is home to the United States Strategic Command, and cut off road access to a nuclear power plant.

FILE PHOTO: One of many areas near the southeast side of Offutt Air Force Base affected by flood waters is seen in Nebraska, U.S., March 16, 2019. Courtesy Rachelle Blake/U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: One of many areas near the southeast side of Offutt Air Force Base affected by flood waters is seen in Nebraska, U.S., March 16, 2019. Courtesy Rachelle Blake/U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS

Farms were deluged and rescuers could be seen in boats pulling pets from flooded homes.

About 74 Nebraska cites had declared states of emergency by Monday evening, according to Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). More than 600 residents were evacuated and taken to American Red Cross-operated shelters.

“Heading to Nebraska today to survey the devastating flood damage. To the people of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, all regions impacted: we are with you,!” Pence said in a post on Twitter early Tuesday. He will tour the zone with Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.

The flood waters are the result of snowmelt following heavy rains last week and warm temperatures, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.

“Most of the snowpack in Nebraska is now gone, but upriver in North and South Dakota, there’s significant snowpack of up to 20 plus inches (51 cm) and it’s melting,” he said.

Flooded Platte River seen in this DigitalGlobe Satellite image over Nebraska, U.S., March 18, 2019. Picture taken on March 18, 2019. ©2019 DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company/Handout via REUTERS

Flooded Platte River seen in this DigitalGlobe Satellite image over Nebraska, U.S., March 18, 2019. Picture taken on March 18, 2019. ©2019 DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company/Handout via REUTERS

The Missouri River, the longest in North America, has flooded much of Nebraska between Omaha and Kansas City.

The river was expected to crest at more than 47 feet (14.5 meters) on Tuesday, breaking the previous record, set in 2011, by more than a foot (30 cm), NEMA said.

At least one person was missing on Monday. The four reported deaths included one person in Iowa who was rescued from flood waters but later succumbed to injuries, according to the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.

“This is clearly the most widespread disaster we have had in our state’s history,” in terms of size, Governor Ricketts told reporters Monday.

Damage to the state’s livestock sector was estimated at about $400 million, said Steve Wellman, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

The state’s highway system suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, said Kyle Schneweis, director of the state Department of Transportation.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

U.S. judge to sentence three men over plot to bomb Somalis in Kansas

(Reuters) – Three men convicted of a 2016 plot to bomb an apartment complex in Kansas that is home to Somali immigrants and their mosque were due to be sentenced in federal court on Friday.

The trio, described by prosecutors as members of a right-wing militia group, were found guilty in April of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiring to violate the civil rights of their intended victims.

The men plotted to detonate explosive-laden vehicles at the four corners of the complex in Garden City, a town of about 27,000 people in southwest Kansas, with the aim of leveling the building and killing its occupants, prosecutors said.

Each of the defendants – Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein and Gavin Wright – faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the weapon of mass destruction charge and up to 10 years behind bars for the civil rights violation.

Wright was also found guilty of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with the plot.

They are due to be sentenced at the hearing in Wichita, Kansas, presided over by U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren.

Officials investigated the plot for several months as the men stockpiled guns and explosives in preparation for attacking the apartment complex, where about 120 Somali immigrants lived and had set up a small mosque, according to authorities.

Prosecutors said the men wanted to send a message to Somali immigrants that they were not welcome in the United States.

According to authorities, the three were members of a militia called the Kansas Security Force and formed a splinter group, the Crusaders. They tried unsuccessfully to recruit others to join their plot, prosecutors said, and it was one of those men who tipped off the FBI to the plan.

(Reporting by Alice Mannette in Wichita, Kansas; Writing by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

U.S. top court rebuffs state bids to cut Planned Parenthood funds

FILE PHOTO: Healthcare activists with Planned Parenthood and the Center for American Progress pass by the Supreme Court as they protest in opposition to the Senate Republican healthcare bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals by Louisiana and Kansas seeking to end public funding by those states to Planned Parenthood, a national women’s healthcare, and abortion provider, through the Medicaid program.

The justices left intact lower court rulings that prevented the two states from stripping government healthcare funding from local Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented from the decision by the nine-member court, saying it should have heard the appeals by the states.

The case is one of a number of disputes working their way up to the Supreme Court over state-imposed restrictions on abortion. The two states did not challenge the constitutionality of abortion itself.

Planned Parenthood’s affiliates in Louisiana do not perform abortions, but some in Kansas do. Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income Americans, pays for abortions only in limited circumstances, such as when a woman’s life is in danger.

Louisiana and Kansas announced plans to terminate funding for Planned Parenthood through Medicaid after an anti-abortion group released videos in 2015 purporting to show Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the for-profit sale of fetal tissue and body parts. Planned Parenthood denied the allegations and said the videos were heavily edited and misleading.

The organization’s affiliates in each state, as well as several patients, sued in federal court to maintain the funding.

Legal battles over other laws from Republican-led states could reach the court in the next year or two. Some seek to ban abortions in early pregnancy, including Iowa’s prohibition after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Others impose difficult-to-meet regulations on abortion providers such as having formal ties, called admitting privileges, at a local hospital.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Heavy snow hammers U.S. Midwest after holiday weekend

A driver clears the snow off his car during an early season snowfall in the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts, U.S., November 15, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

(Reuters) – Commuters in Chicago and across the Midwest faced inches of heavy, wet snow as they headed back to work on Monday after the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with the storm knocking out power, icing roads and canceling some flights.

The National Weather Service ended blizzard warnings early on Monday in northeast Missouri through the Chicago metropolitan area and northeast into Michigan, but noted strong winds of up to 45 miles per hour (72 kph) would continue to blow around drifts of the snow accumulated overnight.

“Snow will continue to taper off to flurries and then end this morning,” the service’s Chicago office said in a statement, warning drivers to take extra caution on slippery roads in low visibility.

“The drive into work was NASTY,” Diane Pathieu, an ABC7 Chicago news anchor, wrote on Twitter of her pre-dawn commute. “Roads barely plowed, wind blowing snow everywhere. Proceed with caution!”

North of Chicago, the city of Evanston’s police department said in a statement its power had been knocked out by the storm, although it was still able to receive 911 calls.

Dozens of school districts in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas canceled classes due to the weather. Chicago public schools were expected to open.

The storm canceled 1,270 flights on Sunday, a busy day for travelers trying to get home after the Thanksgiving weekend.

That included about 900 flights to and from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway Airport and almost 200 flights at Kansas City International Airport.

On Monday morning, about 500 flights to and from O’Hare had been canceled, about 17 percent of all scheduled flights, according to the FlightAware flight tracking service.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Sunil Nair, Louise Heavens and Frances Kerry)

Cotton makes a comeback in U.S. Plains as farmers sour on wheat

A cotton plant that was left unharvested is seen in a field near Wakita, Oklahoma, U.S., May 11, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford

By Michael Hirtzer

ANTHONY, Kan. (Reuters) – Farmers in Kansas and Oklahoma are planting more land with cotton than they have for decades as they ditch wheat, attracted by relatively high cotton prices and the crop’s ability to withstand drought.

A 20-percent increase from last year marks a sharp turnaround for the crop that once dominated the Mississippi Delta into Texas. Just three years ago, low prices led to U.S. farmers planting the fewest acres with cotton in over 30 years.

The switch to cotton in the southern plains of the United States could be long term as farmers move away from a global wheat market that is increasingly dominated by fast-growing supply from top exporter Russia. U.S. farmers have struggled to make a profit on wheat due to a global glut.

Cotton is a safer bet than wheat because it can be grown with less water, at a time when drought has hit some areas of the U.S. farm belt.

“I have switched out of grain pretty much completely,” said southern Kansas farmer Darrin Eck. “It’s rough to raise beans or corn. But, if we get a little bit of rain, the cotton works.”

Eck said he will plant 3,000 of his 4,000 acres with cotton, up from 1,700 last year. He also spent around $500,000 to purchase a used John Deere cotton harvester.

Even with expectations for more planted acres, cotton futures are hovering above 80 cents per pound, near the highest levels in about four years. Wheat futures have recovered from 2016’s decade-low of $3.60, fetching about $5.43 per bushel on Friday.

The other that crop farmers typically turn to during periods of drought or low rainfall is the animal feed sorghum. Both cotton and sorghum need less water than soybeans, corn or wheat.

But China in April targeted sorghum for punitive import tariffs in a tit-for-tat trade dispute with the United States, a move that sent prices plunging and made cotton the clear winner for many farmers this year. China has since removed the sorghum tariffs, but by then, most farmers had made their planting choice.

Growing more cotton is still a gamble. China had threatened to impose tariffs on U.S. cotton imports, before tensions eased last week between the world’s two largest economies.

In Kansas, farmers planned to sow 130,000 acres of cotton, the most ever, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Oklahoma cotton plantings were forecast at 680,000 acres, the largest since 1980.

Across the country, farmers will likely plant 13.469 million cotton acres, the most since 14.735 million in 2011, after total acres of wheat planted last winter fell to 32.7 million, smallest in about a century.

SEEDS AND GINS

Seed firms are already seeing the benefits. U.S. sales of Monsanto cotton seeds and traits in the first half of fiscal-year 2018 were $243 million, up from $224 million during the same period in 2017, according to a company spokeswoman.

With both Monsanto and rival DowDuPont offering cotton seed with traits that help boost yields, the crop will likely be an option for many farmers for years, said Kansas farmer Eck.

“Cotton will be here to stay until the grains get better,” he said.

Some peanut farmers in states such as Georgia are also turning to cotton. USDA projected peanut plantings will drop 18 percent. Peanut production reached a record last year, but high cotton prices are luring farmers who need to rotate crops.

“Because cotton prices are attractive… it gives peanut farmers a chance to get their rotation back in order,” said Bob Parker, president and chief executive of the National Peanut Board, an industry group.

Demand for cotton harvesters, which strip cotton from the plants and make bales, is “off the charts,” said Greg Peterson, founder of the Machinery Pete website which hosts auctions for farm equipment.

The Southern Kansas Cotton Growers in Anthony, Kansas, plans to double its capacity to separate cotton fibers from seed this year.

The machine that does that, the gin, has already run at record capacity after a big harvest last year, said Gary Feist, president of the Kansas Cotton Association that operates the gin.

HEAVY EQUIPMENT

At Hurst Farm Supply in Lorenzo, Texas, there are roughly five farmers interested in each Deere  CS690 cotton harvester they have to sell, said Randy Sparks, a sales manager. The store collected names from farmers interested in the equipment and pulls a name out of a hat when a harvester becomes available, to ensure they are fair to their local customers.

“These guys out of Oklahoma and Kansas, there’s no local machinery for them to purchase so they have to come where it’s at,” Sparks said.

The machinery demand is a bright spot for Deere, which has been battling tepid demand in North America due to four years of declining U.S. farm income.

Equipment sales suggest the turn to cotton may be longer-term, said CoBank analyst Ben Laine.

“When you see producers making that type of investment, it gives confidence… You are going to see more acres switching,” Laine said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago, Chris Prentice in New York and Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Webb and Cynthia Osterman)

Trial to begin over Kansas voter ID law requiring citizenship proof

FILE PHOTO: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach talks about the Kansas voter ID law that he pushed to combat what he believes to be rampant voter fraud in the United States in his office in Topeka, Kansas, U.S., on May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Dave Kaup/File Photo

By Kevin Murphy

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Reuters) – A trial over a Kansas law critics call illegal that requires proof of U.S citizenship from people registering to vote is set to begin on Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed in February 2016 in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argues that the state law violates the National Voter Registration Act by requiring voters who do not have a driver’s license to show documents like a birth certificate or U.S. passport for voter registration. It is one of numerous voter ID laws passed by Republican-led state legislatures in recent years.

Democrats have argued that ID laws target voters who typically support the Democratic Party, such as the young and minorities. Proponents of the measures have said they are intended to prevent voter fraud.

Each side in the case will present opening statements on Tuesday, followed by an expected five or more days of testimony. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson will hear the case.

In May 2016, Robinson temporarily blocked enforcement of the law pending outcome of the trial. The law first went into effect Jan. 1, 2013.

The chief defendant in the case, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has said the law is intended to prevent voter fraud.

A lawyer and candidate for Kansas governor, Kobach has said a lack of required documentation could allow thousands of non-Americans to vote in Kansas, potentially canceling out the votes of citizens. Kobach will serve as lead lawyer for the state.

Kobach, a Republican, served on a commission appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump to investigate voter fraud. Trump contended that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election that he won. The commission was shut down in January.

The ACLU said that the law had blocked more than 35,000 Kansans from registering to vote between 2013 and 2016.

Lawmakers in 23 states have imposed new voting restrictions since 2010, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

This year, six states have introduced bills imposing photo identification requirements for voting, and bills have been put forward in Kentucky and New Hampshire to make existing voter identification laws more restrictive, the Center said.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Ben Klayman and Rosalba O’Brien)

Kansas governor tapped as religious ambassador reflects on legacy

FILE PHOTO: Republican Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Timothy Mclaughlin

(Reuters) – Kansas Governor Sam Brownback on Thursday shrugged off the political backlash and budget woes stirred by his aggressive tax-cutting policies at home as he looked forward to a new role as the Trump administration’s chief defender of global religious tolerance.

The two-term Republican addressed both topics at a news conference in Topeka a day after the White House announced that he would soon be nominated as U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, a State Department post.

Brownback, who previously represented his home state in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, was a sponsor of the 1998 law that created the diplomatic post he now aspires to fill.

“International religious freedom is going the wrong way. It’s getting worse around the world, not better,” Brownback told reporters. “It affects all faiths, it affects all religions.”

One of Brownback’s most notable forays into the realm of faith as governor came in 2015, when he issued an executive order to protect the religious convictions of clergy as Kansas began to comply with the landmark ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage.

His gubernatorial legacy, however, has been largely defined by 2012 legislation he championed to roll back tax rates to help stimulate Kansas’ economy.

The deep cuts shrank state coffers and caused Kansas to miss revenue targets, turning the state into a cautionary tale of fiscal mismanagement.

“It’s amazed me, too, that a tax cut done in a Midwestern state in 2012 has been the dominant tax discussion in America the last five years,” Brownback said on Thursday. He mostly defended his tax strategy, though conceded some resulting spending cuts could have been carried out “more artfully.”

More than a dozen conservative allies in the state legislature lost their seats in the November election in what was seen as a political repudiation of Brownback’s fiscal policies.

Earlier this year, both chambers of the Republican-controlled legislature voted to raise taxes and overrode Brownback’s attempt to veto that measure.

Republican state Representative Melissa Rooker, in a separate interview with Reuters, called Brownback’s tax policy “an unmitigated disaster.”

Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer, a physician who previously served in the legislature, would succeed Brownback if he resigned to assume the diplomatic post. It was unclear how soon Brownback might move to Washington, D.C.

In the meantime, his standing at home is low. Brownback ranks as the second-least popular governor in the United States, with a 66 percent disapproval rating, according to the nonpartisan political research company Morning Consult.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago)

Trump to nominate Kansas Governor Brownback as religious freedom ambassador

Trump picks Brownback for Religious Freedome Ambassador

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump intends to nominate Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback as ambassador at large for international religious freedom, the White House said on Wednesday.

Brownback, who previously served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, would assume the position created in the State Department by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, of which he was one of the key sponsors.

In 2015, Brownback issued an executive order protecting the religious freedom of clergy and organizations that opposed same-sex marriage as Kansas began to comply with the landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage.

“We … recognize that religious liberty is at the heart of who we are as Kansans and Americans, and should be protected,” Brownback, governor since 2011, said at the time of the order. He was re-elected in 2014 and is not eligible to serve a third consecutive term.

(Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney)