Kansas senator seeks higher rent for Statehouse reporters who write ‘inaccurate’ stories

TOPEKA — Sen. Virgil Peck wants to raise the rent of reporters who write “inaccurate” things about him from their Statehouse offices.

The Associated Press, Kansas City Star, Topeka Capital-Journal, Kansas Public Radio, KSNT-TV and Hawver’s Capitol Report, now run by State Affairs, currently pay $100 per year for basement offices that range in size from 154 to 311 square feet.

Peck, a Havana Republican, inserted into the state budget a directive to increase the rent to $1 per square foot per month, which collectively would total $16,000 per year for the six news outlets.

“I don’t understand, No. 1, why we have office space for the press, but why we are not charging them something,” Peck said during a March 11 Senate budget hearing. “And I realize that the press will probably write my name a few times now, but I don’t care. I just don’t think that taxpayers — when I mention this in a forum back home, people come unglued: ‘You are only charging $100 a year for the press to write stories about you,’ that frequently are inaccurate. Those are my words.”

Peck offered no evidence to support his claim that journalists write inaccurate stories.

No one else on the Senate Ways and Means Committee voiced support for Peck’s proposal, but the committee agreed by a party line voice vote to insert the rent change into the state budget, which is formally called Senate Substitute for Substitute of House Bill 2007. The Senate passed the budget, with the rent change, on a 28-12 vote on March 18, but the Senate and House still need to work out differences before sending it to the governor for consideration.

Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has the option to veto the bill in its entirety or individual line items.

The Senate committee’s two Democrats both challenged Peck to justify the rent change.

During a March 13 debate on Peck’s proposal, Sen. Pat Pettey, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, asked: “Do you have any idea how long we’ve been allowing press to have space in the Capitol?”

Peck’s response: “Yes, absolutely. Too long.”

Pettey said journalists provide a valuable service in delivering information to the public about what’s happening in the Statehouse.

“This seems to be a way to look at reducing that access by saying they have to pay more. I don’t think it hurts us,” Pettey said.

She also challenged Peck’s assertion that the people he heard from in forums in his district are opposed to providing Statehouse office space to journalists.

“You know, I might get a different reaction if I chaired it at a town meeting in my community,” Pettey said.

The public still wants information, she said, “and we don’t have to be the only source.”

Peck told her his proposal wouldn’t keep journalists from reporting from the Statehouse.

“They can sit in the benches in the hallway and write whatever they want to write,” Peck said. “It has nothing to do with anything other than if you are not a government agency, I don’t think you should have free space in the state Capitol.”

He moved forward with his amendment, which directs the secretary of the Department of Administration to collect monthly rental payments in the amount of $1 per square foot “from any nonstate entity that leases or is assigned office space” in the Statehouse. Peck said the journalists were still getting a bargain because the state typically charges nearly $2 per square foot per month for office space elsewhere.

Before the committee voted on the amendment, Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat, raised concerns about how news publications have struggled financially in recent years.

“The press is an important part of reporting on democracy and bringing things to light,” Holscher said. “So coverage of what we do is important to our democracy. It’s important to keeping citizens informed, and again, because of that and because of the need to have them here, plus the fact that financially, so many of them are struggling, to me, this is not a good look for us.”

Holscher also said in a statement that she was “appalled by the actions taken by the extremist/MAGA legislators who dominate our state government who continue to work to keep the press at bay.”

“While the claim is being made this is being done as a fairness issue, the disdain some legislators have for the press is indisputable,” Holscher said. “It should make citizens ask what exactly these elected officials are wanting to hide.”

When Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit news outlet, launched five years ago, administrators said there wasn’t office space available at the Statehouse because it was already taken by legacy media. The Kansas Reflector office is two blocks north of the Statehouse in Suite 408 of the Columbian Building, 112 S.W. 6th Ave.