7/27/2019 KS - Who is Behind the Kansas Policy Institute FINAL

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The State Policy Network (SPN) is an umbrella group of right-wing think tanks across the country. The KansasPolicy Institute (KPI) is SPN’s cookie-cutter think tank in Kansas. Located in the hometown of Koch Industries, the

Kansas Policy Institute has close connections to the Kochs, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Prosperity, and the Cato Institute. George Pearson, Chairman of KPI, has worked for three decades

in various positions in the Koch Foundations and Koch Industries.

KPI is a member  of the controversial AmericanLegislative Exchange Council (ALEC). At ALEC,corporate lobbyists and state lawmakers go behindclosed doors to create laws, with no input from the

public, that end up helping the corporations’ bottom lines. Dave Trabert, President of KPI, serves on

 ALEC’s Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force.

Jonathan Williams, an adjunct Fiscal Policy Fellowat KPI, is the Director of ALEC’s Tax and FiscalPolicy Task Force.

Defund and privatize Kansas' public schools throughvouchers

  Eliminate income taxes and cut corporate taxes

  Privatize and outsource public services, eliminatingofficials’ oversight of taxpayer dollars 

  Destroy public pensions 

In 2012, KPI launched a misleading ad campaign across the state, accusing public schools of abysmal failure.

Using data from the Kansas State Department of Education, KPI claimed that only 68% of 11th grade students in Olathe,KS, read at grade level. KPI ignored the additional 27% of students who read at grade level, and the fact that 95% of 

Olathe's 11th graders were at or above grade level. A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Education called themisleading and inaccurate advertisements “inappropriate.” 

KPI has been the central coordinating think tank within Kansas helping outside interests attack clean energy

laws. KPI co-published the debunked Beacon Hill Institute report that ALEC has used for its clean energy standard repealin Kansas. KPI Vice President & Policy Director James Franko testified in the Kansas legislature alongside

representatives of Heartland Institute, Americans for Prosperity and Beacon Hill Institute in early 2013 to weakenKansas's renewable portfolio standard. Reasserting the false premise that clean energy standards substantially increase

electricity prices and inhibit job growth, Franko ignored the fact that Kansas has 19 operating wind farms that have brought millions to farmers leasing their land and millions more to the state, county and local levels. The American Wind

Energy Association says that Kansas wind industry jobs have grown to 13,000 with the help of incentives like therenewable portfolio standard.

While KPI is not required to disclose its donors to the

public, and does not do so voluntarily, a 2011 articlein The Washington Post  asserted that KPI receives a

large portion of its funding from the Koch brothers.The precise amount of funding from the Kochs

remains unknown. The only other  known KPI funders are the Koch-funded DonorsTrust and Donors

Capital Fund, which have funneled $534,500 to KPIbetween 2009 and 2011, and the California-based

Jaquelin Hume Foundation, which gave KPI $15,000in 2011.

KPI is known to have close relations with the Koch brothers

and Koch Industries, which is also located in Wichita. TheChairman of KPI, George Pearson, was a longtime Koch

employee and corporate executive, and was also instrumentalin developing the Cato Institute with the Koch brothers. TheInstitute’s former name, Flint Hills Center for Public Policy,

resembles the name of a controversial division of KochIndustries: “Flint Hills Resources.” Throughout 2011 and 2012,KPI’s headquarters has been the location of several “OccupyWichita,” “Occupy Koch-town,” and demonstration protestsdue to the conservative group’s connections with the Koch

brothers.