Dear Editor,
This letter is in response to the Public Forum by Derrick Sontag in which he states that HB 2130 provides workers the ability to protect themselves from financially supporting political candidates they otherwise wouldn’t support. 
Mr. Sontag, you’re kidding, right? 
Public employees are given opportunities to have their paychecks automatically deducted with the payments going to various entities including charitable organizations (like the United Way), health care accounts, and, yes, for union dues if they choose to do so. 
HB 2130 simply takes away the right of those public employees to choose to give their money to unions in this fashion. 
It also prevents unions from using dues to support political causes. 
Is Mr. Sontag suggesting that public employees need the state government to step in and protect them from these terrible unions? 
These unions exist entirely to support those workers as well as the vulnerable Kansans who depend on the services those workers provide. 
Now, Mr. Sontag, through his smaller government organization, is suggesting that we need to spend state tax dollars to save workers from these unions. 
Seriously? 
This bill is the most blatant act of political partisanship that I’ve ever seen, and Mr. Sontag dares to tell me its designed to help protect state employees? 
He fails to mention that all union dues are completely voluntary and anyone who chooses to pay those dues has every opportunity to simply stop paying those dues if they do not support how their money is being spent. 
Mr. Sontag states this is not a bill designed to eliminate unions; but that is exactly what it is. 
Won’t someone please stand up and tell politicians like Mr. Sontag that Kansans are not as gullible as he and his organization seem to believe? 
Balancing the budget is a tough process and state employees are being asked to bite the bullet like everyone else; and thats fine. 
But enacting a law that takes away their rights to spend their money in order to be heard in Topeka is not about balancing the budget; it’s about eliminating political opposition and it should be stopped.
David Tims,
Larned