Ever wonder why the Kansas Legislature needs 90 days to craft the annual budget? It is a complicated process, of that there is no doubt.

But there also is the apparently irresistible lure of symbolic legislation -- otherwise known as the non-binding resolution. By definition, such acts merely are written motions that cannot become law. Yet lawmakers will spend untold hours, days and longer on topics nobody feels strongly enough about to change current statutes.

On Wednesday, we had two non-binding resolutions emerge from the Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee. By a 10-1 vote, the panel affirmed the state's powers as protected by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A narrower 6-5 tally resulted in a resolution stating Kansas school districts should not use state tax dollars to sue the state for more tax dollars.

We're not even sure where to begin with these frivolous acts.

In the state's rights resolution, the committee appears to have forgotten that we adopted the entire Constitution (including the Bill of Rights and successive amendments) when Kansas became a state in 1861. That was the point of becoming a state -- to be included in and protected by the federal constitution. It is obvious the resolution surfaced to appease those leery of President Barack Obama's health-care reform plans.

In the second measure, a slim majority of committee members believe tax-payers shouldn't have to foot the bill for lawsuits attempting to extract even more tax dollars. In fact, some legislators suggested that if money is so tight in the classroom, educators should spend every penny available there and not to fund lobbying groups and their attorneys. It's hard to determine who's being pandered to in this case, for it seems such common sense.

But in both scenarios, nobody believed Kansas laws needed changing. And both measures are now being sent to the full Senate where even more time will be wasted with debate and posturing.

Lawmakers are elected to devise budgets and craft laws. If they want to score political points with non-binding resolutions, they should do so on their own time. And their own dime.

Editorial by Patrick Lowry

plowry@dailynews.net