If it were possible for Congress to place a state into some kind of democratic receivership, Kansas would be a really good candidate. Governor Sam Brownback—excuse me, twice-elected, god help us, Governor Sam Brownback—turned the state into a lab rat for all the worst policy ideas produced by the modern conservative Republican party. The legislature went gleefully along for the ride. The state has cratered and, as it cratered, it sank deeper and deeper into madness. The latest chapter in this sad saga came when the state's Supreme Court began to rule that, all Randian wet-dreams aside, Kansas had an obligation to fund its public schools at a decent level. If you think that the legislature response was to carefully consider what it's been doing over the past few years and pull itself back from a course of action that is so obviously harming so many of the people that put it into office, then you probably live in a state not presided over by the likes of Sam Brownback.

A committee in the GOP-controlled Senate plans to vote Tuesday on a bill that would make "attempting to usurp the power" of the Legislature or the executive branch grounds for impeachment. Impeachment has "been a little-used tool" to challenge judges who strike down new legislation, said Republican Sen. Dennis Pyle, a sponsor of the measure. "Maybe it needs to be oiled up a little bit or sharpened a little bit." The proposal has considerable support in a Legislature in which Republicans outnumber Democrats more than 3 to 1. Nearly half the Senate's members have signed on as sponsors. It's unclear whether its novelty could complicate passage.

Don't like what the Court's been doing? Don't abide by its rulings, just 86 its justices.

Since Gov. Sam Brownback and GOP supermajorities won control of the statehouse in 2010, conservatives have passed a steady stream of bills cutting income taxes and spending, expanding gun rights and restricting abortion. The state Supreme Court has issued rulings to force increased spending on public schools, citing a constitutional requirement that schools be adequately funded, and threatened last month to shut the schools this fall if lawmakers don't comply. The court also has overturned death sentences in capital murder cases and is reviewing a case that could toss out abortion restrictions. "I believe the court has a tremendous problem with overreach," said Republican Sen. Mitch Holmes, one of the impeachment bill's sponsors. Callie Denton, executive director of the state trial lawyers' association, said Kansas is "really ground zero" for conservative antagonism toward the courts. Legal groups like hers fear Republicans will be motivated to initiate impeachment proceedings if the bill passes."We're taking it very seriously," Denton said.

They recognize no limits to their power, no curbs to their desire. There are few frontiers in democratic government that they will not work to violate, or to twist to their own purposes. And they absolutely will not stop. Ni shagu nazad, as Stalin said to his army. Not one step backwards.

Conservative groups are expected to mount a major effort to vote out four of the Supreme Court justices on the ballot this fall. But critical lawmakers also hope to make impeachment a tool. Currently, the state constitution allows impeachment only for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. No public official has been impeached since 1934. In other states, conservative groups are spending heavily in contested judicial elections. Two Arkansas Supreme Court candidates were defeated last week after two groups spent more than $850,000 on broadcast ads targeting them; one was a sitting justice seeking to become the chief justice. Brownback and GOP lawmakers already have tried unsuccessfully to change how the justices are selected and to cut the judiciary's budget. "The attacks on the courts in Kansas have definitely been coming faster and more furious than in other states," said Debra Erenberg, spokesman for Justice at Stake, a Washington-based group promoting judicial independence. "It just seems like the Legislature has been throwing everything it can think of at the courts."

The experiment in Kansas is nearly complete. Government has been refashioned to work splendidly for the wealthy and connected, and not at all for the people who need it most, who then develop within their hearts and minds contempt for it at the ballot box, and contempt that perpetuates itself with every new atrocity, which has been the plan all along. As we point out often here at the shebeen, the problem with lab rats is that most of them die.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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