| Taken from the Topeka Capitol-Journal Online
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius says a state employee shouldn’t be fired for having on her car which she parks in the Statehouse underground garage an anti-war bumper sticker that contains an expletive.
“I’m a big believer in free speech in and around the Capitol,” Sebelius said Monday morning during a brief and impromptu press conference in the Statehouse rotunda where she had just introduced an exhibit of Flint Hills photography.
Last week, House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, suggested Ashley Holm, who works for the Kansas Legislative Research Department, be fired if she didn’t remove from her car a two-word bumper sticker. The sticker has the four-letter “f”word followed by the word “war.”
Merrick said his objection wasn’t about the sticker’s political message, but rather his beef was over the “offensive language being on a bumper sticker that’s owned by the people of the state.”
Holm, who staffs the House and Senate education committees, declined comment on the controversy, as did Alan Conroy, the head of the research department. Conroy said he couldn’t comment on personnel issues of employees of his department.
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"You're just jealous, because the voices only talk to me."  |