Friends: 

This is the “Turnaround” deadline when bills must be passed out of their House of Origin (the chamber in which a bill was introduced) and “turned around” to the other chamber. We have Today and Tuesday off as legislative staff completes the paperwork to get dozens of bills ready for hearing in opposing chambers. We begin hearings on bills received from the Senate on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, my Transparency Act was not considered on Friday, and thus it dies in the House. On the other hand, the Senate version is exempt from deadlines, so it is still alive, but will be harder to pass at this point due to the time it will take to get through both the Senate and House processes by the end of March. Overall, it has been a positive session for transparency efforts, so my hopes are high.

Parents As Teachers (PAT)

The Children’s Initiative Fund (CIF) has been cut in search of money to fill the enormous budget hole. There is no better example of our kids paying for bad tax policy than with this budget. 

Play-by-play: On Tuesday, Vice Chair Peggy Mast brought up the CIF budget for consideration, making a motion to sweep $7.5 million from the Parents As Teachers program and another $2 million from CIF into the State General Fund. After a $12 million sweep included in this year’s rescission bill, that left just $500,000 in the Children’s Initiative Fund. I made a substitute motion to delay the cuts until such time as we could hear from the agency. The substitute motion failed on a vote of 3-4 (with one committee member absent, and the committee chair not voting). Then, the original motion to gut the program passed 4-3. 

I did what any sensible person would do in such a situation: contacted advocates for the Parents As Teachers Program. I am so proud and grateful to and for those of you who called and e-mailed members of the Social Services Budget and Appropriations committee. While I doubt that I will ever know the entire story as to why this happened, things changed the next day.

In a type of committee meeting known as a “meeting at the rail”: in other words, a hasty meeting that is held not in a committee room at the appointed time, but standing next to the railing in the third-floor rotunda just outside of the House Chambers, a procedural motion was made. This was a “motion to reconsider”. A motion to reconsider is made when a representative who voted with the prevailing side of the original motion (in this case, the motion to gut the PAT program), made a dual motion for us to overturn that decision, and to schedule an informational hearing about the PAT program on Thursday, March 5th at 3:30 p.m. While this is not a public hearing (the only person who will provide testimony to the committee will be someone from the Department of Education), this will hopefully give the committee a chance to understand just how valuable the program is to Kansas parents and their babies. I will obviously be supporting full funding of this program, just as I did before.

I truly do not think that the Motion to Reconsider would have happened without all of you contacting representatives on the House Appropriations committee. I know sometimes many of you do not feel that contacting elected officials makes much of a difference. Often, that is sadly true – I know that many of you feel as if doing so is futile. I hope that you remember this instance, when your voices were loud and really made a difference.

The Shawnee Mission Parents As Teachers program is so popular it has a long waiting list. If you are unfamiliar with PAT, please check out their website to learn about the tips and tools they provide to families, as well as developmental testing to alert parents to therapeutic needs at an early age. If your family has benefitted from PAT, now is the time to share your story and help keep the program in place for future Kansas kids. Visit OpenKansas.org to find your legislator and email your support.

After the proposed gutting of the program, there were some articles on the matter. I was also on Up To Date on KANU 89.3 earlier today talking about the program with Nancy Keel, Executive Director of Kansas Parents As Teachers.  

• Kansas City Star article
• The Newton Kansan
• Kansas Health Institute article

In the News

After a major compromise from House Leadership, they agreed to allow a hearing on Medicaid Expansion by March 25. The bill introduced by the House Vision 2020 Committee is based on a Kansas Hospital Association proposal (KanCare 2.0). KHA is a great resource for national, state, and local statistics on the issue. Below is specific information relating to the facilities in our district. 

• Kansas Health Health Institute article

Floor Action

Committees completed bill hearings Wednesday morning and we spent the remainder of Wednesday and all of Thursday on the House floor debating and voting on bills. 

“The Chad Taylor bill” (HB 2104) would allow that only in the case of death could a candidate’s name be removed from a ballot. I voted NO. This bill is written too rigidly. I understand the concern but there is a lot of room between an inability to perform one’s duty and death. Bad things happen when it is least convenient and we need a little more wiggle room to account for significant physical and emotional situations. 

For the first, and likely the last time in my legislative career, I was the lone dissenter on a bill. HB 2183 loosened the restrictions that face legislators on social media. Currently, a legislator is not allowed to post an invitation to a fundraising event on Facebook or Twitter during legislative Session, because a lobbyist might see it (we are not allowed to solicit such funds during Session, for obvious reasons). This bill would lift those restrictions. The bill also lifted restrictions that prohibited legislators from using the taxpayer-funded wi-fi in the Statehouse to send campaign-related e-mails. That’s right – if this bill passes, legislators would be able to solicit donations using the wireless service paid for by all of you to ask for money. My friends, it is not that hard to use a data plan (such as I do, with my phone and iPad), or your wi-fi at home to send transmissions that are not work-related. I was the only one who voted “NO”, and I stand by that vote. I just don’t think that we should use your money that way.

Over the summer, the K-12 Study Commission met for hearings and deliberations on K-12 policy changes. A majority of the commission submitted recommendations to the legislature, one of which was a carefully negotiated compromise between superintendents and teachers unions on professional negotiations. Some on the committee disliked the recommendations and submitted a minority report, which was drafted into a bill and passed through the House Education Committee. On the House floor, however, a member of the House Education committee introduced an amendment to gut the minority report bill in favor of that supported by the majority – the labor/management compromise. On a close vote of 67-52 (I voted YES), the “gut and go” amendment passed and HB 2326 passed the House and is headed for Senate consideration. In a year when education funding is a constant battle, this policy issue proved to be a watershed compromise that eventually 109 Representatives could support. 

My Committees 

Federal & State Affairs

HB 2383 (formerly HB 2291) would create the Kansas charitable raffle act, to ensure statute reflects the legislative intent of the constitutional amendment allowing Kansas charities to conduct raffles. The Kansas Department of Revenue latched on to this permission and set up an intricate infrastructure of red tape, including licenses to run raffles, fees, and other obstructions to the good work of Kansas charities. This bill does require a raffle license if profits exceed $25,000, but that license can be requested retroactively. 

Ag & Natural Resources Budget
The committee held a joint meeting with the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee on Agriculture and Natural Resources regarding progress of the merger of the Kansas Veterinary Examination Board with the Department of Agriculture. This effort began last year, and has been so successful that the parties have asked for the merger to be permanent. 

Please do not hesitate to reply with any questions or comments. Thank you for allowing me to serve you! 

Sincerely,