Category: Kansas Legislature

Legislative hearing planned on Safe and Welcoming bill

A state legislative hearing is planned on a bill that would stop Kansas City, Kansas, from implementing a Safe and Welcoming ordinance that was passed earlier this year.

The hearing was scheduled at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 15, in the Federal and State Affairs Committee in the Kansas House, Topeka.

The bill was requested by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor. The bill would stop Kansas City, Kansas, from implementing parts of its Safe and Welcoming ordinance, which welcomes immigrants and provides an identification card for them, as well as states that no Unified Government personnel will be notifying immigration officials about their presence.

Two state legislators discussed this bill at an online legislative coffee held Feb. 26, sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library.

State Rep. Pam Curtis, D-32nd Dist., said at the coffee that this bill was just another example of the state encroaching on local control.

Rep. Curtis said first of all, the federal government should be dealing with the immigration issue, and then that would solve the problems at the local level.

But since the federal government hasn’t done that, the state and local communities are trying to find a way to make their communities safe, and have all residents engaged.

Rep. Curtis said she read a quote from Schmidt that likened those participating in the ID programs to drug cartel members.

However, at the UG meetings, the commission heard from undocumented workers who do not have criminal records, as well as from many social workers and educators. The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education has voted to support this bill, because the IDs will make identification easier for parents enrolling school children. It also would help in getting medical care for people living in the community who do not have identification cards, according to its supporters.

“We need to clearly demonstrate who we’re talking about and the people in our community, the benefits of them having an identification card, and the benefits of the community having members who live in the community having IDs,” Rep. Curtis said.

Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, D-36th Dist., said she agreed. There are 105 different counties in Kansas, and it doesn’t matter what side you’re on, what matters is that the community here had a vote, had a public hearing and decided to do this, she said.

Local control is so important because local officials know their communities much better than state officials, she said.

Rep. Wolfe Moore said she is concerned that this bill could pass on the House floor.

During discussion earlier this year at the UG Commission meetings, the police chief in Kansas City, Kansas, said they haven’t been notifying immigration authorities for several years, and the sheriff’s department said the department notifies immigration authorities if there is an outstanding warrant. The KCK ordinance applied only to KCK and not to the sheriff’s office.

Other cities with Safe and Welcoming ordinances include Roeland Park and Lawrence.

House Bill 2717 prohibits any municipality from preventing the enforcement of federal immigration laws, requiring local law enforcement agencies to provide written notice to each law enforcement officer of the officer’s duty to cooperate with state and federal agencies in the enforcement of immigration laws and requiring any municipal identification card to state on its face that it is not valid for state identification.

The Federal and State Affairs Committee is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 15, with the hearing scheduled for March 15 in Room 346-S.

Members of the Federal and State Committee include Rep. John Barker, chair; Rep. Tony Marie Arnberger, vice chair; Rep. Louis Ruiz, ranking minority member; Rep. Francis Awerkamp, Rep. Jesse Burris, Rep. Stephanie Clayton, Rep. John Eplee, Rep. Randy Garber, Rep. Christina Haswood, Rep. Broderick Henderson, Rep. Dennis “Boog” Highberger, Rep. Michael Houser, Rep. Steven K. Howe, Rep. Leah Howell, Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, Rep. Vic Miller, Rep. Lisa Moser, Rep. Patrick Penn, Rep. Samantha Poetter Parshall, Rep. John Resman, Rep. Eric L. Smith, Rep. Adam Thomas and Rep. Paul Waggoner.

To send emails to the committee members, find their email addresses at http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2021_22/chamber/house/roster/.

HB 2717 is online at http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2021_22/measures/documents/hb2717_00_0000.pdf.

To see a video of the Wyandotte County legislative coffee from Feb. 25, visit either https://www.youtube.com/c/KCKPublicLibrary or https://www.youtube.com/c/LWVJOCOKS4VOTERS.

The next virtual Wyandotte County legislative coffee will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 26, sponsored by the Bonner Springs City Library, the League of Women Voters and the Bonner Springs NAACP. It will be a Zoom meeting. Legislators who have stated they will participate in this event include Rep. Tom Burroughs, Sen. Jeff Pittman and Sen. Pat Pettey. To register in advance for this Zoom meeting, visit https://www.lwvjoco.org/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=768754&item_id=1590818 or [email protected],

Senate committee advances constitutional amendment limiting new taxes, rate increases

Skeptics say ‘dangerous’ measure ties hands of lawmakers who need to be nimble

by Tim Carpenter

Topeka — The Kansas Senate’s tax committee advanced a proposed state constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds majority votes of the House and Senate to create a new tax or to increase the rate of an existing tax.

Chief proponent Sen. Virgil Peck and central critic Sen. Tom Holland, not surprisingly of different political parties, touched on why Senate Concurrent Resolution 1620 could be viewed as an important restraint on growth of government or an abandonment of the democratic process. The committee sent it to the full Senate on a partisan voice vote Thursday after receiving ideologically clashing testimony from lobbyists.

“This is something I have wanted to see the Legislature pass since I first heard of the idea around 2003,” said Peck, a Havana Republican who has been in House or Senate for 13 years. “Hopefully, it would make it through the process.”

Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat also on the tax committee, said he was disappointed the GOP-led committee moved ahead with a sweeping piece of legislation without resolving core questions, including determination of whether the amendment raised the bar on imposition of state fees.

He said the amendment trampled territory reserved for the Senate Ways and Means Committee’s members responsible for crafting a blueprint of the state budget.

“To have a tax committee charge off and go down this path and … basically shackle our budgeting committee with this to me is inane. This is basically undemocratic legislation,” Holland said. “This bill is not only dangerous, now it has devolved into stupidity.”

To place the amendment to the Kansas Constitution on statewide ballots in November, the current House and Senate would need to affirm the resolution by two-thirds majorities. Republicans have the capacity to accomplish that feat because they hold supermajorities in both chambers, but passage of the amendment wouldn’t be a political slam dunk.

Gov. Laura Kelly doesn’t have veto authority over placement of constitutional amendments on the ballot. Registered Republicans, independents and Democrats would be asked to make the call on basis of a simple majority vote in the upcoming general election.

Nuts and bolts

If approved by Kansas voters, the addition to Article 11 in the Kansas Constitution would fundamentally alter the Legislature’s budget process. The House and Senate would be able to initiate tax rate increases or impose new taxes only with support of 27 of 40 senators and 84 of 125 representatives. A governor could veto such a tax bill, but the House and Senate would retain the right to override the governor with backing from two-thirds of members in both chambers.

The roster of taxes falling under the Senate resolution would include property, income, sales, compensating use, excise, estate or inheritance taxes.

Then-Gov. Sam Brownback signed a budget bill in 2015 raising the state’s sales and cigarette taxes in anticipation of generating $384 million annually in new revenue. Controversially, he argued it didn’t amount to a tax hike. The bill was passed by the House and Senate with simple majorities. Under the amendment, that tax hike agreed to by Brownback would have required two-thirds majorities of the Legislature to reach his desk.


In 2017, the Legislature rolled back deep tax cuts championed by Brownback. He was the force behind adoption in 2012 of the aggressive income tax reductions, but the policy created massive revenue shortfalls that placed state government in dire financial straits. Brownback vetoed the tax repeal bill, but was overridden by the GOP-led House and Senate with two-thirds majority votes.

Emily Fetsch, lobbyist with Kansas Action for Children, said the organization opposed the amendment because it would limit legitimate options of elected representatives in state government.

“A constitutional amendment will make it difficult for lawmakers to respond to constituent needs and honor the democratic process,” Fetsch said. “Policies like 1620 can be harmful during unexpected events like recessions, natural disasters, pandemics or terrorist actions.”

Highways, budgets

Branden Lowe, representing businesses and organizations involved in Economic Lifelines, and Michael White, executive director of the Kansas Contractors Association, said the constitutional amendment could make it difficult to finance highway construction in the future as the transportation system became more reliant on electric and hybrid vehicles. A chunk of state highway funding is linked to revenue from gasoline taxes, which could drop as the fleet mix transitioned.

Looking ahead, for example, would enactment by the state of a $250 annual charge on all electric vehicles to gain access to paved roads in Kansas be viewed as a tax or a fee?

Eric Stafford, who represents the Kansas Chamber, said about 15 states had some form of majority-vote restraint on tax increases. He said Arizona and Florida had a two-thirds metric, while Delaware adopted a three-fifths barrier and Arkansas had a three-fourths limit that excluded sales and liquor taxes.

“Ultimately,” he said, “this encourages the Legislature to consider cuts versus automatically looking to raise taxes when faced with tough budget decisions.”

Elizabeth Patton, a lobbyist with Americans for Prosperity, said the organization supported the proposed amendment because it would encourage legislators “to consider more effective and efficient spending strategies.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/11/senate-committee-advances-constitutional-amendment-limiting-new-taxes-rate-increases/

Trio of Kansas Senate redistricting maps introduced by committees with little fanfare

Rural-to-urban population shift likely adds to Johnson County delegation

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Republicans and Democrats along with a voter advocacy group introduced Thursday three competing redistricting maps outlining new boundaries for the 40 Kansas Senate districts in response to population shifts during the past decade.

The Kansas House has not revealed in bill form maps outlining how the 125 representatives’ districts would be shaped heading into the August primary and November general elections.

The filing deadline for legislative districts is June 1, meaning lawmakers need to proceed deliberately with this work to account for potential political or legal challenges.

The Legislature’s recommended maps for the four congressional districts, initially vetoed by Gov. Laura Kelly, are the subject of three lawsuits in Wyandotte and Douglas counties. There are objections to splitting Wyandotte County’s diverse population between two congressional districts and plucking Lawrence from the 2nd District and moving it to the agrarian 1st District covering western Kansas.

Sen. Rick Billinger, a Republican from Goodland and chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, introduced the Senate leadership’s proposed map during a meeting of his budget committee. It was introduced on behalf of Sen. Rick Wilborn, R-McPherson, and chairman of the Senate Redistricting Committee.

The Senate map has a secondary application, because those 40 districts are divided in a manner that creates 10 districts of the Kansas State Board of Education.

Billinger opened the Ways and Means Committee meeting by announcing he was introducing a Senate map. He didn’t share copies of the GOP’s map, which was expected to be published, perhaps by Friday, on the website of the Kansas Legislative Research Department.

“This is the state Senate redistricting plan on behalf of Senator Wilborn and it’s called ‘Liberty 2,’” Billinger said.

“Is this our map we’re going to start with?” asked Sen. Carolyn McGinn, the Sedgwick Republican.

“I believe so,” Billinger said. “They just asked if I would introduce it today.”

In the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, the Democrats’ version of a proposed Senate redistricting map was introduced along with a map created by the Kansas League of Women Voters.

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, had the chairman introduce “Bluestem Plan” for the Kansas League of Women Voters and the “Eisenhower Plan” on behalf of Democrats. It was done without fanfare and without Sykes present.

“Because of weather, it’s hard for them to get in here today,” said Sen. Rob Olson, an Olathe Republican and chairman of the Federal and State Affairs Committee.

Martha Pint, co-president of the Kansas League of Women Voters, said in response to questions for this story that the yearlong process of creating a map involved nine local leagues across the state and contributions from other civic groups.

“As for the impact on current members of the Senate, protection of incumbency is a factor that the league explicitly rejects and does not consider an incumbent’s address in our overall process of creating maps,” Pint said.

The Kansas League of Women Voters is among groups that form the KS Fair Maps coalition. Other members include Equality Kansas, Kansas Action for Children, Kansas Appleseed, Kansas Interfaith Action, the League of Women Voters of Kansas, Loud Light, the Mainstream Coalition, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which filed a lawsuit in Wyandotte County District Court to challenge a congressional map endorsed by the Legislature earlier this year.

In a statement, KS Fair Maps said the organization would review the maps and look for district boundaries that reflect public testimony, protect communities of interest, and “avoid partisan games that benefit one party over another.”

The statement urged the Legislature to meet the needs of all Kansans and commit to a transparent process.

“In January we witnessed the Legislature unnecessarily rushing the congressional map, and now we have three lawsuits challenging a racially gerrymandered map,” said Laurel Burchfield, a coordinator for KS Fair Maps.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/10/trio-of-kansas-senate-redistricting-maps-introduced-by-committees-with-little-fanfare/