by Mary Rupert
Close to the end of the regular legislative session, legislators from Wyandotte County met with constituents on Saturday morning.
Legislators told the constituents that some important bills, like the Medicaid expansion bill, had made it out of the House, and other bills, like the school finance bill, had made it out of the Senate.
But there was very little that had actually been completed together on major legislation in both houses as the Legislature looks at a deadline of the end of this week to get its work done before taking a break.
Despite the procrastinating year, there was a chance that something might get done on the school finance bill, as a conference committee was scheduled Monday morning to work out differences, just days before their deadline. While the Senate passed a school finance bill, the House did not have enough votes to pass a bill.
The forum was held at the Main Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library, 625 Minnesota Ave. It was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Johnson County. About 40 persons attended despite snow flurries Saturday morning.
School finance
Rep. Valdenia Winn, D-34th Dist., who is on the conference committee, said the House could not come to an agreement on a school finance bill last week, and so was going into the conference committee without a bill. About 50 House members wanted to fund schools for two years, as opposed to the Senate, which wanted to fund it for four years. The Senate plan would fund schools with an additional $360 million for four years, which is Gov. Laura Kelly’s proposal.
There is speculation that if the Senate’s version passes, the courts will approve it, but they won’t know that until it happens, according to Rep. Winn.
“Everyone is tired of litigation, but if the Legislature does not do its job, the courts are the option,” Rep. Winn, who also serves on the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education, said. “So the schools have used the option, used the courts.”
The House will not be presenting school funding amounts, but instead will present policies in the conference committee, such as more accountability, she said.
“No one can question accountability,” Rep. Winn said. “This is half of the budget statement, so everyone’s concerned with accountability.”
Student performance and the achievement gap are very serious and have to be addressed, Rep. Winn said. State assessments may not explain everything, but courts have addressed that a quarter of the population of 206 school districts are not performing well, she said.
“There’s got to be a way to figure that out,” she said.
Rep. Winn, assistant minority leader in the House, said she also has supported restoring due process for teachers during the school finance discussion, and that bill is still in House.
Sen. Kevin Braun, R-5th Dist., said he supported the Senate plan for the education budget, which was the governor’s plan. He passed out worksheets to the audience in attendance and asked them to fill it out with their priorities for state spending. He said he supported stability for the schools, so they could predict what their budgets will be in the future.
Medicaid expansion
Medicaid expansion passed the House, under the leadership of Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, D-36th Dist. She said they had to use an unusual maneuver to get it to a vote, as it had been blocked by the leadership, even though a majority of lawmakers supported it.
She said with House passage, it’s two-thirds of the way there, because the governor also supports Medicaid expansion. The issue now goes to the Senate.
Rep. Wolfe Moore said that Medicaid expansion means that people who otherwise cannot afford coverage, such as a family of four making $33,000 a year, would be allowed to be on Medicaid to access health care.
That means they can be treated in the doctor’s office instead of going to the emergency room, where health care costs are higher, Rep. Wolfe Moore said.
It’s the right thing, and it’s less costly, she added.
During the forum, one senator said he didn’t like the emotional tone during the Senate’s consideration of Medicaid expansion.
“What we saw in the Senate this week was a disgrace, hanging banners saying ‘blood on your hands’ was a disgrace,” Sen. Braun said. “You wouldn’t want me to do that on abortion, would you? And I won’t.
“That kind of emotion is not helpful to the argument,” he said. “When I walked through the Senate, out of Ways and Means, I had people shoving signs in my face, screaming at me. That’s not helpful. We can have a logical conversation about medical care.”
He said he knows what truly needy people are, having had family members with serious medical conditions and having once worked in a nursing home when he was in college.
“We have 3,000 people in Kansas who are still not getting care because there aren’t enough people to take care of them,” Braun said. “Adding 150,000 people to that point, and nowhere where it’s been done has it been 150,000, it’s always been two times or more.”
He is open to having a conversation about it, he said, about how to care for them and how to get them insurance, he said.
“Where are you willing to raise your taxes for Medicaid expansion?” Braun asked, referring to the budget worksheets he passed out. “Where are you willing to cut in the budget?”
Sen. Haley remarked there were two senators from Wyandotte County with totally different views on Medicaid expansion.
He said he continued to speak for the growing majority of Wyandotte Countians and Kansans who want an expansion of Medicaid.
Kansas will be reimbursed 90 percent by the federal government for the cost of implementing this expansion, he said.
“For those of us who believe that health care is a right, I believe that is something that every American should have access to without having to go bankrupt in order to afford it,” he said. “At some point in time, we will all need to have that health care.”
The health care system in many parts of the state has failed, and some hospitals have closed. Those who have access to health care currently are low-income persons who are under Medicaid and are fully covered, while some people with average incomes are not well covered, he said.
“We cannot afford as a society to not ensure that hard-working, often average income or low income citizens are not expanded to have the opportunity,” Sen. Haley said. “I don’t care what the budgets say or what you look at. We have to, because health care should be a right. It shouldn’t be a right to access that bankrupts those that are hard-working but otherwise are ineligible because they make a little bit too much more than the threshold for that coverage now.”
He said he is looking forward to debate in the Senate on the issue.
Rep. Wolfe Moore said it’s a false choice to say that with Medicaid expansion, taxes will go up. She said states that have expanded recently have not seen that. Most states were either neutral or saw a budget uptick, she said.
Many saw a great economic benefit, with more doctors, nurses and clinics, she said.
“The facts just don’t support that our taxes will go up as a result of Medicaid expansion,” she said. “Thirty-six states have done this. Before we’re done, every state in the Union, I believe, will have done this. We’re missing out on that federal funding. The federal government’s paying for 90 percent of this. We pay for 10 percent. That is a great deal and that’s something every state around us, our tax dollars are going to now, and we’re not taking them up on this.”
The family of four making $33,000, which doesn’t have insurance, may have used their rent payment or car payment just in one doctor’s visit for their child, she said.
“How does it make sense to put people on the road to financial ruin just because they want to make sure their kids are healthy? It makes no sense to me,” Rep. Wolfe Moore said.
Guns on campus
Rep. Winn voted no on the question of 18-year-olds carrying guns with a conceal-and- carry permit (HB 2326), which would include college campuses. The bill also would allow 18-year-olds to carry guns on the campuses of the deaf and blind schools. In the past, lawmakers approved 21-year-olds and older carrying guns on campus.
“I teach college,” Rep. Winn said, “and when I want to get in somebody’s face, and they want to get in my face, I think, ‘Are they packing?’”
Rep. Pam Curtis said she voted against the bill to lower the age of Kansas carry.
While the bill did not get to the Senate yet, Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist., said he would not support lowering the age for concealed carry.
Rep. Wolfe Moore said she had opposed the conceal-and-carry bill, as did Rep. Stan Frownfelter, D-37th Dist.
“You have to have a driver’s ed education to drive a car. I cannot put a gun in a person’s hand without a proper education,” Rep. Frownfelter said.
Sen. Kevin Braun said he would like to read the details of the bill first before taking a position on it.
Other bills
Also discussed at the forum were topics such as a utilities bill a domestic violence bill, and other issues. Another question was about Wyandotte County being a “charging desert” for electric cars.
Sen. Haley said they had to find a way to fund highway maintenance for electric cars, just as the gas tax on other cars funds it.
A utility bill, SB 69, will include a rate evaluation of utilities in the state, including the Board of Public Utilities, Sen. Haley said. Some persons have said that Kansas pays more for electricity than other states, which prompted the study.
Sen. Haley sponsored an amendment to SB 69 that would allow BPU customers to ask questions of the Kansas Corporation Commission about their utility charges, however, that amendment did not go on the bill at the time of the hearing.
Rep. Curtis said the House passed SB 69, the rate study, 117-7, and the Senate has concurred, so that it heads to the governor’s desk.
Rep. Frownfelter said the reason this bill came up is because of the merger of Westar and Kansas City Power and Light. The bill is more about the other utilities than BPU, he said.
A domestic violence bill would not allow those who have domestic violence convictions to have guns. HB 2406, a domestic violence bill, is supported by Rep. Curtis. She said it was in the Federal and State Affairs Committee, and there was no hearing on it, and perhaps it will be brought up again next year.
Rep. Curtis said another domestic violence bill she introduced, HB 2279, providing domestic violence victims with better notification regarding arrest and release times, has passed the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Another bill she worked on would restore local governments’ ability to require prevailing wage on local construction projects. She did not get a hearing on it this year and hopes to have a hearing next year.
Rep. Curtis also has been working with the Early Childhood Learning Caucus. “It’s something we really need to make sure we’re focused on,” she said.
She also has worked with restoring investment in the arts community in Kansas, adding some dollars in 2020 to open some additional federal grants to the arts communities, she said.
Rep. Frownfelter said 10 years ago, they lost 17 Democrats, and they still don’t have enough numbers to make changes. The next election will be the most important one, he said, because the Legislature will be doing redistricting. If more Democrats are not elected, he said, it will mean 10 more years of the same.
