[Home-on-the-Range] Newsline sponsorship bill dead for the year

[Rob Tabor]

Good afternoon Federation colleagues and cohorts,

The subject line says it all. Unfortunately, the blind information access act (Senate sub for HB 2176), did not survive the house Senate conference committee deliberations. according to our information sources, the house bill which the original Newsline funding bill was paired became unexpectedly controversial. this is always a risk,when two or more measures are combined into one package piece of legislation. Rest assured, however, that Senator Mary Ware is a true champion of our causes, and had the best of intentions in attempting to accelerate the bill through the legislative process. One does not always know when a proposed bill might become controversial, so this kind of development was totally unexpected.

So what does all this mean? Unfortunately, we will have to begin a new with a 2025 legislative session when a new legislature is elected to office, and will be seated. In the meantime, we have an excellent chance of getting another appropriation from the state general fund (SGF), Which will provide funding for the service for the next state fiscal year. This is not a done deal yet, so it will probably happen when the legislature reconvene to consider the usual omnibus funding measure.

On behalf of our state president and board  of Directors, I sincerely thank everyone who took the time to contact the Senate utilities committee, and the members of the House Senate conference committee to urge passage of the bill. But as you can probably guess, either myself, or whoever is the legislative Director next year will be asking you to do this again. Our state legislators will learn as Congress has learned, that federation-ists do not just go away when we need a deserve to have something done. We are getting ever closer to the finish line, but persistence is definitely the key. I find it quite encouraging to learn that Senator fag, who shares the senate, utilities committee, Realizes that Newsline sponsorship is very important to us and wants to hold a hearing early in January next year. We we are prepared to remind him of his promise should that become necessary.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your efforts to get permanent funding for Newsline. as always, rest, assured I will keep you up to date when we learn about the potential Newsline stopgap funding measure.

Best regards,
Rob Tabor, | first vice president/legislative Director national Federation of the blind of Kansas
PH: (785) 865-9959
Rob.tabor at sbcglobal.net