[Jayhawk-Chapter] Kansas legislative update

[Rob Tabor]

Good evening in Kansas Federation family, friends, and allies,

The Kansas Senate has had a very busy day working its way through several bills. Action was taken on some two dozen bills, but unfortunately our bill, SB 276, was not one of them. The Senate has been working through bills in the order in which they are listed on the 23 page Senate calendar which I reviewed today. To give you a sense of where things are, they stopped in about the middle of Page 7, and our bill is on page 18. I should note that the rate at which the Senate moves through its calendar is determined by how many bills are controversial and consume a lot of the senators time with debate and questions. With just 2 days left before the turnaround deadline at the close of business on Thursday, there is still a good possibility that the Senate will take up SB 276 before deadline. However, if the Senate runs out of time before it can get to our bill, it will likely be referred to one of the exempt committees, which by rule is exempted from most deadlines except for final adjournment on April 1. The most likely exempt Committee is the federal and state affairs committee. I predict this for two reasons. First, the bill was introduced in federal and state last year during the first session of the current legislature, and the bill was assigned to that committee for hearings and markup. Secondly, the language of our bill is closest in subject matter to the work of that committee as opposed to the other 2 exempt committees. If this does occur, rest assured that we will devise a strategy to make our best attempt to keep the bill moving through the legislative process.

Having study the Senate calendar, I am of the opinion that we do not need to contact Senator Masterson with a request that he move the bill, as it is already on the Senate general orders calendar. At this point, we simply need to contact our senators and ask them to support the bill when it comes up for consideration. If you have already written to your senator, thank you for doing so. If this is still on your to do list, thanks in advance. I will continue to keep you all updated as the Senate works its way through the pile of bills on its agenda.

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