Clock is ticking for lawmakers who want action on bills to bring transparency to Kansas

When the Kansas House approved a bill last week requiring information be released after a child dies of abuse, lawmakers applauded the action as a move toward more sunlight.

Two other bills promoting transparency also have passed one chamber, and two more have cleared both the House and Senate. Lawmakers also have their fingers crossed on a couple of additional bills that would bring openness to Kansas.

One, the Kansas Transparency Act, is scheduled for debate in the House on Monday.

But in a legislative session where transparency was touted from Day One — and with the body's first adjournment just days away — many are frustrated that more hasn't been accomplished. Despite calls from citizens across the Sunflower State to stop secretive practices, especially allowing anonymous bills and not recording legislators' votes, those actions continue.

"I think it’s a lot easier to talk a good game on this than to actually pass legislation to solve the problem," said Rep. Brett Parker, an Overland Park Democrat whose proposal to record all votes in committees and in the House and Senate has not even had a hearing.

"There’s been bare minimum effort to move a couple of things forward," he said. "But on the whole, we have a long way to go."

A cry for transparency in Topeka came after The Kansas City Star revealed in a mid-November series that Kansas has one of the darkest state governments in the nation. The series found that more than 90 percent of the laws passed in the last decade stemmed from bills whose authors were anonymous. That means Kansans don’t know who pushed the measures and why.

The series also revealed how the once rarely-used gut-and-go maneuver had become commonplace. And when it comes to child welfare, The Star found that the state agency responsible for the safety of kids often cloaks its involvement with child tragedies, even shredding notes after meetings where children’s deaths are discussed.

Of the 19 transparency bills introduced this legislative session, nine are stuck in committees with no hearings scheduled. And four other bills have had committee hearings in just one chamber and haven't been advanced.

Among the bills stalled? One that would ban the "gut-and-go" tactic, in which lawmakers strip the language in a bill that’s usually already passed one chamber and replace it with a totally unrelated measure. Other bills that have gained no traction are those that would require votes to be recorded in committees and on the House and Senate floors.

Mark Desetti, legislative director for the Kansas National Education Association and a close observer of the process in Topeka, said he would flunk the Legislature on transparency progress so far this session.

“It’s a no-brainer to put the name of a sponsor on a bill," he said. "And they can’t even bring themselves to do that.”

If lawmakers want transparency, Desetti said, they need to act quickly and decisively.

The Legislature is scheduled to start its nearly three-week break starting April 7 and return to Topeka on April 26 for its wrap-up session. While issues that appear to be dead can sometimes be brought back through amendments, lawmakers will be focusing most of their attention on budget bills and how to fund the state's schools.

In January, Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman ordered all committee chairs to stop allowing the introduction of anonymous bills. It appears many didn't hear the Olathe Republican's message.

The Star examined bills scheduled for debate on the House calendar on Tuesday and found that 62 of the 74 measures up for consideration — 83 percent — did not include the name of the sponsor or the organization requesting them. Those House and Senate bills without names included everything from a proposal related to wrongful convictions to one dealing with revenue from instant bingo vending machines. Even the the Kansas Transparency Act still remained anonymous.

House Majority Leader Don Hineman, a Dighton Republican, said on Wednesday that the number was disappointing.

"I expected that all of us in the House would do a better job of following through on the directive that the speaker gave us to be more transparent and forthcoming with the origin of bills," he said.

By Thursday, after The Star raised questions, names had been added to 18 of the bills, including the Transparency Act and bingo vending machine bills.

What's frustrating some lawmakers is that Ryckman's order came only after an Overland Park legislator announced that she was introducing a proposal to ban the practice altogether. Rep. Stephanie Clayton, and 40 other lawmakers who signed on to her bill, believes a change in the law is needed rather than an order from the speaker, which could be reversed down the road under a new speaker.

Clayton's bill, which would require that measures include the name of a person or group requesting them, is stalled in a committee and has not received a hearing.

"It is tremendously frustrating," Clayton said. "It's being treated like it's the most controversial legislation that you can ever find. ... The fight makes no sense to me, in particular because this is a winning issue for all of us."

Clayton said there was no excuse for so many House bills to still have no named sponsor or requester.

"I wonder why they don’t all have names on them," she said. "That’s what they said they would do. ... If you are going to say you are going to do this, and refuse to have a hearing for a bill that does it, then you darn well better follow through. And this doesn’t look like follow through to me.”

Eric Turek, communications director for Ryckman, said the speaker has taken multiple steps to improve transparency of the legislative process. At Ryckman’s direction, he said, all House floor action is now video live-streamed and archived and all committee proceedings are being live-streamed and audio archived. The largest committee room in the Capitol also is now set up for live-stream video and hearings held there are being archived, he said.

Putting the names of sponsors and requesters on bills is a work in progress, Turek said. A team of revisors has been retrieving the names of those requesting bills from available online committee minutes, then listing the names on the House bill’s home page for the first time, he said. The legislative IT department also has been working to upload the information for the entire 2017 and 2018 sessions, and committee assistants have started noting who requested bills for introduction in their minutes and on the committee’s bill index, he said.

“It has taken time to change and perfect these procedures, and we continue to look for more ways to make the legislative process as open and transparent as possible,” he said.

On the Senate side, a bill similar to Clayton's, which was introduced by Sen. Tom Hawk and has 21 other sponsors, sits idle in a committee. Senate Bill 350, which says that only committees and legislators may introduce bills and that committee bills must include the name of the member who requested the measure, has enough sponsors to pass the 40-member Senate.

But it has been languishing in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee since Feb. 2. No hearing has been scheduled, and Hawk said it is doubtful the measure will go anywhere despite the strong bipartisan support.

"The old fundamental principle in politics is follow the money," said Hawk, a Manhattan Democrat. "Well, how about follow the idea of where did it come from? And make sure that somebody has the strength of their convictions that a bill is good enough to put your name on it."

Hawk said he has been working with Sen. Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, to try to get it moving.

"Dinah has been talking to leadership and lobbying and I think even went in and talked to the governor's staff to see if we could get some push from them," he said. "Our bill, in my opinion, was the least controversial of any of them. But nobody from the governor's office has contacted me. And the governor in his state-of-the-state address talked about transparency.

"People say they're for transparency, but then when you say let's do this, they come up with all these reasons that it might backfire. But that's precisely the reason why we need it."

Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, said in January that she was open to taking a similar action to make the sponsors known. But a check on Friday found that only nine of the 52 measures under consideration on the Senate calendar — which included a mix of House and Senate bills — contained that information. All the rest were listed as committee bills with no sponsors identified.

No matter what happens, some lawmakers said, they will keep pushing to make state government more open. Sometimes it takes several years to get legislation passed.

"I will keep filing my bill," Parker said, including offering it next year as a change in the House rules.

"We'll keep trying every way we can until we get these problems solved."

The breakdown

Two bills have passed both houses.

▪ A body camera bill proposed by Rep. John Alcala, a Topeka Democrat, has passed both houses and is in a House-Senate conference committee.

▪ And a measure proposed by the House Judiciary Committee requiring the KBI to create a Kansas Asset Seizure and Forfeiture Repository has passed both the House and Senate and has gone to the governor. The KBI would be required to maintain the repository and an associated public website, bringing more transparency to the process by which law enforcement agencies can seize property and other assets of criminal suspects then petition to have them forfeited and turned over to the agencies.

Three bills have passed one chamber and await action in the other.

▪ A bill sponsored by Wagle and Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, would require anyone attempting to influence an executive or judicial branch official to register as a lobbyist. It passed the Senate and on Thursday received first-round approval in the House. Final action on the bill is scheduled for Monday.

▪ A bill that would make taxpayer-funded economic incentive programs more public has passed the House and is in a Senate committee. The measure is sponsored by Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican, and two others.

▪ And a bill calling for release of information in child deaths passed the House on Thursday and now goes to the full Senate for consideration. The bill was requested by the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

One bill is up for consideration by the full House.

▪ The Kansas Transparency Act, which calls for providing audio and video broadcasts of legislative meetings, is scheduled for debate on the House floor on Monday.

Four bills have had hearings but have not been advanced.

▪ A measure backed by Rep. Jarrod Ousley, a Merriam Democrat, that would establish the Office of the Child Advocate within the Department of Administration, had a hearing on March 20 and awaits action by the Committee on Children and Seniors.

▪ A bill requested by Rep. Kevin Jones, a Wellsville Republican, to abolish the Division of Post Audit in the legislative branch and create a Post Audit Division in the state treasurer's office had a hearing in a House committee on March 4, but no action has been taken. The change would remove oversight of auditing from the Legislature.

▪ A bill sponsored by the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee that would establish the Office of Education Inspector General had a hearing March 15 in the Senate Education Committee, but no action has been taken.

▪ A Senate Judiciary Committee bill relating to disclosure of law enforcement recordings using a body camera had a hearing Feb. 2 in that committee but it has not been advanced.

Nine other measures have gone nowhere.

Clayton's proposal on anonymous bills has been sitting in the House Appropriations Committee since Feb. 13. Hawk's bill has been stalled in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee since Feb. 2. Another bill, sponsored by Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Shawnee Republican, would require all committee bills to include in the meeting minutes the name of the person or agency requesting the measure. That bill, whose 10 other sponsors include Wagle, has been sitting in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee since Feb. 7.

A bill introduced by Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat, and 13 co-sponsors that would prohibit the "gut-and-go" practice has been sitting in the House Appropriations Committee since Feb. 13.

Two other bills that are stalled in committees would require the recording of legislators' votes. Parker's has been in the House Appropriations Committee since Feb. 13. The other, which is sponsored by Pilcher-Cook and three other lawmakers and would require the recording of committee votes, has been in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee since Feb. 7.

A bill introduced by Sen. Dennis Pyle, a Republican from Hiawatha, to create a state auditor office has been idling in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee since Feb. 8. And a bill introduced by the Senate Judiciary Committee that calls for better data collection on racial profiling has been stuck in that committee since Feb. 2.

A Senate Judiciary Committee bill that would enact the Police and Citizen Protection Act stipulating who has a right to see body camera footage has been sitting in that committee since Feb. 2.

This story was originally published March 30, 2018 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Clock is ticking for lawmakers who want action on bills to bring transparency to Kansas."