After chaotic last week, the Kansas Legislature will return to major items in late April
With each passing day last week, tensions in the Kansas Legislature grew, along with the backlog of unfinished business.
On Wednesday night, House and Senate leaders temporarily gave up trying to negotiate language barring hospitals from discriminating over COVID-19 vaccination status. Similar scenes played out as lawmakers struggled to reach agreements on tax and education issues.
By the end of the day Thursday, lawmakers struck some tenuous deals. But Friday morning the atmosphere grew more toxic with word of an effort by GOP senators to oust the state’s ethics watchdog, who is in the midst of an investigation involving legislators and at least one leading special interest group.
That evening — the last of the regular session — members were finally moving on major legislation, taking votes on the budget, a “parents bill of rights,” and a measure banning transgender athletes from girls sports.
But as the hour got later, exhausted lawmakers trickled out of the building. Agreements crumbled and stalled. With 15 members absent, the House abruptly adjourned just before 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Minutes later the Senate followed.
House Speaker Ron Ryckman told reporters last month that his only priorities for the remainder of the session were to approve redistricting maps and a budget.
Lawmakers left Topeka Saturday having accomplished that goal but little else, leaving major work to be done when they return for veto session on April 25.
A deal between House and Senate Republicans on school finance fell apart over provisions in a scholarship program for technical and community college.
Legislation legalizing sports betting nearly failed in the House when lawmakers learned of an 11th hour move to place 80% of the revenue in a fund earmarked for attracting major sports teams. The Senate adjourned before voting on it.
Neither chamber voted on a proposal to eliminate the food sales tax over the next three years. Mike Pirner, a spokesman for Senate President Ty Masterson, said the chamber had planned to take up that issue and sports betting but adjourned when they learned the House had stopped for the night.
“There’s a lot of fighting between the House and the Senate a lot of times before first adjournment and this was no exception,” Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, said.
“I think it was a combination of all of these different things just kind of boiling to the top on the last day that made it seem even worse.”
Public Health
Over the course of the week, the House and Senate faced consistently tense conference committees.
On several occasions Senate Republicans sought to add language adjusting state and local rules for COVID-19 and other public health emergencies to unrelated bills. They faced major opposition from House Republicans.
Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, called the effort a tactical error.
“I think it doesn’t necessarily represent Kansans at this point,” Masterson told reporters early in the week.
Rep. Susan Concannon, a Beloit Republican, said efforts to add such language to child welfare legislation would have violated the Legislature’s one-subject rule for bills.
After two days of negotiations Rep. Fred Patton, a Topeka Republican, agreed to a Senate proposal adding language barring hospitals from discriminating based on COVID-19 vaccination status to a bill on civil immunity for hospitals. It also added a provision barring the governor from restricting churches during a state of emergency to a bill blocking renegotiation of Medicaid contracts for a year.
The immunity bill passed both chambers. But the bill freezing Medicaid contracts that are due to be renegotiated passed the Senate but was not considered in the House.
Speaking to Republican Senators Friday night Masterson and Sen. Kellie Warren, a Leawood Republican, said they planned to continue seeking avenues for similar policies.
“It is my intention, and I think leadership’s as well that we get the rest across in a shell,” Warren said.
A shell is legislative term a bill that has been approved by both chambers but not sent to the governor’s office. Instead its original contents are stripped and replaced with other language unrelated to the title of the measure. It is used as a way to move controversial proposals through the legislative process.
Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, blamed the hangups on the Senate’s preoccupation with election year messages. Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican, is running for Treasurer while Warren is running for Attorney General.
“That’s how you get bad 11th hour policy and that’s how you get dysfunction in the Legislature,” Clayton said. “They’re not focusing on where they are and what they’re doing.”
School Finance
For the second year in a row, lawmakers finished the regular session without school funding guaranteed.
Senate Republicans opted not to hold a vote on a bill that combined funding for K-12 schools with a series of policy provisions because of a House amendment opening a scholarship program for career and technical training to out-of-state students.
Senate negotiators agreed to the amendment around 12:30 a.m. on Friday but 9 p.m. that same day Senate Republicans were prepared to vote the bill down over the provision.
“My first words when that was laid out by the House Monday morning was that that was a non-starter for us,” Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican, said.
Democrats already opposed the funding bill because it included a provision requiring school systems to allow out-of-district students to enroll if they have space.
Ultimately the Senate skipped the bill so that it could continue negotiations during veto session.
Baumgardner said the scholarship proposal was unvetted and could be a “budget buster” while Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican, viewed it as a way to bring more young people to Kansas.
“We did it last time in veto session so if that’s what we need to do that’s always an option,” Williams said Friday night.
Veto session is traditionally reserved for the Legislature to write the final budget and consider overrides on any gubernatorial vetoes but nearly any issue majority leadership views as a priority can be brought up at that time.
This could include the food sales tax, sports betting, limits to ballot boxes and changes to public health policy.
“Everything’s still alive until sine die. Nothing’s dead until we gavel out that day,” said Sen. Richard Hilderbrand, a Baxter Springs Republican who pushed for restrictions to health officer authority and changes to election laws.
“One thing I have learned up there is the issue is never the issue. Sometimes trying to find out what the issue is is the key.”
The Star’s Lucy Peterson contributed to this report.
