The legislature is nearing the end of the regular session. We wrapped up work on all non-exempt bills for the session Friday and will spend this week working on conference committee reports, hopefully wrapping up the regular session on Friday. We return to Topeka on April 30 for the traditional wrap-up session where we’ll consider any gubernatorial vetoes and finish the budget and holdover conference committee reports.
We’re still trying to reach consensus on a coal-fired energy bill that will allow for development at Holcomb in southwest Kansas. The Governor’s veto has angered Republicans and Democrats alike. The support is overwhelming in both the House & Senate but we’re a handful of votes short of the 2/3rds majority in the House for a veto override. A second energy bill is in the works and there is still a chance votes for the override will be secured by week’s end. Our future base-load energy needs depend on this development, which also will include wind-power development as a supplemental energy source.
Both the House & Senate have now taken action on their respective versions of illegal immigration legislation. We debated the House version for nearly 4 hours Thursday before passing a heavily amended bill. The House bill came out of Committee heavily amended after working with business groups on a version they could support. Kansas business had taken the position that it was up to the federal government to police illegal immigration and they opposed any effort to place the responsibility on businesses to crack down on the problem. The House bill tried to accommodate businesses concerns. However, the business coalition still objected to the bill and on the House floor a proposal that stripped out most of the bill’s teeth was adopted.
As amended, the bill would impose criminal penalties on those who knowingly register an illegal alien to vote, would prevent illegal aliens from receiving state-funded public assistance such as food stamps, would enhance the penalties for dealing in false identification documents, would establish civil contempt penalties for any business found to have knowingly employed an illegal alien or failed to comply with federal law regarding the verification of an employee’s legal work status, would require businesses to enroll & participate in the E-Verify network to receive any state contract or grant and would require the Department of Labor to use E-Verify to verify all employees hired in the state. Businesses would have an absolute defense if they use E-Verify.
Another effort to repeal provisions in current law that allow for in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants failed. The House & Senate versions will now go to conference committee to iron out the differences between the two bills, which are very similar. It remains to be seen whether the resulting Kansas law will be upheld if challenged in the courts as there is language in federal law that would appear to pre-empt states from passing their own illegal immigration reforms. States have had to act due to the utter failure of the federal government to enforce its own laws. Illegal immigration costs the state millions of dollars each year.