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.

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 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. Business 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.

Last week was budget week in Topeka, with both the House & Senate debating and passing their respective versions of the State’s spending package for fiscal year 2009. Both versions spend less than the Governor’s proposed budget but both put off until April nearly $150M in spending decisions. The final Consensus Revenue Estimate before adjournment comes to us in early April and will signal what funding is available for the final budget bill. Revenues have been running ahead of estimates so far this year but sales tax receipts have been flat and there is concern that revenues may lag in the next reporting periods.
Included in funding deferrals is the new state employee pay plan. A new improved state employee pay plan has received tentative approval, subject to finding the funding in the final days of the session. The new plan implements market adjustments to try to raise salaries to comparable market rates. In exchange, traditional longevity pay would be phased out. The proposal contains a 2½% base increase. I voted against the base bill due to the fact it didn’t address non-judicial state court employees but we took steps Thursday to address those salaries with docket fee increases to make non-judicial court employee pay track with the state employee pay plan.
Two of my floor amendments were successful. One removed the expense of $39.5M in bonding authority to build new prison bed space that we have determined is not currently necessary due to favorable bed capacity data. The other amendment added $1M in spending for the initial planning and design for two KU pharmacy school expansions that will add 45 new pharmacy student slots at the KU campus in Lawrence and expand the KU School of Medicine in Wichita to add 40 first time pharmacy school slots there. We are facing a critical pharmacy shortage in the state with 7 counties currently without a pharmacy and as many as 8 more in jeopardy of losing their pharmacy if new pharmacists are not recruited to take over the businesses. The average age of independent pharmacists in the state is 54.
In other legislative news, as expected, Governor Sebelius vetoed the legislature’s energy bill. The Senate passed the measure with veto-proof numbers and there was a strong bi-partisan vote in the House but we’re currently a few votes short of a veto override. The veto is a huge blow to rural Kansas development. On the one hand, the governor says she’s opposed to the legislature placing restrictions on the Secretary of Health & Environment’s authority while on the other hand she’s trying to negotiate for a smaller energy plant in western Kansas. In fact, the Legislature has unanimously passed legislation that places the same restrictions on the Secretary of Agriculture. Those restrictions merely say that the Secretary may not promulgate rules & regs that are more restrictive than current state or federal law without legislative approval. The legislature’s energy bill represents a “win-win” for the state and would serve as a model for future energy development in the state and a model for CO2 mitigation among the existing plants coming up for renewal of their energy permits. Work is underway to muster the votes for an override of the Governor’s veto.

We’re more than half-way through the session and finally one of the key issues of the session has been teed up for consideration. The issue is illegal immigration and whether Kansas will join a number of other states in moving ahead on an issue that Congress has failed to handle. While laws passed by Congress suggest that states are pre-empted from enacting their own laws addressing illegal immigration, the federal government has utterly failed to enforce its own laws and as a result, states have had to deal with the issue on their own.
The cost to taxpayers of illegal immigration is huge, with millions of individuals accessing taxpayer paid welfare, health and educational benefits while failing to have legal resident status. On the other hand, American employers, including thousands in Kansas, depend on immigrants to perform hard-to-fill employment positions and fear what may result if there is a sudden crackdown on illegal immigration. Federal law already prohibits employers from knowingly employing illegal immigrants but there is little true enforcement. Employers may, on a voluntary basis, sign up for an internet based employee verification system called E-Verify, which allows employers to access a website to confirm the legal status of a proposed worker. However, the system is not fool-proof and does not guarantee against identity theft. Still, several states have proposed making the E-Verify system mandatory such that all employers in the state would be required to verify prospective employees or face possible fines and penalties. Several of the bills pending in Kansas have this provision. Kansas business leaders are concerned about the possible mandate of a system that is known to contain errors and are concerned about provisions in proposed bills that would impose criminal penalties on businesses where honest hiring mistakes were made but knowledge of illegal hiring is imputed to the business based on circumstantial evidence.
Also controversial are provisions in some of the proposed legislation that would deny certain educational benefits, such as in-state tuition, to children of illegal immigrants. Kansas currently allows for in-state tuition at the Regents institutions for children of undocumented immigrants as long as they attended and graduated from a Kansas high school. The practice has been not to penalize the children for their parents’ status but the policy has been criticized as being, for example unfair to the children of soldiers stationed in Kansas but who do not qualify for in-state tuition. Less controversial are the provisions that would deny public state or local benefits to those without legal residential status.
Both the Senate and House have had hearings on proposed legislation to crack down on illegal immigration. Surrounding states have already passed legislation in one form or another. All are expected to face legal challenges by those who will argue that Federal law pre-empts state law. It remains to be seen whether the Kansas House & Senate will reach agreement this year on an immigration package. Public support for legislation is strong, particularly as it relates to denial of taxpayer paid benefits to those not in the country legally.

The big news in Topeka last week was passage of the compromise energy bill. The House-Senate Conference Committee reached agreement on the mega energy bill and the House and Senate both acted quickly to pass the measure overwhelmingly. The numbers in the Senate suggested veto-proof support while the House was still a few votes short of a veto-proof margin.
The bill would establish energy efficiency standards for state buildings and equipment. New and renovated state buildings would need to exceed by 10% national energy efficiency standards and property leased by the state would also have to meet national energy standards. In addition, new and existing energy generating plants would be required to use the best available technology to implement carbon dioxide capture. For the first time ever, a renewable energy standard would be placed in law. By 2012 at least 10% of the 3-year average peak load of public and cooperative electric utilities would need to come from renewable resources, increasing to a 15% requirement by 2016 and 20% by 2020.
Net metering for solar energy would be available to the public under the legislation. Customers would receive a credit applied to the succeeding billing period, equal to at least 150% of the avoided energy cost, for electricity generated in excess of that provided by the utility. The bill would also create tax incentives for energy efficient improvements to non-owner occupied housing units and would require mercury emission reduction of 80% by generating units beginning operation after January 1, 2008 and which use coal to produce over 10% of their heat input. Finally, the bill would put in place procedures for Sunflower Electric to reapply for permits to build their two new coal-fired plants based on current state and federal rules and regulations. Even with the strong bi-partisan support and energy efficiency reforms the Governor is expected to veto the bill, setting up a possible veto override.
At this point in the session several of the key planks of the Republican majority platform in the House are becoming reality, including a new law allowing all county election officers to designate advance satellite voting locations in the state. Campaign reform legislation has now passed over to the Senate for consideration there and the historic state budget transparency project is now a reality. On March 1 a new state searchable database for Kansans to keyword search their government’s receipts and expenditures went on-line at www.kanas.gov/kanview/. The House is also well on its way of holding the growth in state spending this year to 5%.
Other priorities include criminal sentencing reform, limiting the discretion of courts to grant probation in serious sex offenses and requiring jail and prison time for chronic repeat property theft offenders and drunk drivers. Hearings have been underway on the issue of illegal immigration, which I’ll talk about more next week and the House Tax Committee has kicked out legislation to reform the corporate tax structure by closing certain tax loopholes and reducing the top rate from 7.35% to 6.85%. The House Tax Committee is also working on legislation that would make more uniform sales tax exemptions for not-for-profit organizations. There are over 30proposed sales tax exemption proposals pending in the House alone.

The Legislature reached its first major landmark of the 2008 session Friday as the House and Senate finished up work on their respective bills and passed them over to the second house. The House is in recess until Wednesday to give staff time to catch up with the numerous bills worked late last week.
The Energy conference committee is said to be close to agreement on a compromise of the energy bill essential to revisiting the Sunflower Electric application for permits to build two new energy efficient coal-fired plants near Holcomb. The Secretary of Health & Environment is in the process of negotiating with existing plants to reach agreement on CO2 emission reduction standards. We are hopeful of having sufficient votes to override a threatened gubernatorial veto and end up with a bill that represents a win-win situation for Kansas, one that protects the unprecedented $3.6B economic development project for Western Kansas and one that contains incentives for CO2 mitigation and renewable energy sources.
Bills passed by the House last week included a rewrite of the state’s stalking law to make it one of the toughest in the nation. Drafted in the wake of the Jodi Sonderholm tragedy in Ark City, the new legislation will give prosecutors more tools to seek prosecutions earlier in a perpetrator’s course of conduct toward a stalking victim. Other legislation passed last week would reduce judges’ discretion in granting probation to violent sex offenders. That legislation was written in the wake of highly controversial rulings by a Topeka judge last year who used downward departure authority in the state’s sentencing guidelines to grant probation to at least two sexually violent felons. We also beefed up criminal sentencing laws aimed at repeat property theft felons.
Disappointments last week included three education bills that were defeated by heavy lobbying from the states teachers’ union. One proposal would have addressed a legislative post audit recommendation to reduce low-enrollment weighting for school districts that are small by choice. Another curious defeat involved legislation aimed a distributing high density at risk funding more equitably. The vote was curious since many whose districts would have benefitted voted against the measure. Finally, a measure aimed at getting schools more money to attract math & science teachers was narrowly defeated because the teachers union objected to any class of teacher getting more pay than another; this in spite of the fact that we have a huge shortage of math & science teachers, many of whom take higher paying jobs in the private sector. These defeats don’t bode well for our efforts to provide schools with alternative certification programs to address the teachers shortage. The teachers union opposes that proposal as well.
The Senate has passed a measure that would mandate kindergarten attendance while the House defeated a proposal to fund all-day kindergarten.
At week’s end we received more good news on the revenue side. February tax revenues were up $16.7M over estimates, putting us a total of $29M ahead of estimates for the year. Sales tax receipts continue to stagnate but personal and corporate income taxes came in ahead of projections.