There is a lot going on in the Kansas Legislature this week, since Drop Dead Day is Friday, April 5th. This is the last day for bills to be worked and voted on and sent to the Governor. Or at least, that's the plan. If that happens, the Legislature will then take the next three weeks off for their "Spring Break," and reconvene on May 1st for the veto session, where they would consider bills voted by the Governor after Drop Dead Day. But that's not how it usually works.

This morning, the Kansas House will begin debating and voting on a large number of bills, as many as 40, by last count. Among them are two bills having to do with public education in Kansas. We need you, today, now, to click the link below to send an email to your Kansas Representative, asking them to support clean, transparent funding to meet the requirements of the Kansas Supreme Court, so that we can finally put a decade of litigation behind us.

This is written testimony delivered to the House Committee on Federal and State Affairs, in opposition to HCR 5004, a proposed Amendment to the Kansas Constitution to ban the legal and safe right to an abortion.

This is written testimony delivered to the House Committee on K-12 Education Budget in support of SB 142, a bill that would fully fund public education, based on Governor Laura Kelly's plan.

Last week, when some of the largest school districts in Kansas were having Spring break, and parents and education advocates were enjoying time with family or away, the Leadership of the Kansas House of Representatives sought to push through their bill to "fix" public education. On the same day that the Kansas Senate voted to pass SB 142, which would add the funding sought by the Governor, the House held a hurriedly-organized hearing on HB 2395, an omnibus education policy bill that changes policy and funding levels passed last year and already ruled Constitutional by the Kansas Supreme Court. In short, they threw a spanner into the works.

This is testimony delivered to the House Committee on K-12 Education Budget by Brandi Fisher, Executive Director of the MainStream Coalition, in opposition to HB 2395, a bill that would set back public education and continue school funding litigation.

In addition, we have appended the prepared comments Ms. Fisher delivered orally before the Committee at the hearing, as they differed from the written testimony in a few key areas, given time to read the 61-page bill.

This is an article from the Topeka Capital-Journal about the hearing itself: Rep. Brenda Landwehr lashes out at opponent to Kansas House plan to fund schools - 3/18/2019

This is testimony delivered to the House Committee on Elections by Lesa Patterson-Kinsey, Outreach Coordinator for the MainStream Coalition, in support of SB 130, a bill that would require elections officers attempt to contact voters when a signature mismatch on advance ballots would otherwise invalidate the vote.

SB 22 is a bill originated in the Kansas Senate by Senate President Susan Wagle (R, 7%) to redistribute taxes to high earning individuals and multinational corporations. It passed the Senate 26-14, with a few Republicans bucking their leadership, but not enough margin to override a veto (in the Senate they need 27 votes). This past week, it passed the House, by a wider margin, 76-43. The House needs 84 votes to override a veto. There's been a lot of ink spilled and web pages refreshed on this topic, so we thought we'd take a minute to lay out the politics of this bill.

The Kansas Legislature has hit its first significant deadline, and the consensus is that there has been little action on the most important issues confronting the state. Of course both chambers did pass a slew of non-controversial bills by last Thursday's Turnaround Day, but budget bills, the education finance lawsuit, and medicaid expansion all sit in committees that can still work on them.

The Kansas Legislature is only in session for about five months, give or take a late night extension for partisan arm-twisting. It has some definite deadlines as the year progresses, and we are coming up on one of the most important this week: Turnaround Day. This is the last date on which non-exempt bills may be considered in the chamber in which they were introduced. This year it is this Thursday, February 28.