Legislators say much remains to be done after break
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 02:14 p.m., April 7, 2008
Updated 02:14 p.m., April 7, 2008
The Kansas Legislature has finished its work at the Statehouse until the omnibus session, also known as the veto session, begins on April 30. Here’s what Emporia’s three legislators thought about the close of this part of the session in The Gazette’s weekly look at their work in Topeka.
Sen. Jim Barnett
Barnett said the session passed without any major work getting done, with the exception of the budget. And the budget, he said, was incomplete.
“First of all, the budget that’s passed does not include the funding for the multi-year school budget that I believe will ultimately pass,” he said. “But without that, I would consider it incomplete work. It gives us a base budget, but there’s a lot yet to be worked out.”
Other major issues that Barnett considers unfinished include the health-care reform and immigration debates.
“In my eight years, this is the first time that we have left the regular session with so much work incomplete,” he said. “Finishing the budget is difficult enough when you return from veto session. With all these major issues unresolved, our work will be even more difficult.”
With the time off from the Legislature, in addition to focusing on his medical practice, Barnett said he will continue to work with other interested parties to find solutions for the unresolved issues, particularly with health care reform.
“One of the most positive aspects of this session is that there has never been this level of discussion about comprehensive energy policy, health-care reform and immigration legislation,” he said.
Rep. Don. Hill
Also nodding to a lack of progress in the session, Hill referred to last week as “a scissor-step forward and two baby steps back.” He said the final week before the omnibus session wasn’t unusual as compared to other years in the Legislature.
“It’s kind of a tedious process, and one that tends to be pretty wearying, but it’s unusual this year, and we’ve discussed more, to the extent of which there are so many large issues that are yet unresolved,” he said. “And some of those, I had high hopes that they would find resolution last week, but that turned out not to be the case.”
Hill said legislators were probably very close to resolution on most of those issues, but he saw health-care reform and immigration as the most unresolved debates. He sees those as the issues that will be at the top of the list for the omnibus session, along with energy and the budget.
“We did reach the final decision, or inclusion, on the K-12 funding, and also, we did reach final conclusion on the disaster bills...” he said. “And I’m not necessarily discouraged about the other four. I do think that the work that has been put into those issues won’t be lost.”
The Emporia school district funding portion of the disaster relief legislation, Hill said, was now part of Senate Bill 669, which has moved out of conference committee but hasn’t reached the floor yet.
Hill said he’d spend his time off from the Legislature doing catch-up work at his pharmacies.
“The break will be welcome for me,” he said. “I have a lot of stuff I need to do, and the change of pace will also be welcome.”
Rep. Peggy Mast
Late last week, Mast said the veto session always features uncertainty.
“We don’t know how many days we’ll be there,” she said. “We don’t know what our hours are going to be, and we’ll spend a lot of idle time just waiting to vote.”
Mast spoke in favor of a controversial piece of legislation, passed by the House, that would allow private citizens and gun dealers to own machine guns. Most states do allow people who pass the necessary government checks to own automatic weapons.
“I think that is something that, at first blush, raises a lot of concerns with a lot of people,” she said. “But some of the people that testified about this were movie companies that wanted to come out and film movies, and they couldn’t do any shoot-’em-ups with automatic weapons as long as we didn’t allow that to happen.”
She said collectors wishing to gain access to automatic firearms have to pay very high prices for them, “So this is not like street gangs are going to have access to them.”
Mast also talked about several measures that had passed out of conference committee, including one that requires individuals to show a photo ID to vote unless they are at least 55 years old or have a disability.
For Mast, the time off from Topeka will give her a chance to paint her house.
“We may be putting a new roof on the house, and I’ll be doing some physical labor, which will be very refreshing after sitting and waiting a lot.
“Looking forward to that.”