Veto closes week for Legislature
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:18 p.m., March 24, 2008
Updated 01:18 p.m., March 24, 2008
Emporia’s three legislators have always been in favor of allowing the expansion of the Holcomb coal-fired energy plant, but as expected, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the measure last week. Here’s what Emporia’s lawmakers thought about that veto, and the work they did last week, in the Gazette’s weekly look at their activity in the Statehouse.
Sen. Jim Barnett
Barnett said Sebelius’ veto of the power plant expansion bill was a certainty, but it was uncertain whether the House would be able to override it. The Senate passed the Holcomb legislation with a veto-proof majority.
“If (the House) does not, then the chances of an even greener bill are increased,” said Barnett, who had pushed for greener legislation earlier in the process of debating the bill.
The advance of the Senate’s health care proposal was a development important to Barnett last week. The bill expands the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to include children in families making 250 percent of the level of poverty.
A vocal opponent of the current version of the No Child Left Behind Act, Barnett was also happy with the advance of a resolution encouraging Congress to make NCLB “practical and reasonable.”
The first part of this week is the Senate’s “wrap-up time,” when all bills must be advanced out of committee. Barnett said part of his work this week would involve attempting to give the state Board of Healing Arts greater ability to regulate health care providers who may place Kansans at risk.
“Currently, the board of arts requires three events before they will act on a provider’s license,” Barnett said. “I (support) a graduated system when one occurrence of serious concern can result in some type of sanction or restriction on a provider’s license.”
The debate on immigration will continue later this week. The current Senate immigration bill doesn’t include the language requiring employers to use E-Verify to check on the legality of prospective workers. Barnett is a supporter of the E-Verify language.
Rep. Don Hill
Senate Bill 426, designed help the Emporia School District alleviate the funding blow it would have taken from the Tyson Fresh Meats layoffs, passed out of a House committee last week and will reach the House floor this week. The bill puts a “safety net” under the district so that it doesn’t receive less than 98 percent of the funding it received last year.
“I’m glad that’s been accomplished and hopeful that we’ll get that passed out of the House this week and sent back to the Senate,” he said.
The likelihood of the House overriding Sebelius’ power plant veto isn’t high, Hill said. He felt it was more likely that a separate piece of legislation on the plant expansion would be introduced later.
“And I think the odds are still not good that something passes,” he said. “I will continue to support the Holcomb project unless (the bill) becomes ... less environmentally friendly.”
The House Health and Human Services committee, of which Hill is a member, advanced a bill that would reinstate the expansion of the premium assistance program to help insure the poor. The premium assistance expansion, a recommendation of the Kansas Health Policy Authority, had been removed from the bill. That legislation was to be debated in the House on Monday, and Hill was optimistic it would eventually be passed.
This week, as on the Senate floor, the immigration debate will continue in the House.
“The challenge there is to have responsible legislation that doesn’t go too far, that doesn’t create unintended consequences for either workers or businesses,” Hill said.
Rep. Peggy Mast
Mast couldn’t be reached Monday morning. In her weekly newsletter, she noted last week’s passage of a “bare bones budget” with few increases, other than a bump in retirement benefits for state wildlife and parks officials and conservation officers. Mast said that the minimal budget increases were a way for the Legislature to be responsible with available tax dollars during this fiscal year.
Mast also noted the passage of a House bill that requires women who plan on having an abortion to receive more information about the fetus and the abortion procedure before it takes place. The bill, which puts more restrictions on doctors performing late-term abortions, passed the House by an 84-40 vote. Mast said that although that majority is veto-proof, it “would likely not stay that way with the governor’s intervention.”
“George Tiller continues to brag about breaking Kansas laws,” Mast said of the Wichita doctor who has been the center of recent highly publicized abortion investigations, “and abortion numbers in Kansas from 2005 to 2006 were up by over 700.”