TOPEKA
February 23, 2025
Last week, the Kansas Legislature reached “halftime,” the mid-point of the legislative session commonly referred to inside the Capitol as “turnaround.”
It is when most legislation needs to be passed out of one chamber in order to be “turned around” and considered in the other. This weekend, we were now on a brief four-day break to allow legislative staff time to process legislation.
Currently, if there is a vacancy from any of our statewide elected officials, the governor has complete authority to fill the seat with anyone she wants. This anti-democratic process has the potential of instantly and radically shifting the balance of power, especially as it pertains to the United States Senate, where in recent years, the body has been divided 50-50.
SB105 would amend the process of filling such vacancies in the offices of U.S. Senator, State Treasurer, and Commissioner of Insurance.
In most instances where a seat would become vacant, the bill would establish the Joint Committee on Vacancy Appointments, which would be made up of legislators from both parties in each chamber. The committee would recommend three names for the governor to pick from.
If the legislature was in session, both chambers would vote on a resolution to send to the governor with said names and the governor would have to pick from among the names. If the legislature was not in session, the committee’s recommendations would go directly to the governor. The names on the resolution would have to be members of the vacating official’s political party for the last six years.
With the terrible airplane crash of the passenger jet from Wichita to Washington, D.C., this highlighted the fact that makes this legislation more urgent than ever. Our U.S. Senators and Congressman travel frequently from Kansas to Washington, D.C.
SB250 passed the Senate: New breakthroughs in medicine are happening every day and have the potential of helping Kansans who are suffering from life-threatening or debilitating diseases. To help provide hope, the Senate passed SB250, which would create the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments Act. The bill would authorize a manufacturer operating in an eligible facility to make available individualized investigative treatments and allow individuals with life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses to request an individualized investigational drug, biologic product, or device from such manufacturers.
SB161 would prohibit state agencies from seeking or implementing any public assistance program waiver or other federal government authorization that expands eligibility for any public assistance program or would increase costs to the state. The bill would also prohibit making certain changes to services for persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD) without approval from either the Legislature or the Legislative Coordinating Council. SB161 passed 30-10.
The Kansas Senate took a unanimous stand against prostitution and against sex trafficking by passing SB71, which would increase criminal penalties for buying sexual relations. It also would require certain offenders to complete an educational or treatment program regarding commercial sexual exploitation. Under current law, violation of buying sexual relations is a misdemeanor on a first offense and a felony on subsequent offenses. The bill would remove the crime’s misdemeanor classification and instead make all violations of buying sexual relations a severity level 9-person felony and increase the minimum fine amount from $1,200 to $2,000.
The Kansas Senate voted 28-12 to approve SB29, which protects Kansans’ First Amendment right to assemble by removing the ability of government to restrict or prohibit public gatherings. Under the bill, public health officials could still recommend against public gatherings but would not be able to prohibit them.
On Tuesday, the Kansas Senate voted 31-9 to override the governor’s veto of SB63, the Help Not Harm Act. The House quickly followed, and the legislation is now law.
SB85 passed the Senate and will require the Secretary for Children and Families to enter into data-matching agreements with specified agencies to receive and review information from state and federal agencies for the purpose of verifying food assistance program eligibility and publish certain findings of noncompliance and fraud investigations on the Kansas Department for Children and Families’ website.
These are just a few of the bills passed by the Senate this last week. In my next newsletter I will address future bills.
I am honored and grateful to represent the 40th Senate District in Kansas.
Please do not hesitate to contact me by email: [email protected] or call me with your concerns. My office number is 785-296-7399 or my cell number is 785-899-4700. If you are in Topeka stop by my office, room 545-S.