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2022 Legislative Session, Week 10 The Kansas legislature’s final day for non-exempt committees to meet passed without much fanfare on Friday, March 18. As a rain and snow mixture fell on Topeka Friday, a few lawmakers navigated the statehouse hallways, while the majority of legislators returned home to gear up for a week of late-night floor debate on big-ticket issues as time winds down on the 2022 session.   This week the Senate passed two high-priority pieces of legislation to the House: the 2023 state agency budget and redistricting maps. The House meanwhile...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 9 A snow front on Thursday caused abbreviated work in the Kansas Legislature this week. One major action item was the release of newly proposed state Senate district maps which would pair multiple incumbent Senators against each other in the coming 2024 elections. The Democrats’ proposed Eisenhower Senate map plan creates only one incumbent v. incumbent battle in the 2024 elections, while the Republicans’ Liberty 2 map creates two, and the Kansas League of Women Voters’ BluestemSenate creates three such scraps.   Also, this week, on a vote of...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 8 The legislature returned to work this week to begin further consideration of bills. On Thursday afternoon, while debating a bill that would provide income tax credits to graduates of aviation-related programs and their employers, the Senate amended the bill multiple times to add other income and property tax bills and programs with a total cost of over $100 million to the state. The bill now includes such items as an income tax credit for schoolteachers, a freeze on property taxes for seniors and veterans, property tax...

SOURCE WIBW NEWS OF TOPEKA The Kansas Corporation Commission and Kansas Gas Service have reached a settlement to recover nearly all of the incurred costs from February 2021′s severe winter weather from its transportation customers. On Thursday, March 3, the Kansas Corporation Commission says it approved a settlement agreement that outlines how Kansas Gas Service will recover costs sustained to meet the demand of its transportation customers during February 2021′s severe winter storm. Unlike sales customers, who contract directly with KGS for gas, the KCC said transportation customers buy gas from gas producers or through a gas...

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of the Army (the agencies) announced the selection of ten geographically varied roundtables with participants representing diverse perspectives. The agencies will work with each selected roundtable to facilitate discussion on implementation of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), while highlighting regional differences. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of the Army (the agencies) announced the selection of ten geographically varied roundtables with participants representing diverse perspectives. The agencies will work with each selected roundtable to facilitate discussion...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 7 (Turnaround) This was Turnaround week in the Kansas legislature, where the House and Senate debated dozens of bills before adjourning on Wednesday afternoon. Any bill that was either not passed by its chamber of origin by Wednesday, or is otherwise exempt, will no longer be an active bill this session. This week, the House passed and sent 29 bills to the Senate, and the Senate sent 37 bills to the House. The legislature will return to work next Tuesday to begin further consideration of bills. The...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 6 The Legislature passed a Republican-friendly Congressional redistricting map last week (Sub Senate Bill 355), overriding Governor Laura Kelly’s veto. As anticipated, multiple legal challenges to the bill were filed. Major floor action in the House this week included the attempted passage of a resolution on a proposed constitutional amendment giving the Legislature oversight of rules and regulations adopted by executive branch agencies. The vote failed to gain the super majority votes required to pass, but it will likely come up for reconsideration on Monday. In the Senate, the...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 5 This week saw the override of Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a Republican-friendly map (Sub Senate Bill 355) that will draw new lines for the state’s four Congressional districts. It is assumed that legal challenges to the bill will follow. Following much consternation over the congressional map veto override vote, Senate President Ty Masterson removed two Republican senators from their committee leadership positions. Masterson also removed Senator Mark Steffen of Hutchinson from his vice chairmanship of the senate commerce committee and from his seat on the...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 4 This week, the legislature took a day of hiatus when winter storms were predicted to bring heavy snow to the capitol city. On Thursday, as predicted, Governor Laura Kelly vetoed a Republican-friendly map that would have drawn new lines for the state’s four Congressional districts. The House got bogged down in deliberation over the Kelly Administration’s economic development bill aimed at bringing a large national corporate headquarters to the state with a specified capital investment of at least $1,000,000,000. Next week, a legislative committee will consider...

2022 Legislative Session, Week 3 This week, the Legislature passed a map drawing new lines for the state’s four Congressional districts, held hearings on various bills proposing to exempt “food” from states sales tax, and advanced an economic development bill that would provide for incentives for specified industries to establish their national corporate headquarters in the state with specified capital investment of at least $1,000,000,000. In addition, the Committees on Agriculture received annual reports from the state commodity commissions, and the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing on a bill making...

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