This week the House experienced a notable increase in activity as we draw closer to our first legislative deadline known as “Turn Around Day” marking the end of our initial 6 week stretch. Turn Around Day is significant simply because it marks the final opportunity for most bills to be considered in their house of origin. As a practical matter, this means our committees are working quickly to finish hearings on bills they hope to be considered. It also tends to mark the point where our overall pace begins to pick up. It’s an exciting time and I’m looking forward to learning more about the proposals we’ll be considering this year.
As you have perhaps already heard, the House produced the first half of the budget solution for this legislative session in passing our FY 2009 budget. This was a painful and time consuming process. Both the House and Senate spent hours working to negotiate a plan that creates around $325 million in funding. This money will conceivably allow state government to operate through the close of our fiscal year, June 30.
The bill is a compromise in the truest sense, as perhaps no member was truly happy with every aspect of the accord; however, I’m confident the House and Senate conferees worked diligently to distribute the painful cuts as evenly as possible. My hope now is that our Governor allows the carefully crafted compromise to pass “as-is” so we may confidently begin work on the 2010 budget knowing our financial footing for FY 2009 is on solid ground.
Looking forward, it appears we’ll be addressing some familiar hot button issues that might be of interest to many of you. As expected, a comprehensive energy proposal is nearing completion in both House and Senate committees. While the specifics of the version we will eventually consider are still unclear, I’m confident the work done last year on the subject and the subsequent months of study on the topic will serve us well as we approach the best solution for Kansans later this month.
We’re also looking at the possibility of a debate on a statewide smoking ban, and will perhaps be discussing the death penalty as measures on both issues are being pushed through on the Senate side. As always, I welcome your comments and input on these and any other issues that might be of concern to you or your families.
As I mentioned, committee activity has been lively this week as we work to push out any remaining proposals.
In many cases, this is the point in the session where we begin to see a more accurate rendering of the major issues we’ll consider. In turn, you’ll be seeing more and more in the coming weeks and months on the topics we’re churning out and holding debates on. This provides everyone with an excellent opportunity to make your opinion on these matters clear. I’m always interested to hear fresh perspectives and hope you’ll share your thoughts with me.
