Obtaining Kansas legislative information from the internet

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Kansas legislative information on the internet |
by David Barfield, CHECK Chairman
From the December, 1998 CHECK News (links updated January 2000)

In January another state legislative session will begin as well as a new federal congress. Tracking what is going on in Topeka and Washington, D.C. has always been difficult. Many large special interest groups, including the education lobby, are at a distinct advantage with all resources they have to monitor what is going on. Fortunately we have HSLDA to monitor what is happening in Washington D.C. On a state level however, organizations like ours that depend on volunteer staff, as fine as they may be, have a much more difficult time keeping on top of things, especially when important legislative provisions can be buried in large bills and/or be dealt with at waning moments of the legislative session .

While it does not replace having people at hearings and visiting with legislators, the use of on-line legislative resources can allow us to be more aware of what is happening in Topeka, search for and find language of specific bills, know when hearings will be held, etc. Below is a bit of a primer on legislative information that is available for free via the internet, focusing on Kansas' legislative information. With these tools, we can have an army of us searching and tracking bills of interest from our homes. And we can talk more intelligently with our law-makers, with the specific legislative language in our hands.

The primary web site for Kansas Legislative information is the Information Network of Kansas or INK for short. INK's web site is at www.ink.org. The legislative information is found at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/index.cgi. INK's legislative page is well laid out and I believe with the background provided below, you should be able to find what you are looking for.

An overview of Kansas' legislative process

Before detailing the on-line resources available, below is an outline of the process a bill normally takes through the Legislature. There are exceptions and this is just an overview. For a full treatment of the Kansas' Legislative process, I will refer you to Legislative Research's "Legislative Procedure in Kansas" (http://skyways.lib.ks.us/ksleg/KLRD/citizen.html), available on-line from Legislative Research's link on INK's page (you will need Adobe's Reader, available free on the internet).

Bills are introduced by an individual legislator, group of legislators or a committee, in the respective chambers (House or Senate). Senate bill numbers are generally preceded by an "S", their numbering starts at S. 1. House bills are preceded by an "H", their numbering starts with H. 2000. Certain important legislative initiatives will be heard simultaneously in both chambers, but often one chamber will take the lead on an issue, with the other chamber awaiting its outcome before hearing and acting on the issue. There can be multiple bills introduced for consideration on an issue.
Once introduced, a bill is referred by the leadership to the appropriate committee for consideration and possible committee action. Many bills are never considered in committee; it is up to the chair of the committee to determine what bills are worked.
For those bills chosen to be further considered, a hearing is scheduled providing an opportunity for both proponents and opponents to provide oral and/or written testimony. Generally the first hearing of a bill is noted in the Senate and House calenders that are available on INK. But be warned that hearing dates can change. As the committee considers a bill, they can amend it. To my knowledge, there are no summaries of the committee's deliberations available on INK.
Often, but not always, after the hearings and committee action on a bill, a vote is taken on the bill: if favorable, the bill goes to the full House or Senate for consideration, if unfavorable, the bill dies in committee (in rare instances however, language from such a dead bill can be tacked on to another bill).
On the floor of the chamber of origin, there is an opportunity for legislators to debate the bill, either endorsing it or opposing it. Amendments are also considered at this point.
Bills passes the chamber are introduced to the other chamber. Here the same process outlined above can occur or not depending again on the committee chairs and leadership of the chamber.
If both chambers pass differing versions of a bill, a conference committee to recommend a single version of the bill. These important negotiations are not documented on INK other than the resulting compromise version of the bill. This final version must be approved by both chambers.
When both chambers approve the final bill, it is forwarded to the Governor for his action. The Governor has three options: 1) sign it in which case it becomes law, 2) veto it in which case it goes back to Legislature where it will either die or they may chose to attempt to override the veto, or 3) he may ignore it in which case it still becomes law.

Kansas Legislative on-line resources

Legislators get a "daily packet" each day of the legislative session which includes introduced bills, amended bills, the House and Senate Journals and Calenders, etc. All of the documents in the daily packet are available on INK's web site for free on the same day as Legislators receive them. Here is a summary of the on-line tools and a few hints on their use:

The full text of bills (www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi). Bills are updated as they work their way through the legislative process: at introduction, as passed by committees, as amended by the chamber of origin, etc. You can search for bills by number or by keyword.
Daily Senate and House Journals (www.ink.org/public/legislative/journals.cgi) document much of what occurred in the Legislature on a given day, particularly the consideration of the full House and Senate.
Daily Senate and House calenders (www.ink.org/public/legislative/calendars.cgi) lists the bills to be considered on that day.
Kansas Statutes (www.ink.org/public/legislative/statutes/statutes.cgi) are also available on-line, searchable by statute number or subject.
Biographical information (http://skyways2.lib.ks.us/ksleg/) on each legislator including addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, committee assignments.
You can even listen to the full House's deliberations over the internet when they are in session using the RealAudio plug-in which is available for free.

A few closing thoughts

Hundreds of bills introduced in our state Legislature each year. As I alluded to above, just because it is introduced does not mean it will see the light of a committee hearing much less further action. We have been fortunate in recent Legislative sessions to have education committee chairs that have been unwilling to hear bills that would seriously impact our current freedom to home educate.

Secondly as helpful as these tools are, it does not replace being there at the hearings and talking with Legislators. So please continue to pray for Kent Vincent and others who are involved in this important work. I would also encourage you to show up at Day Under the Dome next month and meet with your legislator. It is my judgement, and not mine alone, that Day Under the Dome has been significantly used by God to grant us favor before our Legislature.

I trust you will use these tools to be better informed. If you find a bill of concern to the Kansas' homeschool community, please send the information to check@cjnetworks.com or call one of CHECK's officers (see page 2 for names and phone numbers).

The same type of information noted above is also available regarding our federal legislative process at the Library of Congress' web site, Thomas, http://thomas.loc.gov/. Also at the site is a fine, detailed summary of the federal legislative process called, "How Our Laws Are Made" (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html).

Happy hunting.

p.s. For those of you with internet access - A copy of this article is on CHECK's web page, including the links which are noted. In addition, I have created a bit of index of the links.

p.p.s. I would appreciate any suggestions for improving the above information. Send them to chairman@kansashomeschool.org.