pitch is partnering with a local political awareness organization called Loud Light. Their goal is to engage and empower underrepresented people and build community power. and influence decision makers. Each week during the session, the Kansas Legislature releases a short video summarizing its activities.
The only way to stay involved in how local government impacts your life is to know the nitty-gritty of what's going on with your legislators. You can donate to support Loud Light's work by clicking here.
This week's video and transcript are below.
Hello, I'm Davis Hammett from Loudlight! Here's what happened inside the Kansas State Capitol in Week 6.
super bowl shooting
A shooting at the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City left one Johnson County woman dead and injured more than 20 people, half of them children. This is the 48th mass shooting in the United States in 2024 alone. Missouri has some of the most relaxed gun laws in the nation. In 2021, the Missouri state legislature passed the Second Amendment Protection Act, which sought to circumvent federal gun regulations, but was later struck down by a federal court. Kansas Republican lawmakers are proposing a similar policy through a constitutional amendment. If passed, this bill would make it nearly impossible for state and local governments to regulate guns, ammunition, and accessories in any way. After the shooting, Attorney General Kris Kobach insisted that the solution to gun violence was more guns, even though the 800 armed police officers in the parade failed to stop the KC shooting.
Special education (HB2738)
Days after the Kansas Supreme Court ended its oversight of school funding, the House K-12 Appropriations Committee will begin defunding public education, but whether the Legislature fully funds it or not. debated a bill that would manipulate the formula used to calculate school funding to make it appear that In the opposite case, special education. This official school gamesmanship was a strategy attempted by former Governor Brownback, but was rejected by the Kansas Supreme Court. The bill faced opposition from school district leaders across the state, who called on the Legislature to reconvene the special education task force. The task force passed a resolution in January recommending that the Legislature cover all of the state's share of special education required under state law. Despite this, Congress has yet to hear a bill to properly fund special education.
Statute of limitations bill (HB2721)
Last year, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation concluded that all Catholic dioceses in Kansas conspired to cover up child sexual abuse by nearly 200 priests. In response, abuse victims and several lawmakers called for an end to the statute of limitations protecting alleged pedophiles, but the bill was passed in watered down form. It is currently unclear whether this will apply only to new victims or retroactively apply to existing victims. A new bill has been proposed to ensure retroactivity so that pedophiles identified in KBI investigations can be prosecuted. They are using such tactics to prevent the bill from being debated. The Catholic Church's lobbying arm has spent millions of dollars fighting bills that would extend the statute of limitations in the United States in the face of global sex abuse scandals.
More intrigue
The Opportunity Solutions Project is back in the state Legislature after its conspiracy-based presentation to a special election commission made national headlines last fall. A conservative think tank testified this week in support of a federal campaign funding bill that will be approved by Congress. During testimony, the group continued to promote the conspiracy claimed by the president. Joe Biden said he is using federal agencies and Kansas nonprofits to register certain people to vote, and Haskell University to register voters. The Secretary of State's Office quickly debunked this claim, explaining that Haskell has been a federal voter registration site since 1996. In response to the debunking of the bill's collusion basis, Speaker Thompson suspended the hearing.
Coming soon
Tuesday was the last day for each committee to hear new legislation, and lawmakers spent the rest of the week debating bills on the floor, eliminating most that did not pass in one chamber by Friday's turnaround deadline. The bill is abolished. Additionally, the flat tax that Governor Kelly vetoed will no longer be valid unless the House overrides her veto next week. Please stay tuned. Until next time, thank you so much Kansas State!
