Greetings,

Legislative Update #11, March 26, 2009

House Passes Minimum Wage

The Kansas AFL-CIO and the Raise the Wage Coalition experienced a rollercoaster of a ride on the way to getting Minimum Wage passed in the legislature.  SB 160, which raises the state minimum wage rate was on it's way to sailing through the House.  An early preliminary debate and vote in the morning looked as though it would clear the House in a similar fashion to the Senate, overwhelmingly.  The quest to pass it hit a dip when an unrelated bill on Campaign Finance was utilized in a "Gut and Go" maneuver just prior to final action of our bill (and others).  Democrats and some Republicans (I'll call Moderate R's) tried to replace the contents of the Campaign Finance bill which had been previosuly removed.  The bill said that groups like Americans for Prosperity would now have to adhere to certain reporting requirements.  Yes, a good thing!

The group (I'll call them Conservatives) and leadership in the House was not about to let this happen and SB 160(MinWage) final action would not occur until some heavy arm twisting took place.  Yes, our bill to raise the State Minimum Wage in-line with the Feds was being held captive like all the rest of the bills worked so diligently on this Wednesday.  Further attempts by leadership to quit business for the day failed on a vote because Moderates and Dems would not let that happen.  We were at a standstill for quite some time and it looked bleak for SB 160.  Leaving the business for the day would mean the bill was lost because it is a non-exmpt bill by rule and could not be brought up again.

Ultimately, the legislator who brought the bill forward on Campaign Finance relinquished and pulled the bill back to have it referred to committee.  Final Action proceeded and SB 160 passed 104-21.  But, small differences remain in the Senate version and the House Version and a Conference Committee may have to sort that out on what looks to be next Tuesday.  Should go smoothly from here.

State Employees are still in the fight of their life as the Senate's version of the Mega Budget bill holds no provisions for their market adjustments on pay.  Wow, it's unbelievable that the State would spend all that money on a study and then not follow through with it's findings by funding just the second year of the findings.  Holding off, or postponing State Employees pay takes away all that work and makes no sense at all.  A 1% for gosh sakes is virtually nothing.  The House kept the provisions for State Employee market adjustments, so this is in Conference Committee and negotiators are to work out the differences.  Remember, furloughs and layoffs have kept State Employees on a rollercoaster ride.  Focus turns to the budget for the next fiscal year.  Contact Senators to support state employee market adjustments and contact House members and ask them to hold there position on State Employee pay.

No movement on Work Comp, or on Energy but there remains avenues for these bills.  Unemployment legislation allowing the state to take advantage of the federal stimulus dollars also looks promising.  Exempt status allows more work to be done on these bills, but time is running out (Just next week).  There is of course the veto session in the latter part of April.