The Lyon County Democrats were paid a special visit during their meeting Monday night.
Kansas House of Representatives Minority Leader Tom Sawyer was in attendance to field questions and to provide an update on the current legislative session. Sawyer tells KVOE News he is very optimistic with what the legislature has accomplished heading into their spring break specifically on the topic of K-12 education funding.
Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve a $90 million addition to K-12 education funding recently. Sawyer feels the proposed bill has successfully met all mandates set forth by the Supreme Court and is highly optimistic the funding issue will finally be put to rest.
Sawyer believes the work which has gone into the funding bill has done a lot to strengthen relationships between Democrats and Moderate Republicans within the legislature.
Sawyer says while major items such as the funding bill have — for the moment — been put to rest he is a bit disappointed that Medicaid expansion has yet to be one of them. Recently the bill passed through the House of Representatives by 70 votes and Sawyer believes the votes are there in the Senate, however, he says a major road block is the unwillingness of Senate leaders to bring the bill up for debate.
He explains the negative implications which may result from putting the bill off for another year.
Sawyer anticipates there will be a lot of effort to bring up the bill once lawmakers return from break. According to Sawyer, a motion was made just before the break to bring the bill out of committee and put it on the debate calendar.
The motion will require 24 votes and is set to be voted on when lawmakers return to session.
Other area lawmakers have expressed a desire to see more discussion and potential action taken on a new policy to decouple state income tax itemizations from their federal counterparts as part of Senate Bill 22. Governor Kelly recently vetoed that bill and neither the Senate nor House had enough votes to override the decision.
Discussions may start up in both chambers about an alternative plan once the veto session begins next month. The legislative session is set to resume May 1st.
