Fresh off an extremely busy restart to the legislative session Monday, Kansas lawmakers return for more work Tuesday.
Lawmakers passed overrides on several vetoes from Governor Laura Kelly over the last two months. 76th District Representative Eric Smith says the overrides on tax policy, concealed carry and elections went more smoothly than he and others expected.
Lawmakers overrode the governor’s tax policy veto. This “decouples” state tax deductions from their federal counterparts, meaning residents can itemize at both the state and federal levels instead of just the federal. It also forces “marketplace facilitators” like Amazon, Alibaba and others to collect and remit their sales taxes to the state.
Lawmakers also overrode a bill to move the concealed carry age from 21 to 18 if people from age 18 to 21 get licenses. Older gun owners will not have to be licensed and education groups say their stances on barring guns from school grounds will remain unchanged.
Also, lawmakers overrode two bills dealing with elections. State law now restricts the number of ballots that one person can return from unlimited to 10, and those ballots have to be from friends and neighbors. The second override takes the governor, secretary of state and courts out of the picture for changing election laws.
The major override effort that failed dealt with transgender athlete participation in girls’ and women’s sports. Supporters said the bill was designed to level the playing field for women athletes, while critics like 60th District Representative Mark Schreiber called it discriminatory.
Both chambers reconvene at 10 am. Smith says lawmakers will discuss potential line-item overrides in the budget as part of their business Tuesday. There could also be some discussion about medical marijuana before lawmakers adjourn Tuesday.