The pace has been fast and there has been a lot of ground covered in the Kansas Legislature so far this session.
That’s the perspective of Kansas House 76th District Representative Brad Barrett on KVOE’s Newsmaker segment Wednesday.
Final decisions are pending on property taxes, but Barrett says there have been good conversations on a 3-percent annual cap for counties, including an election if counties decide to go above that limit. Barrett says he’s all in favor of property tax relief, but there is a balance between state funds and local control.
There have also been conversations about replacing property taxes with a two-level retail sales tax surcharge.
The Kansas House is voting later on a potential override of Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of House Substitute for Senate Bill 244, saying residents can only put their biological genders on driver’s licenses and residents must only use bathrooms matching their biological genders. Barrett favors the override.
Barrett says the key part of this bill isn’t the bathroom policy. It’s reverting the state’s drivers license markers to biological-only after a Kansas Supreme Court decision said residents could use the gender of their choice last year.
Barrett has also been working on Trey’s Law, a bill designed to void non-disclosure agreements covering up child sex abuse or human trafficking.
Barrett’s also pleased Governor Laura Kelly signed a bill elevating penalties for buying sexual relations to a felony.
In other topics, Barrett says the state’s longstanding minimum wage of $7.25 an hour should come up, although a bill more than doubling that amount to $16 an hour is too much for businesses to absorb. Barrett also voted for a “bell to bell” cell phone ban in schools, which has advanced in the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
