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- Topeka Buzz: Thursday, February 20
Topeka Buzz: Thursday, February 20
Well over 250 amendments, votes, fiscal notes, and other things were posted over the past 24 hours. The deluge of documents has created a bit of a backlog in analyzing the day's events, so today's readout is (relatively) brief.
Jason Anderson
February 20, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
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Daily Legislative Update 🐝
Thursday, February 20, 2025 (TURNAROUND)
Below is today’s morning update on published activities in the Kansas Legislature.
Table of Contents
Top Stories of the Day
Our bill analysis and summary software is still running this morning—there are just a lot of documents to process from yesterday. Today’s Buzz is consequentially less systematic, more narrative.
First voucher bill passes Senate, moves to House
Senate Bill 87 passed the Senate yesterday on a 24-16 vote that will almost certainly pass in the House, but falls short of the 27 votes needed to override a likely veto from the Governor. SB87 significantly expands the eligibility criteria for "scholarship” (voucher) receipients by removing the current requirement that students must have been previously enrolled in a public school.
In addition to expanding eligibility, the bill increases the the tax credit amount to $8,000 per student. This is a fiscally smaller program than the new voucher system proposed in SB75, but it includes a growth mechanism that caps out at $20M per year.
Senate votes to prohibit quarantines by health officials
Senate Bill 29 passed as well, on a 28-12 vote (Mike Argabright, a retired school superintendent, was the only Republican to vote against the bill). The bill changes the role of county boards of health and local health officers to a purely advisory one; they would no longer be authorized to issue quarantines during health emergencies.
While in committee, opposition testimony on this bill included:
Kansas National Education Association (KNEA)
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Kansas Association of Local Health Departments
Kansas Hospital Association
Kansas Academy of Family Physicians
Kansas Association of Counties
Kansas Action for Children
Immunize Kansas Coalition
Kansas Public Health Association
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Health Forward Foundation
Kansas Chapter American Academy of Pediatrics
Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health
McPherson County Health Department,
Nurture KC
Saline County Health Department
Proponent testimony was provided by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
The bill now moves to the House.
Legal Fireworks! 🧨
(No, I’m not referring to SB199 which formally defines the seasonal fireworks season.) Senate Bill 222 is the genetic opposite of the recent White House executive order that gave the President’s office exclusive authority to define the executive branch’s interpretation of laws. Instead, it requires courts to ignore the executive branch’s interpretation of the law and to establish their own assessments—including ignoring any previous court interpretations or rulings.
The bill passed on a party line vote (Republicans for, Democrats against). Cynical analysts might interpret this as a prerequisite to allowing the state supreme court to overturn abortion protections in the future.
The bill was endorsed and promoted by Americans for Prosperity and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce with Sen. Warren (R) as its sponsor.