Good day everyone:
Hope you’re enjoying the Legislature’s short turnaround break, which lasts through Tuesday. We’re running a little late today because we’re just a little out of gas after spending all of Saturday at the Democratic Party convention where a new chair was elected.
The last three weeks of the regular legislative session will likely be a sprint with so much business left to be done, ranging from taxes to health care to education funding – and perhaps a multiyear transportation bill.
If you haven’t caught up, the dynamics of the debate over school funding changed dramatically last week when the schools group suing the state reversed course and said it would not accept Gov. Laura Kelly’s education finance plan.
The change of heart could play into the Republican narrative that the school plaintiffs are more interested in money than improving education.
Already, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee said the group damaged its credibility after first supporting the legislation and then backing away.
A hearing is set for Wednesday on the school finance bill. It should be interesting. Stay tuned.
And if roads, buses, rail and aviation matter to you, lawmakers are expected to start work on a new multiyear transportation plan after turnaround.
Other news you may have missed last week: the House passed a bill making the state economic development incentives program more transparent; wireless providers and cities settled their dispute over franchise agreements; the House passed another bill that was narrowed in scope to require transparency of community college spending; and the Senate passed legislation that will better hold foster care contractors accountable for missing children.
Now on to other news you may have missed but need to know from week seven of the Kansas legislative session.
Wrongful birth case
The Kansas Supreme Court last week agreed to review a law that bans lawsuits against physicians who don’t tell parents about their unborn child’s birth defects so they can end the pregnancy.
This abortion-related case stems from the so-called “wrongful birth” law that the Legislature passed at the behest of abortion opponents in 2013.
In a wrongful birth lawsuit, parents claim a physician failed to warn them of the risk of giving birth to a child with abnormalities so they could decide whether to abort the pregnancy. 
Last summer, a state appeals court upheld the wrongful birth statute because the right to such a lawsuit did not exist when the state constitution was drafted in 1859.
The case centers on Alysia Tillman and Storm Fleetwood, whose daughter was born in 2014 with a brain abnormality called schizencephaly, which left her with severe neurological, cognitive and physical disabilities. Her disabilities were severe enough that she will never be able to live without special medical care, court documents show.
Tillman and Fleetwood argued their doctor’s failure to diagnose the structural abnormalities and defects in the fetus’ brain denied them the right to make an informed decision on whether to have an abortion.
They are now seeking to have the Supreme Court overturn two lower-court decisions that have gone in favor of the doctor in the case.
If you want to dig deep further, here’s the petition asking the Supreme Court to review the case and the petition filed by Attorney General Derek Schmidt opposing the request.
Fourteen states now have wrongful birth statutes on the books. Iowa banned wrongful birth lawsuits last year after the state Supreme Court found for the first time that a personal injury claim for wrongful birth was recognized in law. Texas lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to ban wrongful birth lawsuits in 2017.
State prison contractor penalized
As if Kansas doesn’t have enough problems with its contractors. There’s CGI at the Department of Revenue and Maximus for KanCare whose problems have been well chronicled. Now, it’s reported that there are problems with the health care provider for the Department of Corrections.
In a story that should be getting more play than it has, Kansas News Service reports that the state has penalized Corizon Health more than a half-million bucks because it’s failing to meet performance standards.
The state’s contract with Corizon is $68.8 million, according to KNS. But the state reduced payments to the company by $534,000 in 2018 because of substandard work, the news service reported.
“The state also cut $2.82 million from its payments to Corizon because the company didn’t deliver an agreed-upon number of employees and work hours last year,” KNS reported this week.
It’s a story worth reading if you missed it.
More contractor news
Speaking of state contractors, the KC Star’s Andy Marso talks to Maximus about the problems it has faced running the KanCare Clearinghouse. It may be the only story that looks at the issues from Maximus’ point of view.
In short, Maximus officials say they’ve been unfairly criticized for the problems plaguing the KanCare Clearinghouse. They say they’re just one part of a system rife with problems.
Capitol’s $175,000 snack bar
With so many state needs, it was probably not the best time to spend $175,000 on a snack bar for the Capitol’s visitor center.
The House Appropriations Committee last week nixed – for now – a plan to build a new snack bar in the Capitol. The Capitol already has a small but heavily patronized snack bar on the third floor of the Capitol.
Republican state Rep. Brenda Landwehr asked to take the snack bar out of the budget until more information is available.
The price of the snack bar gave some lawmakers heartburn who thought the price was excessive, especially with so many demands on the state budget. They wanted more detail on the project before moving forward.
The snack bar was described as something more elaborate than the third-floor snack bar – the word “gourmet” was used – in the Capitol. It would be more like a restaurant with a grill and other amenities.
“We have extreme prison needs, we have extreme foster care needs, we have mental health care needs,” said Democratic state Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore. “I know it’s only $175,000, but what does that communicate to the public about what our priorities are?”
Republican state Rep. Troy Waymaster, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the amount of the proposed snack bar was “extreme.”
When told that the snack bar price might come in closer to $140,000, Waymaster said it was still “exorbitant.”
“We need to have a more detailed bid on what exactly the cost will be,” he said.
Democratic state Rep. Henry Helgerson also wanted more details about the contract with the operators of the snack bar and how much money they’ve brought in during the last three to five years.
If you want to know more, here are the blueprints for the snack bar.
Deer-hunting permits
A bill allowing property owners to resell their permits to hunt deer to out-of-state residents narrowly passed the House last week.
Supporters see the bill as a boon for tourism. The parks and wildlife department opposed the measure, saying it could lead to an increase in poaching.
Here’s coverage explaining the pros and cons of the legislation from the Topeka Capital-Journal. Here’s more coverage explaining the bill from The Associated Press and KSNT.
Lt. Gov. Rogers: ‘We will stand strong’
Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers made it clear to Democrats on Saturday that he and Gov. Laura Kelly will not back down against policies that return the state to the era of former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
Addressing Democrats at their Washington Days luncheon on Saturday, Rogers said “some Republican leaders are trying to take us backward.”
“Believe me when I tell you that we will stand strong against anything that takes us back and takes us away from recovering from the Brownback tax experiment,” Roger said.
Rogers didn’t mention any specific policy or legislator, but he was likely referring to the tax bill now pending in the Legislature that would return increased revenues from changes in the federal tax code to the taxpayers.
Republicans argue that failure to pass the tax bill is tantamount to a tax increase. After years of revenue shortfalls blamed on tax cuts, the governor says it’s a bad time to tinker with the tax code until the state’s revenue picture becomes clearer.
Farm Bureau’s health plan
The Garden City Telegram provides an overview of the Farm Bureau’s health benefit plan that has created a stir at the Capitol.
The story is just another look at what the plan does. And here’s coverage from a forum over the weekend with Reno County lawmakers talking about the Farm Bureau health plan.
Hawkins video series
House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins and his staff have produced a series of videos on Medicaid expansion.
He joins Gov. Laura Kelly and Senate President Susan Wagle, who have turned to video this legislative session to explain their positions on the issues of the day.
Hawkins has five videos – each (with one exception) about two minutes long – discussing his views on Medicaid.
Normally, we like to post everyone of consequence who has a video regardless of political inclination, but in this case there are five.
So, here’s a link to the majority leader’s YouTube page if you want to check them out.
