Adventures in the Statehouse Vol 2013 Issue 3

Melanie Meier's Adventures in the Statehouse
Kansas House of Representatives
Volume 2013, Issue 3: January 28 – February 1, 2013

In This Issue

- Kansas Day
- Veterans, Military & Homeland Security
- Corrections & Juvenile Justice
- Health Exchanges
- Transportation & Public Safety
- Keep in Touch

Kansas Day

Tuesday was Kansas' 152nd Birthday. As we celebrated 152 years as a
state, action in the Capitol picked up with hearings and voting in the
separate chambers. The new legislators jumped right into all the
protocol and procedure – sink or swim!

Our own Leavenworth County Attorney, Todd Thompson, was in the Capitol
to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. He
introduced a bill through the Kansas District/County Attorney
Association to make it a crime to possess with intent to distribute
someone else's prescription drugs. This bill is in response to the
growing national trend of "pharm" or "skittles" or "trail
mix" parties. At these parties multiple types of prescription drugs
are combined in a bowl or bag and then taken randomly (often with
alcohol) to just see what happens. As the drugs are only prescription
drugs and not on the controlled substance schedule, there is no law
against providing them to others.

Veterans, Military & Homeland Security

We had some great testimony this week. We heard from the Kansas Center
for Safe and Prepared Schools and the Kansas Commission of Veteran
Affairs. We had hearings on HB2077 and HB2078, which are bills that
would help translate military training into civilian education
requirements. Many military occupational specialties require more
training than the civilian equivalents professions, so this bill could
aid many unemployed veterans in getting to work soon after their release
from the military without having to repeat training in the civilian
education system. The national rate of unemployment for veterans is
twice the rate of others, so this is a priority issue.

We also introduced a number of bills including the following issues:
- Creating a disabled veteran owned business preference in state
contracting
- Expanding protection from foreclosure for deployed service members
- Allowing veteran service organizations to have slot machines in their
facilities (the Darlene Kenny Memorial Bill)

Corrections and Juvenile Justice

The committee was assigned the Governor's Executive Reorganization
Order to combine the Department of Corrections and the Juvenile Justice
Authority. We will have a hearing over several days next week to decide
if the committee agrees. An ERO will automatically go into effect if
neither the House nor Senate disapproves. February 7th is the deadline
for submitting a resolution to disapprove.

This week we had several hearings on various issues including:
- HB2034, that would create a new type of search warrant for law
enforcement's use of GPS tracking devices in investigations.
-HB2044 would create 2 new crimes of distribution of a controlled
substance that causes great bodily harm and the distribution of a
controlled substance that causes death. The premise behind the bill is
that anyone who is distributing drugs illegally is acting recklessly.
The opponents stated that the law would place all the blame of a tragedy
on the person who distributed the substance, no matter the
circumstances.
- HB2043 brought in the TV cameras. It proposes creating 2 new crimes
of aggravated battery by DUI. Several District Attorneys testified that
there is a gap in the penalties between manslaughter by DUI and the
Class B misdemeanor of DUI. This bill would make a DUI in itself a
reckless act, therefore if anyone suffers severe bodily harm as a result
of a DUI the driver would be charged with aggravated battery.
- HB2065 creates the crime of home improvement fraud. It targets "fly
by night" operations that take a homeowners money with no intent to do
the work. We heard this bill last year in Judiciary Committee.
- HB2080 is another bill we heard in Judiciary last year. It would add
the intent to commit various domestic offenses, such as the violation of
restraining orders, to the crime of burglary. Burglary is the crime of
breaking and entering with the intent to commit further felony crime.

Health Exchanges

With open enrollment for the new Kansas Health Exchange just around the
corner (October 1, 2013), the Kansas Health Institute was here to give
legislators an idea of what it will look like. They explained that
starting in 2014, there will be no more exclusions for pre-existing
conditions. Your premium rates will be based on 4 factors: your age,
family status, geographical location and tobacco use. They said that
there will be 3 risk adjustment programs at first, to mitigate all the
new rules going into effect at once. The federal statute calls for 10
categories of essential health benefits that must be included in all
insurance plans, so the Kansas Health Institute is using the Kansas Blue
Cross and Blue Shield plan as a benchmark. As Blue Cross & Blue Shield
is the largest plan in Kansas and already has 8 of the 10 categories,
they believe it is the best system to estimate what the new plans and
cost will be. The only 2 categories that have to be added are pediatric
dental/vision benefits and habilitative services. To see what the
exchange will actually look like, there are now videos on the internet
that you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/user/CMSHHSgov.

Transportation & Public Safety Budget

We heard from various agencies this week in preparation to going through
their proposed budgets next week including: the Kansas Highway Patrol,
Department of Corrections, Juvenile Justice Authority, Board of
Indigents' Defense Services, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, State
Fire Marshal, and Department of Transportation. These are just some of
the 17 budgets the committee is responsible for. The Speaker has set a
strict timeline to get the budget put together and we have a lot of work
to do in a short time. We also heard from the Department of Corrections
and the Juvenile Justice Authority and what they think of the
Governor's Executive Reorganization Order to combine them. They
briefed their plan, so I had a short pre-view of the agency view of the
ERO prior to our hearings next week in Corrections & Juvenile Justice
Committee.

Keep in Touch

You can track my activities on my website www.meier4kansas.com, my
FaceBook page www.facebook.com/Meier4Kansas, and Twitter
www.twitter.com/melaniemeier. I am privileged and honored to be your
voice in the Kansas Capitol.

If I can ever be of assistance to you, please feel free to contact me at
home or in Topeka. My office is on the 4th floor of the Capitol, Room
451-S. To write to me, my office address is Kansas State Capitol,
Topeka, KS 66612. You can also reach me at the legislative hotline,
1-800-432-3924. Additionally, you can e-mail me at
melanie.meier@house.ks.gov. And do not forget to follow the legislative
session online at www.kslegislature.org.

If you need to directly contact a particular agency in state government,
you can find useful telephone numbers online at
http://da.state.ks.us/phonebook.