(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers July 20, 2015)
Wonder what’s coming at us from the next Kansas Legislature, when members of the House and Senate are going to be trying to think up things that will make us remember them fondly when it comes time to vote the following fall?
Well, the just-approved list of interim study committees which will meet this summer and fall may give us—and them—an idea of the support and the opposition to ideas that they’ll consider.
Interim committees, generally seven- to 11-member panels of representatives and senators, have dozens of topics to take a look at, and those committees make recommendations to the full Legislature for next session. There won’t be as many of those interim committees this year, to save money, but some of the issues that they’ll take a look at are intriguing. Oh, and some aren’t.
The concept: Those small panels look at ideas to see whether they should become bills for the upcoming session and to learn enough about the topics to make reasonable suggestions for those bills.
Wonder what they’ll look at? Here are some topics that have been assigned:
- Whether law enforcement officers should wear body cameras so we can learn how interactions between officers and the public go. Lots of national interest in cop-citizen interactions; we’ve all seen the photos on TV. The concept is relatively simple: If you believe you’ve been harassed or dealt with badly, well, there’s the film. And, if the complaint is unreasonable, well, there’s the film to show that the officer acted reasonably. Best result: Everyone is a little more polite because it’s on camera. The side issue: Will the state pay for those cameras?
- Another issue that may go lots of ways in those hearings is considering whether there are ways to supervise potentially dangerous people with drug or mental health problems short of putting them in jail. It’s a combination of both helping those people in the least restrictive setting possible and making sure that they aren’t a danger to society or themselves. There are budget implications here.
- Related…somewhat, though for a different set of Kansans, is looking at whether everyone who is now in prison for crimes really needs to be there, or whether there are ways to monitor their behavior and actions in a less restrictive, less costly manner. Ankle bracelets so we know where they are? Figuring out whether something less than iron bars will punish them and make sure they don’t hurt others? That one has a lot of ways to go. And, look for opposition to cutting imprisonment, especially from crime victims.
- On the general public safety side—and legislators like making us feel safer—there are several issues bubbling in the pot for interim study. They range from making sure that the state’s—and nation’s—power grids are safe and dependable to whether there are security problems in ensuring that power grid. School security becomes an issue, too, and what the state is doing to make sure that students are safe there.
- Other topics: Are there some loose ends to be buttoned down on the change of local government elections from the spring to the fall of odd-numbered years? So many ways that could go wrong, or that something has been forgotten. Better get all the details nailed down in the upcoming session rather than when voters are standing in line in November 2017 to vote on the city council and school board.
- And, there’s also a move among conservative legislators to make local units of government report publicly in budget documents the money spent on hiring lobbyists to represent them before the Legislature. The deal here: Legislators want their constituents to believe that they know those local issues and will take care of them…but experience shows that it never hurts to have a lobbyist watching out for an issue, and those lobbyists are generally cheaper than sending the police chief or the surveyor or the mayor to hang around the Statehouse to make sure that some bill doesn’t unintentionally wreck or make more expensive local programs. And. that can happen.
Might be an interesting fall; at least we’ll get an idea of what to look—and look out—for…