2001 Legislative Report

Much has been said about the legislature’s work this past session.  I wanted to let you know about some of the successful projects I personally worked on either by introducing or by helping craft the legislation that passed:

• We made our streets and highways safer through the most comprehensive toughening of Kansas laws against drunken driving in a generation…

• We helped cust costs for small businesses by rolling back a fee increase that unfairly burdened small hardware stores that stock small amounts of pesticides for home use…

• We expanded our state ethanol incentive program to help farmers by encouraging the construction of more ethanol plants in Kansas…

• We established a “Plant Pest Emergency Response Fund” to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to quickly respond to any outbreak of undesirable foreign plants in Kansas…

• We strengthened the attorney general’s ability to seize the assets of con artists and use them to pay restitution to defrauded consumers…

• We helped cut costs for small businesses by toughening penalties on people who write worthless checks and making it easier for a business to collect the full cost of handling a worthless check…

• We plugged a loophole in Kansas law that allowed persons convicted of attempting, soliciting or conspiring to commit certain heinous crimes to work in nursing homes even though persons who successfully committed the crime itself were already barred…

• We encouraged prairie tourism by limiting the liability of bison owners…

• We expanded sales tax incentives for small-scale retail development in our most rural counties…

• We strengthened our justice system’s ability to free the innocent and punish the guilty by significantly expanding our state’s DNA database and expanding the use of DNA evidence…

• We made it a crime to use the latest so-called “date rape” drug in Kansas…

• We honored veterans by naming U.S. Highway 75 through Kansas the “Purple Heart/Combat Wounded Veterans Highway”…

• We successfully fought to keep the  Toronto prison open…

• We banned the use of deceptive “gift checks” by unscrupulous telemarketers…

• We put in place sweeping safeguards to protect Kansas livestock producers from foot-and-mouth disease…

• We made it a crime for radical organizations or individuals who oppose agricultural research to destroy agricultural test plots…

• We strengthened our state’s feed laws to help prevent introduction of “Mad Cow” disease into Kansas…

• We pioneered a new state approach to implementing the federal Clean Water Act that will focus our limited resources on the state’s most-used streams and rivers…

• We commissioned a provessional study of our state’s methamphetamine problem that has given us a road map for trying to curb this dangerous drug…

• We raised penalties on con artists who pose as charities and added enhanced penalties for those who swindle elder or disabled Kansans…

• We expanded the state’s agricultural production loan program to help more cash-strapped farmers and ranchers to survive…

• We clarified and updated Kansas election laws governing election recounts, provisionsl ballots, and polling hours to remedy problems experienced in last year’s election…

• We protected people’s privacy by allowing county election officers to remove, at the voter’s written request, a person’s residence address from public disclosure in the voter registration list…

• We helped protect the right to vote by strengthening laws against intimidating voters or trying to suppress the vote…

• We made it a crime for a teacher to engage in sexual activity with a student enrolled at the teacher’s school…

• We rewrote Kansas law governing child support payments to help make the Kansas Payment Center (which handles those payments) more customer-friendly and to reduce delays and bureaucratic burdens on divorced parents and their children.

I also wanted to let you know about some of the year’s other accomplishments that I voted for and was proud to support:

• We required health insurance plans to Kansas to provide coverage for the diagnosis, treatment and management of osteoporosis…

• We required health insurance plans in Kansas to provide coverage for diagnosable mental illnesses…

• We directed the Insurance Commissioner to take steps to protect the privacy of health care consumers’ financial and personal information…

• We extended the state program providing assistance to landowners who want to remove and clean up contamination from underground storage tanks…

• We restored local control to community college boards in determining whether student fees should be used for student scholarships…

• We established the so-called KAN-ED network of high-speed Internet access to link every school, library and hospital in Kansas…

• We created a program to allow disabled individuals to establish Individual Development Accounts to help save money to purchase assistive technology…

• We created a state income tax “check off” program to allow Kansans to direct funding toward the meals on wheels program…

• We expanded the state tax incentive that encourages proper plugging of abandoned oil and gas wells…

• We established a tax credit to help encourage historic preservation and restoration…

• We expanded incentives for the construction of new power generating plants in Kansas to help meet our energy needs into the future…

• We required public schools to instruct students on the proper etiquette, use and display of the American flag…

• We clarified that electronic “stun guns” are considered weapons that students may not carry to school…

• We provided for a one-year driver’s liense suspension for students who carry a weapon or illegal drug to school.