Wow, where has the summer gone?  It is amazing how an election can dominate your life.  I have learned about yard sign design, placement, and etiquette.  I have struggled to succinctly state my message on a palm card, in mailings and before groups.  Luckily, I have found that I really enjoy meeting people as I walk the neighborhoods; I enjoy the informal face-to-face exchanges.  I am not able to catch everyone at home and most of those I do catch are busy and simply shake my hand and take my literature.  But it gives me an opportunity to hear people’s concerns.  It makes me appreciate our citizen legislature…the idea that the legislature should be part-time and that legislators should return back to their community.  It is difficult to continue working on a part-time basis but it is very grounding to return back to family, friends, work and my community.  The atmosphere at the Capitol is often intense and artificial…it is easy to assume that the issues that dominate the capitol are also foremost in people’s minds back home. 

Election News:

Just 60 more days until the general election.  Here are some important upcoming dates:

October 15            Advanced voting by mail begins
October 20            Last day to register to vote in general election                     
October 21            Advanced voting in person begins
Nov. 3, noon         Advanced voting closes
November 4          ELECTION DAY

Campaign News:

My yard sign list is growing.  Since I did not have an opponent in the primary, I only put out a few signs in August.  However, with your help, I will be blanketing the district with signs in October.  If you would like a sign and haven’t yet contacted me, just reply to this newsletter and I’ll add you to my list. 

Just a word about yard sign placement.  Please keep your sign between the sidewalk and your home.  If you have no sidewalk, the sign should go approximately ___ feet from the curb.  Signs can be placed in your yard 30 days before the election (October 4th) and need to be removed 2 days after the election (November 6th).  It is probably a good idea to take the signs inside on Halloween so as not to tempt those goblins, ghosts, and pranksters!  If my yard sign is removed without your permission (stolen!), let me know and I’ll replace it while quantities last!

Legislative Wrap-up #3

This third installment of my legislative wrap up will deal with immigration and miscellaneous legislation from the 2008 session.

HB 2836 The Kansas Illegal Alien Reform Act

This bill was considered in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.  The bill would have:
•    denied public benefits to those unlawfully in the United States and made verification of citizenship part of the benefits application process. 
•    allowed local governments to enact laws to prevent rental of housing to undocumented aliens and allowed lawful employees to bring lawsuits against employers who violate the bill. 
•    prohibited an employer from receiving a tax deduction or credits based on payments made to unauthorized aliens.
•    created the crime of employment identity fraud, if false or misleading identification documents are presented to an employer in order to obtain employment.  The crime would have been a severity level 8, non-person felony. 
•    charged a person who votes or attempts to vote in an election and who is not a lawful registered voter or helps a person vote who is not a lawful registered voter with a severity level 9, non-person felony.
•    required all individuals to provide proof of citizenship and immigration status when applying for a driver’s license.
 

Hearings were heard on all the immigration bills (HB 2370, 2680, 2836, 2921, and 6009) at one time.  So many people wanted to testify on both sides of this issue that testimony was limited to just a few minutes per person.  The largest hearing room, the Old Supreme Court Room, was overflowing.  There was a lot of interest in and passion for and against these pieces of legislation.  As with so many issues, the solution that initially seemed so black and white to many quickly became clouded and gray to most.  Among the many questions raised in the testimony were:
•    How will local law enforcement handle the increased workload---hire more officers?  Give them specialized training in immigration law?  Who pays for this increase?  How does making policemen into immigration enforcers change their ability to work with the legal immigrant group in their community?  How do you detain, house, transport, and determine the legal standing of hundreds, perhaps thousands of suspected illegals? 
•    How do you determine that a business knew they were hiring an illegal worker?  Suppose applicants use false papers, how far must a small businessman go to determine they are false?  Is E-Verify, the federal system for checking the legal status of workers, valid and reliable?  Do we really want to shut down a business and put other legal workers out of work?  Are enough legal workers available to fill the jobs being done by illegals workers?  How do you catch the “bad apples” without hurting or overburdening the average businessman?
•    Federal law requires that emergency care and immunizations be given to everyone for public safety reasons.  Do we really want to withhold immunizations and keep a significant portion of the community harboring communicable diseases?  Do we want emergency rooms to screen for citizenship before treating a car accident, a heart attack, etc.?  Do we want health care providers to become immigration officers?

Other points to consider:
•    A 1986 federal immigration law forbids states from punishing businesses directly – with either fines or jail time for owners – for hiring illegal workers.  For this reason, states are revoking business licenses to shut down the business or looking at other creative ways to impact businesses who “knowingly” hire.
•    For state and local law enforcement, being here without papers may be illegal, but it isn’t a crime that local or state law enforcement can arrest you for.  “Immigration law provides for both criminal punishments (e.g., alien smuggling, which is prosecuted in the courts) and civil violations (e.g., lack of legal status, which may lead to removal through a separate administrative system).  The states and localities have traditionally only been permitted to directly enforce the criminal provisions, whereas the enforcement of the civil provisions has been viewed as a federal responsibility with states playing an incidental supporting role.” (Enforcing Immigration Law: The Role of State and Local Law Enforcement, CRS report for Congress)

Immigration law is very complicated.  For general information about Immigration law, check out this website:  http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/immigration.

SB 329
As a result of these hearings, new legislation was drafted resulting in SB 329.  The major provisions of this bill were:
•    Requiring I-9 (immigration status form) be completed and kept on file for each employee
•    Requiring that e-verify be used for state, county, and municipal employees starting in July 1, 2009 and by all employers by July 1, 2011.
•    Punishing businesses that knowingly hire an illegal alien with:
       (1st offense) termination of the illegal employee, probation of the
       employer for 3 years, requiring the employer to sign an affidavit
       agreeing not to knowingly hire in the future.
       (2nd and subsequent offenses) termination of the illegal employee,
       fining the employer for violating the court order, requiring the
       employer to use e-verify.
•    Making it a crime to deal in false documents, exploit illegal aliens, or misclassify an employee as an independent contractor.

I supported this bill.  While it was less than perfect, it was a first step.  It passed the House on a vote of 96 to 27.  The Senate did not concur with the House bill so it went to conference committee.  The conference committee was not able to work out an acceptable compromise so the bill died in committee.

Legislative Post Audit on Immigration---proviso in SB 534 (the appropriations bill), I supported this.
The House and Senate did pass a proviso calling for a Legislative Post Audit to gather reliable information on the economic impact of illegal immigrants.  So many broad statements are made about the number of immigrants in Kansas, the number of jobs being taken from citizens and the cost of public benefits being provided to illegal immigrants.  Legislators need reliable information upon which to make decisions.  The questions to be addressed in the audit are: 
1.    What are the estimated costs to the State of Kansas for benefits and services provided to illegal immigrants?
2.    What are the estimated tax revenues generated from illegal immigrants in Kansas and does it appear they offset the costs of benefits and services provided?
3.    What is the impact of illegal immigration on labor costs and the job market in Kansas?
I’ll include the results in my newsletter.  The audit, started this summer, will take 15-20 weeks to complete.  A post audit staff note reminds us:  “Because of the hidden nature of the illegal immigrant population, it is extremely difficult to come up with reliable estimates of costs or revenues.  Therefore, we expect that the estimates produced by this audit will be shown in fairly wide ranges

Community Forum on Immigration
If you have an interest in learning more about immigration from a legal, human, economic, and religious perspective, the Peace and Justice Committee at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church is sponsoring a community forum at 7pm on Thursday evening, September 18th at the church, 7740 Lackman Road.  The panel will include:  Judy Bordeau, Attorney, Eisberg & Bordeau; Daniel Romero, Immigrant Justice Advocacy Movement; Sister Therese Bangert, Social Justice Coordinator, Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Angela Ferguson, Attorney, Austin & Ferguson; and Rick Behrens, Pastor Grandview Park Presbyterian Church.  I am a member of St. Paul’s and will also be a part of the panel, sharing information from the 2008 legislative session. 

Other Legislation Passed In 2008

SB 481:  Hallucinogenic Drug
Adds the hallucinogenic drugs, salvia divinorum (Salvinorum A) and satura stramonium (gypsum weed or jimsom week), to the Schedule 1 of the Kansas controlled Substances Act.  This bill makes it illegal to possess, use, or sell these drugs.  I supported this bill.

HB 2726:  Victims Rights
Prohibits law enforcement from requesting or requiring an alleged victim of sex offenses to submit to a polygraph test or similar truth-telling device.  I supported this bill.

HB 2617:  Implied Consent
Requires a law enforcement officer to request a test for alcohol and/or drugs from a person involved in a vehicular accident resulting in serious injury or death if the officer has probable cause to believe drugs or alcohol were involved.  The bill authorizes the forced withdrawal of blood as well as urine if necessary.  I supported this bill.

House Sub for SB 414:  Stalking 
Redefines the crime of stalking to include two or more acts over a period of time which show a continuity of purpose or a violation of a protective order.  The penalty ranges from a class A person misdemeanor to a level 5 person felony.  I supported this bill.

Senate Sub for HB 2119:  Micro Utility Trucks
Defines micro utility trucks and regulates their operation.  It is unlawful to drive these on any interstate, federal, or state highway; within the corporate limits of any city; or any public highway or street.  Classified as non-highway vehicles, they must be titled as such.  The fine for unlawful operation of a micro utility truck is $60.  I supported this bill.

Senate Sub for HB 2923:  Active-Duty and Veterans Benefits
Adds benefits for active-duty military personnel  (increases the activation payment, defers property taxes if deployed to a foreign country, and makes them eligible for special military license plates) and for veterans (new position of the KS Commission on Veteran’s Affairs, year-round sales of Veterans Benefit Game lottery tickets which benefits National Guard scholarships and veterans homes, and free annual hunting and fishing licenses to honorably discharged vets).  I supported this bill.


How many laws were passed this session?
During the 2008 Session, 702 new bills were introduced---309 in the Senate and 393 in the House.  In addition, 498 bills were carried over from the preceding year.  Of these 1,200 bills, 184 (15%) became law.

I obviously cannot discuss all the bills that come before the House or even all those that become law.  If you have an interest in a particular law mentioned here or want to know more about a bill that I didn’t mention, please contact me.

A few more facts…
Most of the enacted bills were introduced by a committee; only 21 of the 184 were introduced by individual legislators.  The Governor vetoed seven bills and five line items.  All vetoes were sustained.  No bills will be carried over to the 2009 session.

Jill’s Recent Activities:

T. Boone Picken’s Energy Presentation in Topeka, the first stop on his across the country tour to promote his vision of developing wind power to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  He would use wind to displace our use of natural gas as a fuel source, thus freeing up natural gas to be used by automobiles.

15th Annnual Women in Government Midwestern Regional Conference in Indianapolis, IN; Kim Templeton, MD, associate professor of Orthopedic Surgery at KU Medical Center spoke on osteoporosis prevention and awareness.

Seniors Lunch Group at Asbury United Methodist Church, I spoke about laws passed during the 2008 session that were of special interest to seniors and had great sliced homegrown tomatoes!!

Leader’s Project on the State of American Health Care, Dole Institute in Lawrence, an effort by Senator Dole to develop and promote health policies that can attract bipartisan support from policymakers.

Representative John Conyers, Michigan Congressman, in KC to celebrate the 43rd Anniversary of Medicare, spoke at Family Health Care about his proposed legislation, HR 676.

Second Annual Heartland Energy Symposium, sponsored by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, featured Congressmen Markey and Cleaver, gave out the Energy Booster Awards.

Cretex tour and presentation, Bonner Springs, everything you wanted to know about concrete and it’s use in transportation and building projects.

Interim Hearing, Committee on Pensions, Investments, and Benefits, discussion of the earnings cap for disabled retired police and fireman, affecting several constituents.

Interim Hearing, Joint Committee on Home and Community-based Services, discussion of funding for home and community based services---waiting lists for developmental disability services and salaries for providers.

Meeting with the Epilepsy Foundation and the Kansas Pharmacist Association, discussion of generic for generic drug substitution in patients with intractable seizures.

Meeting of the Governor’s Fitness Council, discussion of strategies for decreasing childhood obesity and increasing fitness, awarding of Hometown Health Heros.  One recipient was a repeat… Don “Red Dog” Gardner of Lawrence, KS.  He and a group of volunteers conduct three daily 45-minute activity workouts each summer, known as Dog Days.  The 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m., Monday through Thursday sessions bring area residents of all ages and activity levels to Memorial Stadium for a brisk stretching, calisthenics and aerobic activity workout.  Since 1984, Dog Days has grown from six or seven athletes into a community event with an average attendance in the morning and evening of more than 450 people!

Governor’s Farm and Ranch Tour sponsored by the Farm Bureau, tour and discussion of issues facing farmers in Johnson County and across Kansas.  We visited the Guetterman and Mackey farms in Johnson County.


It is an honor to represent you.  Please contact me when I am not in session at:
PO Box 14823
Lenexa, KS  66485
913-541-9645
jill@jillquigley.com

Jill Quigley
Your Representative
Kansas House District 17