Kansas Week 4 Recap: Kansas loses money, AI, taking food from children, and MORE 🚨
Video Script
Intro [1/20 - 2/03]
Hey I’m Davis Hammet with Loud Light! Here’s what happened the 4th week inside the Kansas Statehouse.
Removing Summer Family Food Program (HB2674)
A new federally funded program would start giving Kansas families in poverty an increase in food assistance benefits during summer months when kids can’t access school meals. The benefits are set to start this Summer, but House Welfare Reform Committee Chairman, Rep. Awerkamp (R), has introduced a bill to stop the state from rolling out the program. If the bill passes Kansas kids in poverty will be denied roughly $120 in grocery assistance over the Summer months.
Model Legislation / Higher Ed. D.E.I. (HB2460)
“Model Legislation” are bills written by national groups and shopped around the nation to state legislators often by taking legislators on vacation conferences to pitch the proposals. Such model legislation is extremely common in Kansas and this week a House Committee heard model legislation aimed at undermining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in colleges. The bill would prohibit and create legal penalties for public universities that ask questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion and “related topics” during the hiring process. Meaning a university may be sued for asking faculty to pledge to make campus a welcoming and inclusive space for all students. The bill raises a variety of constitutional free speech concerns and the Attorney General informed the committee that if passed the law may result in years of legal challenges at an unknown cost to the state.
Revenue Shortfalls
For the last several months, Kansas has brought in less tax revenue each month than expected with the revenue estimate vs. actual shortfall hitting $64 million dollars for the month of January alone. There are a variety of factors that contribute to the ongoing shortfalls in revenue including the ongoing impacts of a tax cut bill passed in 2021 when a veto by the Democratic Governor was overroad by Republican legislators to create a variety of new tax write offs for large corporations and wealthier Kansans. Also, impacting the revenue is 2022’s APEX bill which created a variety of subsidies for and lowered taxes on corporations, and the SALT Parity Act allowing wealthy professionals to pay lower tax rates. It’s unclear how or if the revenue shortfall revelation will impact the debate on more tax cuts in Kansas, but it’s now clear that the state doesn’t have a full grasp of the impact and consequences of the tax cuts enacted in the last few years.
Artificial Intelligence (HB2559 )
The legislature has started looking into issues of Artificial Intelligence in political campaigns. The House held a hearing on a bill making it a crime to use artificial intelligence to create images, videos, or audio of candidates or public officials that are realistic, but false. The proposed additions to the Kansas corrupt political advertising act would allow campaigns to create such deceptive material only if they add a disclosure that the content has been manipulated. This comes as international concern is growing about the use of AI and some candidates in the United States such as Ron DeSantis have already utilized AI to create deceptive media.
Coming Up
Next Friday is the deadline for most bills to be introduced and the breakneck speed of this legislative session is showing no signs of slowing. Over 300 bills have been introduced so far this year and roughly 70 bills will have hearings next week on topics ranging from open records and child visitation rights to new license plates and naming highways. Also, a wave of election restriction bills that would create new obstacles to vote or have your vote counted will have hearings. There’s lots of advocacy opportunities this coming week including Monday for the environment & health, Wednesday for menstrual equity, and Thursday for gun violence prevention. Be sure to join our email list at loudlight.org/signup so you don’t miss a week of the action. Stay tuned, stay engaged, and until next time, thank you so much Kansas!