The House K-12 Education Budget Committee meeting for today was cancelled and we are not quite certain about why. We had expected the committee to meet – on Friday night Chairman Campbell had said they would likely meet to finish the transportation weighting and consider a few additional amendments. Frankly, we thought they might finish up today and send the bill out.
But the meeting was cancelled early today amid rumors of a desire to have the new legislative counsel on hand before voting the bill out (reports are that the legislature may hire former Senator Jeff King as their adviser on school finance). Another rumor is that a cost run came in unusually high and needed to be further reviewed. It’s also possible that leadership may not be fully supportive the measure being crafted in the committee.
But whatever the reason, the committee will not meet today. We will watch for an announcement about tomorrow.
House Fails to Override Brownback’s Medicaid Veto
On a vote of 81 – 44, the House failed to pass a motion to override the Governor’s veto of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. It takes an 84 vote majority to override.
This action means that there are now and will be into the foreseeable future, 150,000 low-incomed working Kansans who have no real access to health insurance. These are people whose income is too high for ACA credits but too low to pay for private insurance.
The 44 who voted NO on the override are Republican Representatives Arnberger, Aurand, Awerkamp, Barker, Blex, Carpenter, Claeys, Corbet, Davis, DeGraaf, Delperdang, Dove, Ellis, Esau, Finch, Francis, Garber, Hawkins, Highland, Hoffman, House, Huebert, Humphries, Jacob, Jones, Lakin, Landwehr, Mason, Osterman, Powell, Rafie, Rahjes, Resman, Ryckman, Schwab, Seiwert, Eric Smith, Tarwater, Thimesch, Vickrey, Weber, Whitmer, and Williams.
All 40 Democrats and 41 other Republicans voted to override.
