News from Kansas State Representative Ken Rahjes

Hello from Agra. 

We have officially made it through turnaround. This past week was busy, but we were able to pass 69 bills, for a total of 96 bills since swearing-in. As of today, the Senate has passed 62 bills that will head to us for consideration.  

Leading into the session, I said water would be the issue of the year, and two significant pieces of legislation were passed out of the House and now on to the Senate. HB 2279: Requiring groundwater management districts to submit annual written reports to the legislature and to provide water conservation and stabilization action plans to the chief engineer. The vote was Yea: 116 and Nay: 6. HB 2302: Modifying the distribution of money into the state water plan fund, creating the water technical assistance fund and the water projects grant fund for water-related infrastructure projects, and distributing a portion of the revenue from the sales and compensating use tax to the state water plan fund. The vote was :Yea: 119 and Nay: 3.

Chairman Jim Minnix of Scott City led the effort to find a reasonable funding source to pay for the state water plan and other programs pertaining to water and also the groundwater management districts would report to the legislature on their activities every year. Every citizen in Kansas has a stake in water conservation, quality and quantity and these pieces of legislation will be a start down a long road.  This is a better way than having drastic reductions in water use or stopping all water use in certain locations. We will be watching what happens on the Senate side.

As mentioned earlier, there were a total of 69 bills passed in our chamber that will now go to the Senate and their bills will come to our side.  

You can read about all the bills that passed so far in the legislature online at kslegislature.org and when the House and Senate are on the floor or in committees you can see all of them on the Kansas Legislature’s YouTube channel. I am located at 186-W, which is the northwest corner of the capital. My assistant again this year is Terry Benitis. If you would like to contact me, my email is: ken.rahjes@house.ks.gov, phone during the session at (785) 296-7463 or you can always try my cell number at (785) 302-8416. If you have a young person who would like to come and spend the day as a Legislative Page, please let me know as soon as possible and we will work on what is a good day for that to happen.

Thanks for reading. It is my honor to serve you.