KABVI NEWS - Volume 47, Spring 2004

WHAT KABVI IS WORKING ON WITH THE KANSAS LEGISLATURE

By Michael Byington

When putting together articles about legislation, I ponder whether it is productive to say much about the Legislation KABVI is working on this winter. By the time many of you read this, the Kansas Legislative session may be nearly over. I think it is important, however, that you know what KABVI is attempting to accomplish. KABVI may make progress during this current session of the Kansas Legislature, but it is safe to predict that it will not accomplish everything. If the organization ever gets it all done, then it did not set its goals high enough. In Kansas, State Legislators spend most of the first four months of the year in the Capitol in Topeka. For the rest of the year, they travel to the Capitol infrequently, and spend most of their time in their home districts. They are your neighbors and associates. It is thus important that you contact them during any time of the year, in their Topeka office, or at their home address. Tell them you support KABVI, and if you agree with some of the efforts being reported here, tell them you want to see those things done. KABVI Legislative Chair Mark Coates and I are working on two issues so far this Legislative year.

KABVI has introduced, and supports, House Bill 2388. This bill would restore the field program to the Kansas Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and would cause that agency to be administered by a Commission made up of blind and visually impaired Kansans, and Kansans who are experts in blindness, rather than by generalist bureaucrats who work for the extremely large and administratively varied, Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS). KABVI believes this would give blind Kansans more input and control over the agency that serves them. Restoring the field program would undo a change SRS leadership made in late 2000 when they removed all of the field counselors and rehabilitation teachers for the blind from the administrative control of Kansas Blind Services, and placed the entire blind services field program under general area office supervision.

KABVI also wants to make sure that the State of Kansas does a good and thorough job of implementing the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). This legislation was adopted by the federal Congress, and signed into law in 2002. It was prompted by some of the vote counting problems experienced in Florida during the 2000 elections. Thanks largely to the efforts of the National staff of the American Council of the Blind, the final version of the Legislation requires that all Americans, including those who have visual disabilities, be able to vote privately, independently, and verifiably. This is groundbreaking Legislation that for the first time in the History of the United States addresses the privacy of disabled voters. Kansas must now adopt implementing legislation to get its share of allocated Federal funds to implement the HAVA. Last year, the implementing legislation did not pass because Governor Sebelius and Secretary of State Thornburgh could not agree on the fine details. Their disagreement stemmed from a question of whether all voters, or simply newly registered voters, should have to show identification in order to vote. The federal legislation would allow either requirement to be in place, and KABVI has not taken a position on which is best; but the State of Kansas will not get around 27 million dollars of allocated federal funds to implement HAVA until the Kansas Governor and Secretary of State stop bickering over the identification question. The message our members and friends need to give to Governor Sebelius, and Secretary of State Thornburgh, is simply that they need to come to some kind of an agreement or compromise on the HAVA implementation legislation so that the Governor will not again find it necessary (as she did last year) to veto the legislation which the Secretary of State carefully guided through the Legislative process.