Kansas House, Senate agree to limit bundling except on tax bills

The Kansas House and Senate passed a rules compromise this week that will limit the number of subjects that can be bundled in one bill with the exception of tax bills after disagreement over the Legislature’s joint rules had stalled work in the Senate this session.

The Senate passed the compromise 27-7 on Monday and the House passed it by a vote of 83-38 on Tuesday after a debate about transparency and accountability.

The House had originally wanted to limit the bundling of bills to two subjects, while the Senate wanted unlimited bundling. The final compromise reduces the number of subjects to four, but leaves tax bills exempt from the rule.

Rep. John Rubin, R-Shawnee, had been the primary proponent of limiting bundling, a practice which critics say hampers transparency by coupling unrelated topics into one bill and allowing pieces of legislation to pass that otherwise couldn’t by pairing them with legislation that has to pass.

Rubin had built a coalition of Democrats, moderates and conservatives, which had passed the initial anti-bundling measure and blocked a previous compromise that would have limited the number to five.

But on Tuesday, Rubin asked House members to support the compromise. "It's not the best that I would like to see...but we've come a long way,” Rubin said. “This is at least a partial victory."

He did not hide his disappointment that tax bills would be exempt from the rule.

On Monday, Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, argued that tax bills need to be exempt from the rule because they tend to be passed late in the session when there is a limited amount of time and opportunities to get legislation passed.

“Over half of the tax policy that’s been passed in the last two years would not have become law under this bundling rule if tax weren’t exempt,” King said. “Everyone wants to be able to consider bills individually but it’s also tough to explain to constituents that a good bill didn’t become law because of a procedural rule on bundling.”

Rep. John Barker, R-Abilene, who carried the measure on the House floor, said the complexity of tax legislation often makes bundling necessary.

“Tax is kind of different,” Barker said. “Because when you touch when tax other taxes get involved and it’s like the spokes of a wheel, you got to have them all in place before you can get the wheel to go around.”

However, Rep. Jim Ward, that the exemption of tax bills was an attempt to avoid accountability.

The Legislature is expected to pass tax legislation as part of a needed budget fix this year. Ward argued that exempting tax bills would allow that legislation to be presented as an all or nothing proposition.

Ward unsuccessfully tried to convince House members to stand firm and send the rules proposal back to conference.

“Believe me we’re going to have tax bills this year,” Ward said. “And I’m going to come down here and remind you as this terrible tax bill that all of you have that look on your face of, ‘Oh, good God, I’ve got to vote for this’…We could stop that today and make each individual tax, or at least two, stand on their own as good policy.”

Senate leaders have been waiting to put bills up for votes until the joint rules have passed and had indicated that they would not make additional compromises. Ward compared Senate leaders to kids on a playground threatening to take their toys home.

Rep. Marvin Kleeb, R-Overland Park, said that even though his committee is exempt from the anti-bundling rule he would be conscious of House members’ general opposition to bundling.

“I’m not going to back myself into a corner on this, but largely I don’t want to be bundling either,” he said.

This story was originally published February 17, 2015 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Kansas House, Senate agree to limit bundling except on tax bills."