Unemployment benefits waiting period debate is deadlocked
10:32 p.m. Monday, March 12, 2007
It's been a slow session in the Kansas Statehouse. Several weeks ago the governor expressed frustration at the lack of action.
This was an example, as both houses struggled to come to an agreement, or even an agreement to disagree. Debate in the House chamber was complicated, and there were several delays.
A few representatives seemed ready to give up, and others were annoyed about an amendment to eliminate the unemployment benefits waiting week. That issue was not discussed in committee.
“Bring it out and have a bill that can be voted on that is a rational bill, rather than trying to sneak in some amendment that comes out of left field,” Rep. Mike Kiegerl (R, Olathe) stated from the podium.
Rep. Janice Pauls (D, Hutchinson) responded.
What the fuss is about
It's all over a bill that deals with employer tax breaks. It was passed by both the House and Senate, but in different versions. The House version would also get unemployment benefits out to laid-off Kansans faster. So it went to conference committee, but the members of the committee couldn't agree, so they sent the bill back to both houses.
“If the last representative thinks that's 'sneaking something in', I have to say he's not seen much subtlety in either the House or Senate,” Pauls said.
At times, debate centered not on the policy, but the politics at play, and House members not wanting to give in to the Senate position.
“Let me just tell you, you don't want to take that kind of tone with the Senate. The word gets around. We may not all get a chance to talk but they talk a lot on the Senate side. They're kind of a small social club,” Pauls said.
"I don't think we should immediately cave in to the Senate,” she added.
In the end House members voted to "agree to disagree" which would have made it easier to get the bill to the governor, if Senators had done the same thing.
They voted against "agreeing to disagree" which means the conference committee is still deadlocked in indecision.
Comments
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Mar. 14, 2007 at 1:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)Linda (anonymous)
Did I read this correctly? They voted against "agreeing to disagree"?
The Legislature desperately wants to be fashionable.
If you can make any sense out of their dim-witted disquisitions, then you must have gotten higher marks in school than I did.
I'll use a phrase that Prof. Revilo P. Oliver said at one time. The legislature's cognitive thinking is "hermetically sealed against fresh air from the real world."
Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for "advanced" thought already knows that they emit an essence of "careless" that is so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics as we know them.
Here's one detail to end with: The Legislature provides complex answers to simplistic problems.
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