Mar 12, 2025

BILLILNGER: Senate Update March 10, 2025

Posted Mar 12, 2025 2:01 PM
State Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, 40th Dist. File photo/Hays Post
State Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, 40th Dist. File photo/Hays Post

TOPEKA
March 10, 2025

This will be a very busy week in the Senate Ways and Means committee. We will try to have a budget bill completed by Thursday for staff to assemble and print.

Legislation passed in the last few days:

SB 33 would authorize the sales tax exemption provided for in continuing law for sales of the services of slaughtering, butchering, custom cutting, dressing, processing, or packaging of an animal for the customer’s own use or consumption to be claimed without a requirement that exemption certificates or forms be provided by the purchaser or collected or maintained by the seller.

SB 137 would amend the Kansas Standard Asset Seizure and Forfeiture Act to permit firearms forfeited under the Act to be sold or transferred to a properly licensed federal firearms dealer.

The Senate took a unanimous stand in support of closing a loophole in Kansas laws regarding child support by passing SB237. The bill would require courts to consider the value of a qualified retirement account in determination of child support orders and eliminate the exemption of such accounts from claims to collect child support.

HB 2261 would add majors of the highway patrol as being unclassified service under the Kansas Civil Service Act. The bill also would provide permanent status for a person returning to a classified KHP position at the end of a term in an unclassified KHP position.

Last week the Senate also voted to confirm Steven Anderson to the Office of Inspector General.

The Kansas Senate voted to adopt SCR 1604, a resolution calling for the Convention of States. Under article 5 of the United States Constitution, a Convention of States may be called to propose amendments to the United States constitution. It takes thirty-four ratifying identical resolutions to call for such a convention, 38 states to ratify any amendments emerging from that convention. So far, 19 states have adopted a version of SCR1604, which calls for a convention “limited to proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of congress.”

I am honored and grateful to represent the 40th Senate District in Kansas. Please do not hesitate to contact me by email: [email protected] or call me with your questions or concerns. My office number is 785-296-7399 or my cell number is 785-899-4700. If you are in Topeka, stop by my office at 545-S.