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Senate Transparency and Ethics Committee holds first meeting; schedules hearings on annexation, solar and ethics bills
Summary
At its first session the Senate Transparency and Ethics Committee introduced members, assigned time-sensitive budgets for immediate review and heard staff summaries of bills including limits on unilateral annexation (SB 124), HOA/solar rules (SB 144) and lobbying definition changes (SB 286).
The Senate Transparency and Ethics Committee met for its first organizational session. Chair Senator Bowers said the meeting would be short and that the committee "will be assigned budgets this year to work," noting the budgets are time-sensitive and will be handled before remaining bills.
Jason Long of the Office of Revisor of Statutes summarized the bills remaining in committee. He described Senate Bill 12 as a measure that "requires each member of a governing body of a city or county whose district includes territory that is to be acquired by eminent domain, to vote in the affirmative for exercising that eminent domain" when the taking is for recreational grounds. He said there was no hearing on that bill last session.
Long also summarized Senate Bill 37 as a proposal to repeal cities' authority to enact zoning and planning ordinances for territory up to three miles outside city boundaries. He noted a hearing occurred Jan. 30 last session but no action was taken. On SB 40 he called the measure a "shell bill" related to termination of campaign accounts and said that subject was enacted in House Bill 2206, leaving SB 40 without active content.
On growth-and-annexation policy, Long described Senate Bill 124 as a proposal that would "limit unilateral annexation for property that is less than 20 acres, and there's no contiguous boundary with the city." When asked what problem SB 124 was intended to address, Jason Long said there is "some dispute over annexations of narrow corridors of land so that the city boundary then would be connected to another property" and that amendments have been drafted; Chair Bowers said a formal hearing with those amendments is expected within the next couple of weeks.
Senator Pat Petty asked whether Senate Bill 144, which Long described as invalidating restrictive covenants that prohibit solar panel installation while allowing homeowner associations reasonable rule-making, had a hearing last session; Long said he could not find a hearing record and offered to double-check.
Long summarized other items in the committee's queue: Senate Bill 112 (prohibiting right-of-way grant conditions for building permits), Senate Bill 120 (Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, enacted previously as part of House bill action), Senate Bill 285 (reimbursement rules referenced in earlier House bill enactment), and Senate Bill 286 (a redefinition of lobbying activities and exclusions from that definition), noting that SB 286 received a multi-day hearing last March.
Chair Bowers outlined the committee's near-term schedule: the committee will first review time-sensitive budgets for the Board of Barbering, Board of Cosmetology, Board of Technical Professions and the Public Disclosure Commission; the following week the committee expects to consider the Office of the State Bank Commissioner and the item transcribed as "Kansas Department Bridal Unions" (noted in the transcript and requiring verification). Members also discussed coordinating hearings with their counterparts in the House for bills such as SB 37.
The meeting closed with routine staffing notes (Jason and Charles alternating as staff) and logistics; Chair Bowers confirmed the committee would meet again next Wednesday and adjourned the session.
What happens next: Staff will prepare or verify bill briefs and amendments, the chair expects a formal hearing on SB 124 within weeks, and the committee will prioritize the named budgets first in the next meeting.
