In the near future, Kansas residents will be forced to comply with a statewide smoking ban, which has received the support of both chambers of the Kansas Legislature. Today, the House voted 68-54 to concur with the conference committee agreement reached between select members of the House and the Senate.

The motion to concur was brought by Rep. Charles Roth, a left-wing Republican representing Salina. Unlike regular bills, motions to concur are easier to bring to the floor without approval from House leadership. According to House leaders, Roth has been a long-time supporter of the smoking ban and had been waiting until he could secure the necessary votes before he brought the motion to the floor.

House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, said it appeared Roth’s efforts had received a push from Gov. Mark Parkinson, an advocate of the smoking ban.

“You notice that the Democrats voted in a block, which means the governor got to them,” Merrick told Kansas Liberty. “If you go down the list, you notice that this wasn’t a normal vote for a lot of them. It was a different dynamic.”

Merrick said there was no course of action House leadership could take to block the motion to concur.

Parkinson has already issued a statement confirming that he will be signing House Bill 2221 into law.

“This is a victory for workers, families, businesses and future generations,” Parkinson said. “Today’s success took many years and many struggles, but thanks to a bipartisan coalition in the Legislature, the tireless efforts of our state’s health advocates and the support of the Kansas people, this legislation will soon become law.”

House Bill 2221 will create the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act and will prohibit smoking in public places, taxis, restrooms, lobbies, access points of buildings and places of employment. Access points are defined as areas that are “within a ten-foot radius” outside the entry of a building.

However, the legislation does exempt casinos — a decision that led several House members to proclaim the legislation as “hypocritical” on the House floor today.

Any casinos built in Kansas will be owned by the state, and therefore the state will benefit from the casino’s revenue. During the bill's deliberations, casino supporters voiced their concerns that a smoking ban within the casino would cause a loss of business, and therefore a loss of revenue for the state.

The legislation also provides exemptions for private homes, certain hotel rooms, portions of adult care homes, portions of long-term care providers within a medical care facility, tobacco shops and certain private clubs.

Smoking-ban proponents were able to muscle the legislation through by using procedural tactics, which has spanned two legislative sessions. The original House Bill 2221 was legislation relating to child-care records and passed the Kansas House in 2009 without controversy. After the bill passed the House, its contents were deleted in the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee and replaced with the contents with legislation creating the statewide smoking ban.

Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia, serves as the chair of the Public Health and Welfare Committee and was also assigned to serve on the six-member conference committee for HB 2221.

This “gut-and-go” strategy was likely used because proponents of the smoking ban were aware that the legislation had the ability to pass the Senate, but realized it was not probable the measure would receive attention in the more-conservative House.

After the contents of the bill were switched in the Senate, the chamber voted to pass the legislation 25-15 after a lengthy debate in 2009. The vote was divided mostly between Democrats and left-wing Republicans and conservatives.

After the bill was referred to conference committee in 2009, House proponents waited until they were able to secure enough votes before they decided to bring the motion to concur to the House floor.

“They apparently worked on enough people and they made it happen,” Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, told Kansas Liberty.

While proponents of the bill focused on the dangers of second-hand smoke during the debate, Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe, brought up the point that an extension of governmental control of this magnitude would impact individual liberty of Kansas residents.

“The question is not just of air quality; the question here today is one of liberty,” Kinzer said. “We have become very comfortable in our society with identifying problems and then jumping to the conclusion that for every problem there must be a government-imposed solution.”

Kinzer acknowledged that he was a non-smoker and said he utilized his freedom to choose not to enter establishments that permitted smoking and warned that passing this bill was a “very dangerous path to go down.”

In addition to opposing the legislation because of its “nanny-state” contents, Republicans spoke out strongly against the casino exemption.

While on the floor, Roth referred to the legislation as a “legacy” bill, a term Landwehr, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, disagreed with because of the casino exemption.

“This is not a legacy bill. It's more of a hypocrisy bill,” Landwehr told Kansas Liberty.

Landwehr was one of the six legislators assigned to the conference committee on the legislation. Landwehr scheduled for the committee to meet yesterday morning at 8:30 so she could bring up discussion regarding the removal of the casino exemption. However, under the direction of Senate leadership, the clerk of the Senate sent out an e-mail indicating the meeting had been canceled.

Both Landwehr and Merrick said that the Senate's decision to cancel the meeting was against legislative protocol.

“You can’t do that because it’s a House bill and so the House controls the committee,” Merrick said. “Sen. Barnett has been less than truthful or helpful in this whole situation.”

Landwehr then rescheduled the meeting for 12:30 p.m., but none of the committee members showed up to the conference committee.

Barnett did not return Kansas Liberty's request for comment Thursday.

Landwehr said she was surprised by the lack of compliance by committee members because she believed she had verified with Barnett that the meeting would take place.

Landwehr said that when she told Barnett about the Wednesday meeting he had responded by saying, “OK,” which she interpreted as his support.

“Apparently when he says, 'OK,' that doesn’t mean yes,” Landwehr told Kansas Liberty.

During last year’s Senate session, an amendment was brought to the floor that would have removed the casino exemption from the legislation. Barnett was one of the 22 senators who voted against the amendment and he also indicated to Landwehr that he was not willing to strip the exemption in committee.

“He wanted that in there,” Landwehr said.

This chain of events allowed the legislation to proceed without the committee having the chance to deliberate whether to remove the casino exemption.

Resources:

House Bill 2221

Smoking ban votes

Previously on Kansas Liberty:

After heated debate, no smoking

The Week in Review