Availability of testimony in the Kansas Legislature

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It is easy to provide Kansans with written testimony from the Kansas Legislature. At least I think so.

On the Kansas Legislature website, each committee has its own page. On these committee pages there are links for “Committee Agenda,” “Committee Minutes,” and “Testimony.” When I looked at these pages two years ago, I found that in most cases there is no data behind these links.1 I do not know what the statistics would be if I repeated the analysis for this year.

But the written testimony and informational presentations provided to committees are of interest and value to citizens. Most committees — perhaps all — require conferees to supply a pdf or Microsoft Word version of their testimony in advance of the hearing. These electronic documents could be placed online before the committee hearing. Then, anyone with a computer, tablet, or smartphone could have these documents available to them.

As an illustration, a bill from last week, SB31, was of interest to many in Kansas.2 But the page for the committee that heard this bill holds no testimony, for this bill or any other.

I’ve gathered the written testimony on SB31 and present it as a single pdf file for ease of handling. I combined the files and formed an index using PDF Split and Merge Basic, which is free and open source. I shared the file using Google Drive, a free service, or very inexpensive if additional storage is required. I can’t tell you how much time it took to accomplish this task, as I was interrupted several times during the process. If pressed, I’d estimate no more than ten or fifteen minutes.

You may access this document here. I can’t tell you how much time it took to accomplish this task, as I was interrupted several times during the process. If pressed, I’d estimate no more than ten minutes.


Notes

  1. Weeks, Bob. Availability of testimony in the Kansas Legislature. https://wichitaliberty.org/kansas-government/availability-testimony-kansas-legislature/.
  2. Weeks, Bob. In Kansas, the war on blight continues. https://wichitaliberty.org/kansas-government/kansas-war-blight-continues/.

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