Last year’s passage of HB 2506, which combined the Gannon equity remedy with several harmful education policy provisions that had not passed through the legislature during the regular session is a prime example of what’s wrong with bundling bills.
“That is not a good way to do business, or to govern. Bundling two, closely related bills into one can usually be justified, but using one good bill to carry several dogs across the legislative finish line is a shameful practice…Perhaps, the House should stick to its guns on this one and decline to participate in bundling that pulls unpopular bills from the scrap heap and gets them written into law.
“[Senate Vice-President Jeff] King also said that over the past two years, 28 conference committee reports would have violated the anti-bundling rule the house has adopted. If King is using that statistic as an argument in favor of bundling, it is missing the mark. The number just tells Kansans that legislators have passed a lot of bills that couldn’t stand on their own by packing them with legislation that did have some merit.
“Legislators would do better to leave failed bills in the discard pile and work bills that don’t require some sleight-of-hand to become law. Surely there are enough of those to keep them busy.”
Read more here: http://cjonline.com/opinion/2015-02-04/editorial-bundling-bills-bad-practice