Recently the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy began sponsorship of a valuable resource for all Kansas. This site, Kansas Votes, provides information about pending legislation as it works its way through the law-making process. This process, unbelievably complicated to the average citizen, is explained in plain language. Even I can figure out what’s going on in Topeka by using Kansas Votes.
From its website, here are some features of Kansas Votes:
- Concise, plain-language, objective and accurate descriptions of every bill, amendment, roll call vote and voice vote.
- Ability to track all the votes of a particular legislator, or search by bill number, category or keyword.
- Ability to view all the bills and amendments introduced by a particular legislator.
- Ability to post a public comment, view others’ comments, and participate in citizen surveys on each bill.
- Automatically e-mail legislators or others about a bill.
- Ability to follow action in any one or more of 50 different categories of legislation (such as Education or Land Use or Taxes).
- Ability to sign up for e-mail notifications of action on any bill or subject area of interest, including new bill introductions.
Today marks the start of the session of the Kansas Legislature. Now citizens have a valuable tool to help them follow the action in the statehouse. This is especially important as traditional media such as newspapers devote less coverage to news like this.
And did I mention it’s free? Thank you to the Flint Hills Center for that.
To use Kansas Votes, click here: Kansas Votes.