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3 | Page January 1 7 I ssueJanuary 17 Weekly Legislative Update & One Big ThingWelcome to the 2025 Kansas Legislative Session. This is the first year of the biennium, so bills and resolutions from the 2024 Session do not carry over to the 2025 Session. Bill numbers do not carry over, meaning they start over at 1 (Senate) or 2001 (House). It also means that legislation that was %u201cdead%u201d last year is gone and must be reintroduced this year during the legislative session to be debated and considered.For a review of common legislative terms, legislative districts, committee assignments and other legislative tools, visit KAC%u2019s Advocacy Overview here.Summaries of all legislation passed during the 2024 session can be found at www.klrd.gov under the Publications and Research tab by searching the Summary of Legislation and Legislative Highlights. This includes legislation passed during the 2024 Special Session.What Happened This WeekThe 2025 Legislative Session kicked off with strong Republican super majorities in both chambers. These super majorities are called that because the Republicans have enough members in each chamber to override any veto by the governor if all of their members vote to override. In the House, a veto override requires 84 votes. There are 88 Republicans in the House, more than enough to reach the 84 required votes. Similarly in the Senate, the 31 Republicans are more than enough to get the 27 necessary votes to override a veto if the Republican caucus votes together.With it also being a new biennium, it is important to look at how many new faces are in the legislature. There are 28 new House members. Some of those %u201cnew%u201d members do have legislative experience, but they are considered new because they were not in the chamber during the previous session. In the Senate there are 15 new members. Again, several of these individuals have previous experience in the legislature, but they were not in the Senate during the previous biennium.If you have new legislators in your delegation, it is important for you to reach out to them and talk to them about the issues that are important to you as a county. Turning to legislation, SCR 1603 had a hearing this week in the Senate Assessment and Taxation committee. This legislation should look familiar, as it is the return of the constitutional amendment to place a cap on valuation increases for residential homes. KAC is neutral on this amendment, as it is difficult to determine what the impact of this legislation could be for counties overall, or for individual counties. It is very possible that the impacts of this legislation could vary broadly across the state, and even within regions of the state depending on specific economic, social and demographic conditions unique to each county. Whether you are for or against this proposal your legislative delegation needs to know where your county stands and whether you support or oppose this legislation, as well as why. If you need more information on the details of this legislation, contact our offices.