By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — COVID-19 has created government transparency concerns, but Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has said that most of the statehouse's business can be conducted online, however there is an important distinction when it comes to passing bills.
"Our constitution sets out very specific requirements for how votes are to be conducted by the legislature," Schmidt said. "Leaders over there had asked us for our legal opinion on how far they could go in conducting remote meetings. Basically, when you boil it all down, our advice was, you can do most things remotely, but when it comes to the act of actually casting the vote on final action on a bill, a piece of legislation, in order to be sure you remain in compliance with the constitution, you'd better do that physically and in person."
The opinion issued in December does clarify that the legislature has to meet in Topeka, but doesn't confine them to any specific building, though rules within the chambers can and as of now do so, but those chambers can choose to set those rules aside or change them as that chamber sees fit.
"What we've told them, essentially is, it's a sliding scale," Schmidt said. "We can tell you with 100% certainty, if you put 125 House members in one room at one time and they vote, that is legally defensible," Schmidt said. "That's the way they normally do it and there's no constitutional problem. We can also tell you, if, at the other end of the spectrum, you had people sitting in their individual homes, scattered around in their home communities in the state and they tried to vote on legislation remotely over a laptop or whatever it may be, that raises serious questions. We're not sure that's defensible."
It is important to note that any final action of the legislature requires a quorum, which in the case of the state house would be 63 members, or 21 members of the state senate.