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Friday
March 29th, 2024

marty long legislative updateRep. Marty Long gives his update during a legislative update to the community at Rock Island Depot last Wednesday afternoon. Long said this year in the legislature should be busy for everyone. L&T photo/Elly GrimmELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times


EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final part of a series recapping the legislative update that took place at the Rock Island Depot last Wednesday afternoon and will focus on an update given by Rep. Marty Long. 

The next session of the Kansas legislature is about to begin and last Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Marty Long with the 124th District ended the legislative update with some remarks of his own about what will be going on this coming session. 

“I’m excited to be here and I’m ready for the new session to get started here soon,” Long began. “I serve on the utilities committee in the House, I serve on the commerce committee and with the local government committee, which deals with how commissioners and city councillors go about their business during meetings and things like that. With utility stuff, last year the state had a rate study done for utilities and they’ve been working on that for the past year and will be reporting that information to us at the beginning of this coming session, hopefully by the middle of February. We’re not sure what that rate study’s going to look like, but we know it will cover commercial rates and residential rates and I’m sure it will spur debate and talk about what the Kansas legislature needs to do with that rate study. The other thing that’s still simmering in Kansas is retail wheeling, which, if allowed, would enable larger-commission customers to go out on the market for providers for electricity. Some of the problems associated with that include how residential customers might be expected to pick up the slack for maintenance of those transmission lines and equipment.”

Long also talked about some of the work going on with the commerce committee. 

“Like Sen. Estes talked about earlier, sports betting will be a big topic this year and we’ll have some people coming in to talk about race tracks for dogs and horses,” Long said. “Some years ago, when the first casinos in the state were built, Kansas signed an operating agreement with the operators of those casinos and in that agreement, it states slot machines will be tax-imposed at 22 percent at the casinos and the agreement also said if dog and/or horse racing is allowed and if there are slot machines at those tracks, those are to be tax-imposed at 40 percent. That was in an effort to keep profitability high. Now we’re having race track folks coming to talk to us and there are some good and legitimate breeders in the state, mostly in Eastern Kansas who want this done and they’re pushing to have those tracks available and they’re asking for that tax imposition to be lowered from that 40 percent to 22 percent. But the attorney general has told us if we do that, we’re breaking that agreement with the casinos and the last thing Kansas needs at this time is another lawsuit.”

Long talked about some other things he expects will be discussed in the legislature. 

“We’re going to be talking this year about LABTR payments coming back, I know a couple commissioners are here and have thoughts on that,” Long said. “LABTR payments were stopped in 2003, that was when I was a commissioner in Grant County. So there is some talk of bringing that back but the question becomes whether or not the state has enough money to do that. I know some places would appreciate those coming back, but it’s something that needs discussion and planning. That also brings up some other tax rebates, which are seeing the expected results in some places but doing the opposite of what they’re supposed to do in others, particularly in my district and people are worried about. There was a bill in the tax committed this year that said certain taxes were supposed to go down in some places when a certain benchmark was reached, but there’s some hesitation to do that in case something happens. There will also be some anti-Red Flag legislation introduced this year and we expect that probably won’t be very popular. I don’t know what that will look like or what all it will include, but that’s partially what we’re expecting. People seem to be very resistant to pre-empt non-existent laws with things like this.”