Web posted
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Effort to ban domestic registry runs into trouble
By CARL MANNING
Associated Press Writer
TOPEKA -- Efforts to ban domestic partner registries by local governments, including one in Lawrence, ran into trouble Wednesday in the House when members sent it to committee rather than advancing it to an expected final vote.
The 66-50 vote to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee came after some legislators complained it was an instance of state government imposing its will on local governments.
State Rep. Ed Trimmer (D) Winfield voted to send it to committee. State Rep. Kasha Kelley (R) Arkansas City, did not vote.
Lawrence enacted its registry last year, nearly two years after voters amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages.
Sponsoring Rep. Lance Kinzer, a Judiciary Committee member, said the move doesn't doom his bill, although it will delay passage.
''We'll continue to push. It's all part of the process,'' said the Olathe Republican. ''It adds an extra hoop to the process.''
Judiciary Committee chairman Mike O'Neal, a Hutchinson Republican, told colleagues before they sent the bill to his committee: ''I'm not excited about getting this bill. This isn't about the rule of law. This is a philosophical debate.''
The committee also has 121 bills lined up for action before the session ends in early May.
After the House acted, O'Neal said, ''I haven't decided whether to have a hearing. We are a little bit busy.''
Kinzer said the bill is needed because ''domestic relations laws are reserved to the state. This area of domestic relations should be uniform.'' He called a statewide domestic partner registry ''a bad idea.''
''We should have one uniform law the state. It would apply retroactively and that would be necessary if we are going to have uniform laws in Kansas,'' Kinzer said.
Kinzer rejected the notion that the vote to send the committee to committee indicated it didn't have enough votes to pass.
''There are people trying to play games who don't want to face the issue,'' he said.
House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican, said the message was clear: ''People don't want to vote for it.''
The bill says no city or county can create a domestic partner registry or recognize any domestic partner relationship not recognized by state law.
''One of the problems with domestic registry ordinances is they encourage people to engage in these submarital relationships,'' Kinzer said. ''You can't identify a legitimate public policy goal.''
Such registries are open to same-sex and opposite sex-couples, and Rep. Don Dahl said that may have been a reason some voted to send the bill to committee.
''Rather than vote for what they saw as an anti-homosexual bill, they took the easy way out,'' said the Hillsboro Republican.
Rep. Tim Owens said it was about local control -- a big issue among many legislators, especially those from rural areas.
''This is about freedom,'' said the Overland Park Republican, adding it was ''an infusion of state interference.''
''This is a decision made by a local government. This doesn't deal with marriage. The city isn't dealing with marriage,'' he said.
Rep. Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat, said 31 same-sex and opposite-sex couples have registered in his hometown, and the registry doesn't create any legal rights. He said companies can use the registry to determine whether to offer health benefits to employees in domestic partnerships.
Davis said while Lawrence is the only city in Kansas with such a registry, they exist in 66 cities in 23 states, including 11 where gay marriage is banned.
In his motion to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee, Davis said there were complex legal questions that needed to be answered. But Kinzer disagreed.
There was speculation that Neufeld scheduled the bill for debate the day after the House passed a bill allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas as payback to Lawrence lawmakers who voted against it. The registry bill was sent to the House floor last year by the Federal and State Affairs Committee.
''I'm clearing everything off the calendar,'' Neufeld said in rejecting the speculation.
Tom Witt, chairman of the Kansas Equality Coalition, said he was pleased with the House action. He said the Lawrence registry was enacted after the bill received the committee endorsement and the bill needs ''a fair hearing.''
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Registry bill is HB 2299.
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