Posted on April 8, 2016 at 12:09 PM by Brian Herder
There is no 'typical' legislative session, but in the past five years an average of almost 150 bills a year have been passed by the Kansas Legislature. Since many of these consist of multiple bills bundled together during an eleventh-hour conference committee, keeping track of the laws that get passed every year can get complicated.
To help with that, the Kansas Legislative Research Department publishes an annual
Summary of Legislation. This is a very helpful publication that selects major bills to summarize in 'lay language', similar to supplemental notes that come out during the year. This usually comes out in July after the session has adjourned and passed laws typically go into effect.
For an example, see the
2015 Summary of Legislation.
Additionally, during session, Legislative Research will publish one or more
Preliminary Summaries of Legislation compiling legislation that have passed the Legislature to date. The following is the
2016 Preliminary Summary of Legislation.
To read current and recent Summaries of Legislation, check out Legislative Research's
Publications page, and don't forget to check back in for the full
2016 Summary of Legislation in July!