After
a year of fights, ups and downs and highs and lows, this year’s
legislative session is officially over for Kansas.
Starting in January, Sunflower Community Action’s Hispanos
Unidos Chapter set off to work on two important bills. One would
allow undocumented immigrants to be able to obtain a driver’s
license so they can drive legally while the other would reduce college
tuition rates for immigrant students who have studied and lived
in the state of Kansas for most of their lives, but who are still
non-permanent residents.
Hispanos Unidos has led the way in a third attempt to get the state’s
drivers’ license law changed. Hispanos Unidos organized a
series of statewide activities including a postcard campaign that
generated 15,000 postcards from over 80 towns throughout Kansas
calling for passage of the bill. The postcards were delivered to
the Speaker of the House during a powerful press conference held
in Topeka, the state’s capitol.
The group also coordinated a lobby day in which members of Hispanic
organizations from all over the state visited house members and
spoke to Representatives about both issues. During one of their
visits to Topeka, 30 members of Hispanos Unidos also visited Governor
Kathleen Sebelius’ office to secure a meeting she had promised
them during her campaign.
Much to the group’s surprise, instead of securing a later
date, the governor’s staff pulled a meeting together for Sunflower
within twenty minutes after their arrival.
“In a state like Kansas, it is not every day that 30 Hispanics
have the guts to walk into the Governor’s office and demand
a meeting she had already promised. Much to our surprise, the governor
asked us what had taken us so long,” said Emira Palacios,
a member of Sunflower Community Action and co-chairperson of National
People’s Action.
During a much-needed break before next year’s session, the
group will focus on getting more support in the Senate and strengthening
leadership in key districts where there’s strong opposition.
The in-state tuition bill was introduced this year for the first
time. It passed in the House quickly gaining so much support that
Senators were afraid it was moving too fast and assigned the bill
to an interim committee to study it in the summer.
“We feel we made all the progress we could this year and it
seems that every year we come back stronger. That’s good because
it shows we are not giving up until we win,” said group member
Beatriz Ledesma.
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