Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — The signing of a bill Friday to enact a statewide smoking ban was a victory for public health officials, Gov. Mark Parkinson said.

“Kansas won, the special interest groups lost, and Kansans got the clean air they deserve,” he said.

Surrounded by anti-tobacco advocates, legislators and public health officials, Parkinson signed House Bill 2221 before a crowd of more than 100 in a south wing of the Statehouse.

The law prohibits smoking in most public places and work spaces, including bars and restaurants, beginning July 1. Smoking will still be allowed in private clubs, retail tobacco stores and the gaming floors of casinos.

The governor singled out several legislators and others who pushed for the bill, including former Sen. David Wysong, a Mission Hills Republican who introduced a statewide smoking ban bill four years ago and continued to push for in each subsequent legislative session. Wysong resigned from the Legislature in December, citing family reasons.

“This man has patience,” Parkinson said. Wysong attended the bill signing and Parkinson gave him the pen he used to sign the bill.

Parkinson also thanked advocates from the state’s heart, cancer and other health organizations.

He said when he first started working with the advocates he perceived them as “latte-sippin’, NPR-listenin’, foreign film-watchin’ policy wonks.”

He said while they turned out to be all of those things, “they also got down and dirty and helped make this thing happen.”

Impact of grassroots campaign

When the 2009 session ended, supporters of a statewide clean indoor air law were more than a dozen votes short of what they needed to win passage of a bill.

So, over the summer they mounted a grassroots campaign to solidify existing support and win over House members identified as swing votes.

“We wanted to make sure that the voices of the people across the state who cared about this issue were actually being heard by their elected representatives,” said Billie Hall, chief executive of the Sunflower Foundation.

The Topeka-based foundation and the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City were the main funders of the Clean Air Kansas Campaign, which had a two-year budget of $600,000.

Recording 5,000 Kansans talking about how they or members of their families had been affected by second-hand smoke was a tactic that campaign organizers said proved to be among the most effective.

The recordings were burned onto CDs that were customized to ensure targeted legislators heard from people in their districts.

“They heard their friends, they heard their neighbors and the people they went to church with,” said Jake Lowen, the director of the campaign, which also received funding from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and several other health related organizations.

The campaign, which capitalized on years of efforts funded by the Kansas Health Foundation and others to educate Kansans about the dangers of second-hand, proved effective.

Parkinson said the campaign, “provided us with the firepower to help make this happen.”

Rep. Mike Slattery, D- Mission, said the effort, “made a big difference in the way that a lot of swing voters felt about the issue.”

And Rep. Charlie Roth, R-Salina, said it helped him persuade more of his GOP colleagues to support the bill.

“It’s important that we start to do more things in a bipartisan way,” he said.

Rep. Eber Phelps, D-Hays, said he expected to receive a number of complaints from constituents after he voted for the bill, but he only got one.

“I thought there would be a barrage,” he said. “I kind of figured there would be an outcry, but I haven’t seen it yet.”

Casinos next?

Health advocates applauded the bill signing. But several said they were already looking toward the future.

The exemption for the gaming floors of state-owned casinos has drawn fire from supporters and opponents alike.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee and an opponent of the bill, said during the House debate that the state would be “hypocritical” to outlaw smoking in private businesses but allow it in state-owned facilities.

“Without the casino exemption, I wouldn’t have ever gotten it through the Senate,” Wysong said. “And if I couldn’t get it through the Senate, then it couldn’t go through the House.”

Mary Jayne Hellebust, executive director of the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition, said it was likely that advocates would ask the Legislature to revisit the casino exemption.

“So many legislators are concerned about it that I’m sure someone will be willing to take charge,” she said. “If it doesn’t happen next year, then maybe it will the year after.”

Landwehr said Friday that some constituents who turned out for a legislative forum last weekend in Wichita were “outraged” by the casino exemption, including bar owners who referred to the casino gaming floors as “state-owned bars.”

“That’s not a level playing field,” she said.

Landwehr yesterday introduced a follow-up bill to HB 2221 in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee to modify certain dates in the bill and make other changes.