Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed a voter ID bill for the second year in a row. The veto was accompanied by another: a refusal to allow Kansans to vote to fill mid-term congressional vacancies.

The voter ID bill, HB-2019, would have required citizens to present identification bearing a photograph before voting. The law would have allowed for a wide variety of photographic identity cards to be used by voters.

In her veto message, the governor said, "We have a rich history and tradition in Kansas of working to increase citizen participation in our democracy."

Liberal activist groups, including People for the American Way, praised Sebelius. "The bill would have instituted a burdensome proof of citizenship and identification requirement, potentially disenfranchising thousands of Kansas’ elderly, disabled, minority, and low-income voters," said the group's website, 

However, the governor also vetoed HB-2683 which would have allowed special elections to fill congressional seats vacated mid-term. Under current law, Sebelius would appoint new senators and representatives to the vacancies.

In explaining the veto, Sebelius said she favored the method of filling vacancies with an "appointment by the governor" of someone she would select.

Sen. Tim Huelskamp, a Fowler Republican, said both Republicans and Democrats who sat on a conference committee believed they had struck a reasonable compromise on the legislation before sending it to Sebelius.

The bill would have required voters to show photo identification before voting at the polls, starting in 2010. The bill also would have required the state to provide free photo identification for low income Kansans and welfare recipients. Huelskamp said the cost of providing free ID to those who qualify would have been minimal, since almost all Kansans of voting age have a driver’s license or other state-issued ID.

“We thought we had a deal with Democrats on the conference committee,” Huelskamp said. “We had verbally agreed on the compromise, but at the last minute, they indicated they couldn’t support the compromise. Partisan politics defeated this bill.”

Huelskamp said it was ironic that on the same day that Sebelius cited possible disenfranchisement of voters in vetoing the bill, she also vetoed the bill that would have required an election if a vacancy was created in the U.S. House and Senate.

Under the current system, the Governor has the power to appoint a successor to a U.S. Senator or Congressman. For 35 of the last 50 years, a Democrat has been governor of Kansas.

“On the one hand, she said the voter ID bill would have disenfranchised voters; on the other, she determined that filling a vacancy in the U.S. Congress was her responsibility, and not for the voters to decide,” Huelskamp said.

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