This week the Kansas legislature will take SB35 to conference committee, which passed house final action last week 124-0. The house has amended the bill and the committee will try to workout a bill that is agreeable to both the house and the senate. This bill originated from HB2012 and has been grouped in with the senate bill. Some of this bill is clean up from the bill that passed last year, but there is some new language as well. This bill includes increased penalties for offenders that are double the legal limit. It also does some work to correct some of the issues associated with making it less of a penalty to refuse the breath test. Altogether the only real problems associated would be increased jail time for "aggravated" offenders; this could bring some hardship to county jails since that is where these offenders would be incarcerated. A fund has been set up to help them with the increased costs and try to shoulder some of the burden. You can track progress of this bill if you would like here, you will have to enter the bill number 35.