×
×
homepage logo

Kansas: Senate veep urges cooperation between courts, Legislature

By Staff Report - | Jan 24, 2014

? The Legislature and Judiciary should improve relations, Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, said in a letter Thursday to Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss.

The letter was written in response to Nuss’ State of the Judiciary address in which Nuss warned of court closings and staff furloughs because of an $8.25 million budget shortfall. Nuss had also encouraged more cooperation between the two branches of government.

In his letter, King cited an Oct. 4, 2013 editorial in the Lawrence Journal-World that called for legislators to enact recommendations from a Blue Ribbon Commission on state court operations. “I could not agree more,” King said.

Those recommendations included giving courts more staffing flexibility and improving the court system’s technology to allow court documents to be filed, stored and accessed electronically.

King, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said his committee stands ready to consider the recommendations.