Topeka ? Monday, the fifth day of the Legislature’s wrap-up session, featured a lot of movement but little advancement.

Supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages postponed a critical vote in order to improve their chances; the House and Senate appeared deadlocked on school finance, and another effort emerged to allow children of undocumented workers to pay in-state tuition at Kansas universities.

The Legislature did approve one major bill, which would strengthen the Kansas Open Records Act, but lawmakers appeared to be getting bogged down in various issues rather than wrapping up.

“Everyone wants to get in their last shots so that they can go home and tell everyone they were perfect,” said Sen. Mark Buhler, R-Lawrence.

Gay-marriage ban

The proposed ban on gay marriages cleared the Senate on Saturday with the minimum two-thirds approval necessary for submitting a constitutional amendment to voters.

But passage was uncertain in the House, where the debate and vote were rescheduled for today.

“If it fails, it will fail by one or two votes,” said House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, who supports the amendment. “If it passes, it will pass by one or two votes.”

Two supporters of the measure were out of state Monday, including Rep. Dan Williams, R-Olathe, a key architect of the proposal who is moving to Florida at the end of the session to start a new job.

The measure states that Kansas recognizes marriage only between one man and one woman and denies the legal benefits of marriage to other domestic arrangements, such as civil unions.

Eighty-four favorable votes in the 125-member House would put the proposal on the November ballot. A slightly different version of the amendment won House passage in March on an 88-36 vote.

School finance hurdle

On school finance, the House rejected a $107 million tax increase for schools, which represented some middle ground between the House’s original $155 million plan and the Senate’s no-new-taxes $72 million plan.

Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, said he didn’t understand the House action.

“I guess the message to us is they are not willing to compromise,” he said.

Illegal immigrants

The Senate also approved — for the second time this session — a measure that would grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who had attended a Kansas high school for three years and graduated. To receive the cheaper tuition, an immigrant would have to be actively seeking legal immigration status.

Supporters of the bill said it would help advance students who were brought here by their parents.

“This bill is about children. Their status is different than their parents,” Sen. Christine Downey, D-Inman, said.

But opponents said the bill wouldn’t be fair to immigrants who played by the rules.

“This bill rewards people for breaking the laws of the United States,” Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, said.

Passage by the Senate also was seen as a procedural move to re-start House and Senate budget negotiations that bogged down because the in-state tuition proposal was thrown into the final budget bill as an amendment.

Sunshine law

The Kansas Open Records Act bill sent to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius clarifies what government records are open to the public, and it provides for attorneys’ fees to be granted in some cases where an agency has denied access to public records in bad faith.

Under the bill, the public could see records of donations to public agencies that compensate a specific public employee. Such records are now closed if a donor requests anonymity.