LJWorld.com

This will be the first state legislative session for Kansas University under the direction of Keith Yehle, KU's new director of governmental affairs.

KU is aiming to strengthen its lobbying efforts at the state and federal levels, officials said.

"The challenge that KU faces in building strong support has changed," said Paul Carttar, executive vice chancellor for external affairs. "It requires that we do other things and present ourselves in other ways."

KU late last spring hired Yehle, a former senior staff member to U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to lead government affairs.

In other changes, longtime KU lobbyist Jon Josserand is preparing to leave the university.

Josserand said he will ease out of his position while looking for other work and that he is ready to consider new things in new places. "You don't want to look back at life and say you've never tried to do those things," he said.

For the third year, KU will contract with Topeka lobbyist Kathy Damron, a former staff member for Roberts and former Gov. Mike Hayden.

Yehle, Damron and others will work on KU's top legislative priorities, which include securing adequate state funding, advancing KU's goals for cancer research and dealing with a backlog of building maintenance needs.

KU officials said they hope Yehle also will help the university better reach out to those at the federal level.

"In the past, we have had a fairly fragmented representation at the federal level as a full university," Carttar said. "The principal representation we've had has been on behalf of our Lawrence-based research units.

"We feel that not only do we need to be far more proactive in advocating for research, but also there are a lot of other issues that the university has beyond research."

KU students also will be lobbying in Topeka. According to Josh Bender, student senate legislative director, there are several issues of interest to students this year.

They'll lobby for changes allowing the Kansas Board of Regents to obtain health insurance for all students at regents institutions, a move that would benefit graduate teaching and research assistants.

They'll also weigh in against the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights, a proposed constitutional amendment limiting growth in state spending to population growth plus inflation while requiring statewide elections on proposed tax increases.

The students also will continue to wave the flag for legislation allowing universities to keep the interest earned on collected tuition and fees, though Bender said he's not hopeful that measure will go anywhere.

"If the last two sessions have been an indication, they're probably not going to get it to us," he said. "It'd be nice, but I just don't see it happening."

Students also will press for changes to the Kansas Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Among other things, they want a standard in place for automatic renewal clauses in lease agreements.