Topeka ? The House Federal and State Affairs Committee’s chairman says a new funeral picketing bill to replace a law struck down by the Kansas Supreme Court is on the fast track in his committee.

Rep. Arlen Siegfreid said the committee will take up the bill early next week.

“As soon as we have a bill, we’ll have a hearing and work it the same day,” said the Olathe Republican.

Normally, committees hear testimony on a bill one day and then vote at a later time whether to send it to the House.

Siegfreid said the legislation will be the law, enacted in 2007, minus a “judicial trigger.” The bill also would add a provision allowing people to sue funeral protesters for emotional distress.

On Tuesday, the court effectively nullified the law over its trigger requiring a court to uphold the statute before it could be enforced. The court said the trigger is unconstitutional.

It was added by legislators skittish about the Rev. Fred Phelps and his followers at Westboro Baptist Church collecting damages from the state after a successful appeal of the law.

Phelps and his followers claim U.S. combat deaths are God’s punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. Phelps and his church, long known for a public campaign against homosexuality, began picketing soldiers’ funerals in June 2005 and have protested at some 330 funerals in 47 states.

The court didn’t address the merits of the law, which bars protesters from being within 150 feet of a funeral one hour before, during or two hours after a service ends. It also makes it unlawful to obstruct any public street or sidewalk.

The justices left standing part of the law allowing families to sue if they feel protesters defamed the dead – an exception to the general rule of law that one cannot libel or slander the dead.

The federal government and at least 37 states, including Oklahoma, have enacted such laws.

Cheaper textbooks

Cheaper college textbooks are the goal of a proposal in the House.

House members gave first-round approval to a bill encouraging professors to consider cost when they require books for their classes.

The measure came from Rep. Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat.

It would require each university, community college and technical college to impose policies to ensure that professors take cost into account.

He offered it as an amendment to a Senate-passed bill dealing with scholarships for ROTC students.

The amendment passed on a voice vote.