Sen. Jeff Melcher, right, R-Leawood, takes questions from Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, during debate on a bill requiring teachers unions to be recertified every three years.

Topeka ? Public school teachers and community college faculty would have to vote every three years to continue being represented by a professional employees organization, under a bill passed Wednesday by the Kansas Senate.

But Senate Bill 469, which passed, 22-18, is now less drastic than when it was first introduced, thanks to an amendment by Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg. Besides requiring elections every three years instead of every year, the bill now only requires a majority vote of those teachers casting ballots, rather than a majority of all teachers in the group.

Baumgardner, who serves on the Commerce Committee where the bill originated, supported the bill and said most teachers and college faculty in Kansas have never voted on whether they want to be represented by a union.

“It is an issue that faculty in almost all of the different school districts and the 19 community colleges have not had a vote about their representation in more than 40 years,” she said. “The average K-12 teacher stays with the school district for seven years.”

Sen. Jeff Melcher, right, R-Leawood, takes questions from Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, during debate on a bill requiring teachers unions to be recertified every three years.

But Sen. Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, the ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, blasted the bill as a “union-busting” measure sponsored by outside groups who do not support public education that is meant to weaken the bargaining position of teachers and community college faculty.

“I understand the Koch brothers and the (Kansas) Policy Institute and Americans for Prosperity. They don’t like public education. They’re trying to tear down our teachers. This bill’s perfect for their suitable needs,” Holland said. “But you know what I didn’t see, Mr. Chairman. I did not see one teacher as a proponent come before our committee and say this is why we need to have this bill.”

But Sen. Greg Smith, R-Overland Park, who teaches at Shawnee Mission West High School, said he is a teacher who favors the bill.

“Teachers unions at times have historically achieved some productive measures for teachers,” he said. “However, more often than not, teachers unions — or to be more specific, the leaders of those unions — have blocked meaningful and urgently needed change in education.”

Last year, lawmakers passed a significant overhaul of the Professional Negotiations Act, which governs what issues must, or may be, negotiated between teachers and school districts. That bill was the product of negotiations that lawmakers had requested between the teachers unions and associations representing superintendents and administrators.

Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, said passage of this year’s bill would be going back on that negotiated compromise.

“My concern is, what message is this body sending to those people?” he said. “I ask this body, how long is a compromise good for?”

The bill now goes to the House for consideration.