Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning and Senate President Susan Wagle confer before a Senate vote on a tax bill that would have generated over billion in new revenue over the next two years. The bill failed, 18-22.

Topeka ? Topeka — A bill that would have raised more than $1 billion in new income taxes over the next two years failed to pass the Kansas Senate on Wednesday when most Democrats refused to go along with moderate Republicans who supported the bill.

Democratic Sen. Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, and Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, both spoke against the bill, saying it would not raise enough money to balance the state’s budget and pay for a school finance plan that is still pending in the House.

But Sen. Marci Francisco, of Lawrence, one of only two Democrats who voted in favor of the bill, called it a good start, saying the school finance plan would have to be funded separately.

Francisco and fellow Democrat Tom Hawk, of Manhattan, joined 16 Republicans in voting yes. Seven Democrats and 15 Republicans voted no.

The split among Democrats sparked heated discussion in a caucus meeting just before the vote.

“What is at stake for us here today is whether (the bill) represents good public policy, plain and simple. And I don’t believe that it does” Hensley said at the outset. “I don’t believe it’s a tax plan that gets us to where we need to be.”

Francisco and Hawk, however, said they could not justify voting against it.

“When I ran for office and got elected, my constituents expected me to find the best solution possible,” Hawk said. “So far, this is the best solution possible, and there are a lot of worse ones. I hope there’s an even better one, but I’d like to have one in the bank.”

“There isn’t anything in this for me to vote against,” Francisco said. “There are other things that I would look for … but if this is what’s being offered, I’m ready to say yes, these are changes I’d like to see. It’s not enough, so we may have to look at other taxes.”

Holland, however, said that by voting for the bill, Democrats and moderate Republicans would lose any leverage they have in getting a school finance bill that provides enough money to satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court.

“I want you guys who are voting for this to tell me, how do you think you are going to have any more leverage to negotiate an adequate school finance bill when you’re basically chopping off your negotiating ability by voting for a partial solution?” Holland said.

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, of Overland Park, who had voted against earlier tax bills, voted yes on Wednesday. He, too, said school finance should be dealt with separately from balancing the state’s budget.

But Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican who has already said she is considering a possible bid for Congress in 2018, voted against the bill.

Senate Vice President Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, who supported the bill, called Wednesday’s vote a step backward in efforts to close the state’s looming budget shortfall, adding that the bill was already larger than many Republicans wanted. He predicted the next tax bill would be smaller.

“I think we went backwards today,” Longbine said. “This plan was as rich as many feel they can ever vote for. And so I think they gave us the opportunity to vote for something today that was more than they wanted to vote for, but to move the process along they were willing to do so. When we had members that wouldn’t vote for this, I think they’ll look toward a different direction.”

“It’s very clear that we don’t have the votes to override the governor,” Longbine continued. “So maybe the best scenario is that we start working with the governor to find a solution to our budget problems that we can pass with 21 (votes), because we can’t pass anything with 27,” the number needed to override a veto.

Like an earlier bill that Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed, Wednesday’s bill would have reversed course on many of the income tax cuts Brownback championed in 2012, including the complete exemption for nonwage business income. It would have reinstated three income tax brackets while raising rates on virtually all taxpayers to generate an estimated $514 million in the upcoming fiscal year and roughly $550 million a year after that.

That would have been enough close the state’s budget shortfall, but it would not have been enough to pay for the House school finance plan, which calls for adding $150 million in new school funding each successive year for the next five years.

According to estimates prepared by the Legislature’s nonpartisan Research Department using current revenue estimates, the additional revenue and the Senate budget that hasn’t yet been voted on, the additional spending contained in the House’s five-year school finance plan would have put the state more than $280 million in the hole in the third and fourth years of the plan.