A Newark police officer wears a body camera during a news conference unveiling the cameras, Wednesday, April 26, 2017, in Newark, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

TOPEKA — Kansas legislators who are pushing to make law enforcement more transparent advanced a bill Wednesday aimed at making officers’ body camera footage more accessible.

The state House gave first-round approval to the bill, which had bipartisan support and represented a compromise between law enforcement groups and advocates of more aggressive measures. House members expected to take another, final vote Thursday to determine whether it will go to the Senate.

Legislative leaders in both parties have said making Kansas more open is a top priority this year, and several high-profile fatal shootings by officers over the past six months have highlighted inconsistent policies on how agencies handle footage.

The bill would require agencies to make the footage available to the subjects of the video or, in the case of a fatal shooting, to their families and attorneys, within 20 days of a request.

Supporters of the bill acknowledged that they were looking for relatively easy legislative victories this year as a way of making progress on promoting openness.

“Kansas is a dark state,” said state Rep. John Alcala, a Topeka Democrat. “This is one step forward to getting out of that, but we’ve still got a lot more steps to go.”

In Alcala’s hometown, two police officers fatally shot a 30-year-old man, Dominique White, outside of a park on Sept. 28, and the man’s father was not able to view their body camera footage for almost three months, until he was legally declared the administrator of his son’s estate. The bill would clarify that a parent of an adult and the family’s attorney could view the footage.

The footage in White’s death became public when the local district attorney’s office played it during a news conference announcing that it had concluded that the shooting was legally justified. In Olathe, footage from officers’ August 23 shooting of an emotionally troubled 26-year-old woman with a gun became public in January after The Kansas City Star sued to obtain access to it.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Blaine Finch, an Ottawa Republican, said the bill was a step toward restoring public confidence in law enforcement and officers’ work.

“I think our law enforcement officers by and large go out every day attempting to do the right thing and to be as transparent as they can be,” Finch said.