Senate Majority Leader
Sets New Course for Kansas Legislature
For
eight years, Oleen also chaired the Senate Federal and State Affairs
Committe, where she faced "all the controversial issues," including
drugs, death penalty, abortion, gun control, and alcohol.
"I learned early that having all the 'OPPOSEDs' in a room for one hearing, and all the 'FORs' in a separate hearing was time consuming and even unproductive," Oleen said. "When you do that, people never hear what the other side is saying."
So Oleen began requiring members from both sides of a bill to sit together and talk it through jointly. "When time was short, I simply divided it equally. If there were 17 people who wanted to speak, they knew the rule about how long they had. I actually forced people to work together."
Today, the approach is no longer a novel one in the Kansas Legislature. As Majority Leader, Oleen serves as "chair of all the other chairs." Without exception, she said, those leaders have followed her advice and adopted the 'work together' model.
"Collaboration of a group of people presents a fairness, and it presents the confrontational side in a very organized and civil manner," she said.
Besides introducing a collaborative approach to committee work, Oleen has helped incorporate mediation and alternative dispute resolution language and requirements in a number of bills throughout her legislative career. In 2002 The Heartland Mediator's Association honored Oleen with its President's Award for "monumental contribution to creating mediation legislation."
Oleen also brings a focus on consensus building to her positions as Chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Standing Committees, and Vice President of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States. In addition, she chairs the 10-state Midwestern Higher Education Compact, which Oleen says relies heavily on consensus building. "Higher education is a place where people really can use help thinking outside the boundaries they erect for themselves," she said.
This June, after 16 years in the Kansas Statehouse, Oleen announced she would not seek re-election to the Senate. Yet when her final term as Majority Leader is complete in December, Oleen plans to continue serving in the consensus-building arena.
At the invitation of Kansas' Chief Justice Kay McFarland, Oleen will sit on a mediation and arbitration advisory board aimed at helping state agencies move toward greater use of ADR. Among the advisory board's eight members, Oleen is the only one with legislative experience. Others hail from universities, the private sector, and state agencies.
Oleen also will continue her involvement in a joint project between NSCL and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). The project, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, promotes intergovernmental cooperation between states and tribes by researching, assessing and disseminating information about how devolution will affect Indian tribes and state-tribal relationships.
The International Republican Institute, which works in emerging democracies and whose board of directors is chaired by U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has invited Oleen to work in Indonesia with newly elected women legislators.
And if there's still room on her schedule for more consensus building projects, Oleen "will pick and choose" from the range of opportunities that present themselves. "My goal is to focus on places where there is the ability to build consensus, and to eliminate barriers."