OLETHA  FAUST  GOUDEAU
YOUR State Senator
FOR THE
29th Kansas Senate District

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NEWS

Updates on the latest
issues & concerns of yours,
and Oletha's work for you.
2026:

SB 353 - Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame BILL SIGNING

Earlier this year, Sen. Faust-Goudeau introduced Senate Bill 353, establishing the Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame , based at the Great Plains Transportation Museum in Wichita, and pushed it through to overwhelming victory in both houses of the Legislature, with help from Rep. Angela Martinez (D-Wichita).

This summer, Governor Laura Kelly came to Wichita to ceremonially sign Senator Faust-Goudeau's bill, at a gathering of state and local leaders, museum officials and railroad industry dignitaries.

Governor Kelly signs Oletha's SB 353, establishing the Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame. Standing, L-to-R, Rep. Angela Martinez, Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, Museum Dir. Lon Smith, and Kansas railroad union exec..

Opening the ceremony, Museum Director Lon Smith said, "First and foremost, I want to thank Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau," for her role in the project. Governor Kelly echoed primary credit for the bill to "Senator Faust-Goudeau."

Recalling her childhood adventure on a train, and the deep impact that railroads have on the success of our community, Oletha compliments the Great Plains Transportation Museum and its Director, Lon Smith, for their diligent pursuit of their vision for the Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame.

Gov. Kelly noted that "railroads have been with Kansas from the beginning. They populated our towns... and ultimately made Kansas the agricultural and manufacturing powerhouse we are today... they keep our economy humming... Kansas has always been a railroad state; it always will be."

SB 466 to Sub HB 2357 - Eviction Records Expungement

Advocates for the homeless have long argued that a long-past record of eviction keeps good tenants from being considered by landlords for rentals, and makes finding housing for them nearly impossible.

So, early in the legislative session, Sen. Faust-Goudeau introduced Senate Bill 466, to allow renters, who have an eviction on their record, but have settled any related debt, to have that eviction hidden from their record, to improve their chances of getting necessary housing.

The bill was halted in committee, but its essence revived in HB 2357, later revissed to Sub HB 2357, which she shepherded to passage and signing, as one of the trio of senators on the joint House-Senate Conference Committee resolving the differences between bills..

Now renters who have paid off any judgements from past evictions, can have those evictions expunged from their record by the court -- essentially for free. An online portal of the Kansas Courts provides technical guidance and a pathway for the expungement.

The tenant seeking expungment must notifiy the landlord involved in the eviction (they must be formally served notice of the intended expungement), but if the eviction judgement has been satisfied, the court should expunge their eviction record. This may help eliminate the stumbling block of past eviction, for those needing to find housing.

Another provision of the bill directs courts to refer eviction proceedings to mediation, to attempt to resolve landlord-tenant differences without a court order.

See:

HB 2274 Veterans' Assistance Bill --
-- including SB 106 Homeless Veterans' I.D.


Over the last two years, Sen. Faust-Goudeau has led the charge for Senate Billl 106, to provide alternative forms of identification for indigent and homeless veterans...

  • permitting homeless veterans to use alternative forms of proof of identity and residency when applying for nondriver identification cards;

  • eliminating fees for homeless veterans to obtain birth certificates and nondriver identification cards;
This year, she got it bundled with House Bill 2274, the Veterans' Assistance Bill, which also makes it easier for veterans to get occupational licenses, and added in Senate Bill 200 establishing Kansas as a "Purple Heart State" to honor those veterans wounded or killed in service.
    Oletha got the bill passed through both houses with virtually unanimous support, and signed into law by the Governor.

See: "Gov. Laura Kelly signs bills about homeless veterans, utility regulation and construction lawsuits"
March 13, 2026, Kansas Reflector

As homeless advocates report, nationwide,
veterans are among the people most afflicted by homelessness. And they report one of the principal difficulties keeping the homeless down is the near-impossibility of getting employment, if they have lost their identification documents -- as the homeless commonly do, for various reasons having to do with their living conditions.

Without proper I.D., it's impossible to get a legal job. This is because -- to ensure that American jobs are only open to citizens, or to foreigners legally authorized to work here -- the federal government instituted strict employer requirements: demanding that employers certify that they have checked an employee's documents, before hiring them, to be sure they are entitled to work in the United States.

But, ironically, those who have defended our nation are, too often, unable to prove that they are entitled to work here, having lost their documents -- birth certificates, driver's licenses and military ID's -- in the chaotic, frequently relocating life of a homeless veteran.

Oletha has argued, for years, that these American patriots deserve easier access to proof of their identity, and right to work in the nation they've defended. So she proposed a bill to get the state to provide them needed identification -- and an address for them to use for essential related communications -- so they can get a job, and lift themselves from the indignity and hardship of homelessness.

After years of battling for their right to work,
Senator Faust-Goudeau managed to get that bill integrated into a larger bill containing additional accommodations for veterans, and pushed the whole new bill through the legislature this session.

March 12th, it was signed into law by Governor Kelly.


SB 353 - Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame

Sen. Faust-Goudeau introduced Senate Bill 353, establishing the Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame, and pushed it through to overwhelming victory in both houses of the Legislature, and the Governor's signature. It becomes law this summer.

At the center of the nation, Kansas is one of the pivotal places for American transportation -- particularly legendary for its historic railroads, including the Kansas-Pacific, and the enduring Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad ("AT&SF", or simply "Santa Fe Railway") long headquartered in Topeka, before its merger with Burlington Northern, into "BNSF."

Kansas "cattle towns" -- like Abeline, Newton, Wichita, Dodge City -- gained their initial burst of wealth, and Wild West fame, as the points where cattle drives herded Texas Longhorns up to Kansas, along the Chisolm Trail, from Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, in the largest mass-migration of livestock in history, to meet the railroads stretching into Kansas from the East.

As Kansas became the nation's leading wheat producer, railroad trains delivered the grains of "the Breadbasket of America," and oil from new oil fields, to the rest of the nation, and beyond, as they still do, feeding and fueling America and the world, today.


A giant steam locomotive of the Atchison, Topeka
& Santa Fe Railroad, pulls a long train out of
Wellington, Kansas, bound for Oklahoma, 1943. Wichita's Great Plains Transportation Museum
has one of these. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Numerous other railroads have crisscrossed the state, spreading the wealth of Kansas farms, fields and factories across the nation, while transporting the riches and people of America coast-to-coast.

The Kansas and Oklahoma ("K&O") Railroad is headquartered in Wichita today, and Amtrak's historic east-west passeenger route, connecting the Great Lakes with the American Southwest and southern California, crosses Kansas on the old ATSF line, nearing Wichita at Newton.

Our own grand Union Station is a strong reminder that Wichita, too, was once a passenger train destination -- and key dedicated Wichita leaders are working to make that a reality again.

Kansas railroad history cries out for recognition, and the Great Plains Transportation Museum, in downtown Wichita, has long been working towards showing off our railroads' powerful past and present. The Museum, squeezed into a narrow 2-story brick building at the east side of the railroad overpass on Douglas Ave., across from Union Station, is home to one of the last great AT&SF steam-powered locomotives, modern locomotives, and various rail cars and railroad equipment, vintage and modern.

Now, the Museum has sought to become site of the state's official railroading "Hall of Fame," to honor and commemorate those who most notably made Kansas one of the world's great railroading centers.

Senator Faust-Goudeau has promoted and pushed the required bill (SB 353) to passage, to officially designate and establish Wichita's own "train museum" as home of the new "Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame."

2025:
SB: 255 - Second Look Act:
Criminal Justice Reform

Second Look Act:
Proposal to reconsider excessive sentences
for the Young, the Elderly, and the Reformed.

Oletha's years of work to bring greater sanity and sobriety to prison sentences, lately, took a profound turn. Oletha has proposed a bill that would potentially shorten some of the prison terms for certain convicted criminals -- especially long prison terms of the young, the elderly, and the reformed.

The bill would create a Second Look Act -- a law that would make certain offenders eligible, after several years in prison, to have a court reconsider the sentences imposed on them. Evidence of reform, and that the individual no longer posed a danger to society -- along with factors such as age or a veteran's PTSD -- could be factored in to a re-sentencing.

The Young:

In recent decades, psychiatric researchers and criminologists have established that adult brains are not fully matured until around age 25 (a fact reflected in the sharp decrease in crimes after that age group, and sharply lower car insurance rates for those over 25).

Under Oletha's proposal, those who were convicted of crimes when children (under 18), could be reconsidered after 10 years in prison. Those whose crimes were committed between age 18 and 25, would be similarly eligible.

The Elderly:

Oletha's bill offers hope for others, as well. People convicted for crimes committed when over 50 could also be eligible for reconsideration after 10 years (long prison sentences take a disproportionately large percentage of their remaining life, and elderly prisoners often wind up serving unofficial life sentences, because they die of old age, in prison, before they can complete their sentence).

Others:

People who committed their crime between ages 25 and 50 would have to wait longer -- 15 years.

Military veterans suffering from PTSD that had not been factored into the crime could be resentenced after 10 years.

Finally, those who violated laws that subsequently were revised or rescinded, could be eligible for resentencing, as well.

A Reform Whose Time Has Come:

The concept is not completely new. Other states have toyed with the idea. In arch-conservative Florida, a similar law gained bi-partisan support -- passing that state's legislature unanimously. Charles Koch's Republican-leaning national Libertarian lobbying organization -- Americans for Prosperity -- has shown interest in the concept, as well.

The Second Look bill (SB 255) awaits a committee hearing in the Senate.

See:

For prior years' news briefs,
CLICK HERE.
For the Latest Newsletter
from Oletha,
CLICK HERE.

For Previous Newsletters
from Oletha, CLICK HERE.

Oletha Faust-Goudeau
YOUR Kansas State Senator
P.O.Box 20335
Wichita KS 67208

(316) 652-9067

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Oletha Faust-Goudeau
YOUR Kansas State Senator
for a BETTER future in Sedgwick County!

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