In the News

Businesswomen in Kansas City met with Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids on Thursday morning to discuss legislation she filed that would improve resources and opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

The Women's Business Centers Improvement Act, which passed with unanimous bipartisan support in Congress two years ago, with reintroduced by Davids and New York Rep. Claudia Tenney.

The women in the Kansas City roundtable included:

Heather Rubesch, a Prairie Village resident, went into her battle with breast cancer in September 2017 thinking finances would be the least of her worries.

But when paying for her care drained her and her husband's $8,000 emergency fund early in year two, she became worried.

Now, four years later and cancer-free, she estimates her out-of-pocket expenses total $50,000 — and she's accumulated about $2 million in medical bills.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-3rd Dist., and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., have jointly introduced the Women's Business Centers Improvement Act.

The legislation would increase access to resources and opportunities for female entrepreneurs in Kansas and across the country, according to Rep. Davids.

The bill passed the last Congress with unanimous bipartisan support and is being reintroduced this session.

On Jan. 1, amid celebrations, fireworks and last-minute resolutions, American health care policy took a major step forward for patients. You may have missed it — but for millions of Americans who have been asking for relief on health care costs and me, it was the culmination of years of work to make our system more affordable, fair and accessible.

Because on New Year's Day, new consumer protections against surprise medical billing went into effect, essentially ending one of the most egregious practices in our country's health care system.

On Thursday, U.S. Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Tom O'Halleran (D-AZ), Tom Cole (R-OK), and Sharice Davids (D-KS) introduced bipartisan legislation to establish a Congressional Charter for the National American Indian Veterans (NAIV). NAIV is a nonprofit organization on the Cheyenne River Reservation with a mission to advocate for tribal veterans.

Missouri and Kansas are set to receive $96.9 million and $45 million respectively in federal funding over the next year to help fix thousands of bridges that have fallen into disrepair, the White House announced Friday.

The money is the first tranche of hundreds of millions in federal aid for bridge repairs over the next five years — Missouri is set to receive $484 million and Kansas is set to receive $225 million — part of a larger $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure signed into law by Biden in November and backed by a bipartisan coalition of Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Kansas has received $72.1 million to help families pay their energy bills this winter, according to Rep. Sharice Davids' office.

The increase in energy cost assistance -- a record -- is due to the American Rescue Plan, which Davids was the only member of the Kansas delegation to vote for.

Heating costs are predicted to rise as much as 30% this winter.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-3rd Dist., announced that Kansas has received a record $72.1 million to help families afford energy costs this winter—more than double the state's typical annual investment.

Rep. Davids is the only member of the Kansas delegation to vote for the American Rescue Plan, which delivered this increase in energy cost assistance to Kansans across the state.

Rep. Davids helped secure this funding through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in the American Rescue Plan and annual appropriations.