<P> Composed of 165 state lawmakers, the state legislature meets at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka once a year in regular session . Additional special sessions can be called by the governor of Kansas . </P> <P> The Kansas Territory was created out of the Kansas - Nebraska Act in 1854 . In several of the provisions of the act, the law allowed the settlers of the newly created territory to determine, by vote, whether Kansas, once statehood was achieved, would be entered as either a free or a slave state . The act created a rush of both abolitionist Northern and pro-slavery Southern immigrants to the territory, hoping that strength through numbers would place Kansas in their camp . Animosities between the newly arrived sides quickly turned into open violence and guerrilla warfare, giving name to this period known as Bleeding Kansas . </P> <P> During Kansas' first elections for a territorial government on March 30, 1855, nearly 5,000 Missouri men, led by United States Senator David Rice Atchison and other prominent pro-slavery Missourians, entered the territory, took over the polling places, and elected pro-slavery candidates . The elections resulted in 13 pro-slavery members of the upper house of the territorial legislature and one free - state member, who resigned . The lower house ended up with 25 pro-slavery members and one free - state member . Free - Staters immediately cried foul, naming the new Kansas Territorial Legislature the Bogus Legislature . After meeting for one week in Pawnee at the direction of Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder, the thirty - eight pro-slavery legislators reconvened at the Shawnee Manual Labor School between July 16 and August 30, 1855, and began crafting over a thousand pages of laws aimed at making Kansas a slave state . </P> <P> Free - Staters convened their own unauthorized shadow legislature and territorial government in Topeka, crafting their own Topeka Constitution in late 1855 . While the document was debated and submitted to a vote in the territory, it was never accepted by Congress . The pro-slavery territorial legislature's response to the Free - Staters and growing violence was the Lecompton Constitution in 1857 . Due to an electoral boycott by abolitionist groups and the questions regarding the validity of the legislature itself, it never officially became law . </P>

When did the bogus legislature meet for the first time