Kansas Legislature Week 10: the Back to Brownback Budget, Legislature’s constitutional amendment, measles, and more 🚨

Video Script

Intro
I’m Davis Hammet with Loud Light. My co-host Chunk is currently at K-State recovering from an emergency surgery. Please keep her and the amazing team at K-State’s college of veterinary medicine in your thoughts as we hope Chunk has a full recovery. Here’s what happened week 10 in the Kansas Statehouse.

Sup. Court Constitutional Amendment (SCR1611)
The constitutional amendment to turn Judges into elected partisan politicians passed the Legislature this week despite bipartisan opposition and is now scheduled to go to a public vote in the August 2026 primary. The constitutional amendment would abolish the nonpartisan independence of the judicial branch, allowing political parties to control every branch of government. The amendment allows billionaires such as Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, to throw millions into buying Kansas Supreme Court Justice seats. This month, Musk spent $20 million dollars on a single Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election. Musk continues to push legal boundaries intended to prevent corruption and vote buying as he’s paying every Wisconsin voter $100 if they sign a petition and give him their data. Simultaneously, the Kansas Legislature is negotiating a bill that would completely remove contribution limits to political parties.

Measles & Undermining Public Health (SB29)
National anti-vaccine sentiments are causing a resurgence in several diseases that had been eliminated. Kansas has been dealing with the largest tuberculosis outbreak in modern history and measles is now spreading with 10 cases in children confirmed this week. Despite this, Republican legislators passed a bill to begin dismantling the state’s public health infrastructure. The bill restricts public health officials' power to address infectious disease outbreaks, allows anyone to sue if they are upset by public health orders, and gives Republican leadership the power to undo emergency health orders. The bill is headed to the Governor’s desk.

Back to Brownback Budget (HB2007 + HB2318)
This week the Senate passed their version of the state budget, the house disagreed, and now the state budget will be negotiated in a conference committee next week. The Senate’s version of the budget mirrors Brownback era budgets that led the state to the brink of collapse. The Senate budget cuts deeper, increasing a 1.5% across the board budget cut to 3% and leaves special education severely underfunded. Legislators are already struggling to figure out how to cover the lost revenue from tax cuts they passed just last year. Despite the struggle to balance the budget, the legislature is advancing several new tax cuts and earmarking more funding for pet projects of top officials such as tripling funding for “crisis pregnancy centers” which are anti-abortion centers designed to mislead pregnant individuals into believing they are healthcare clinics. Additionally, Republican Senators added a provision putting a hold on $4 million in Executive Branch funds until executive offices certify that they have removed all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion positions and programs, and have forced employees to remove pronouns from all communications. The Legislature needs to pass a final budget by Friday, but because of the expedited legislative session they will adjourn and go home for the year before they actually know how much money the state has.

Back to Brownback Taxes (HB2138 + SB259)
Both the House and Senate passed bills this week that would follow Brownback style income tax cuts by gradually reducing the state to a flat income tax rate. The tax cut would disproportionately benefit Kansas’ wealthiest man Republican mega-donor Charles Koch who coincidentally pays Sen. President Ty Masterson, roughly $150,000 a year through a Wichita State University program. Currently, there is no clear estimate of how much the income tax cuts would cost the state in lost revenue per year.

Coming Up
This week tons of bills were gut-n-go’d into other bills and all sorts of other shenanigans. Next week is the last full week of the year for legislators. Both chambers will be going between house-senate negotiations in conference committees and voting on those negotiated bills on the floor. Then they will go on break before returning for 3 days in April. If you appreciate these recap videos please consider donating at loudlight.org/donate. Stay tuned, stay engaged, and until next time, thank you so much Kansas!