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As the legislature begins to wind down over the next several weeks before the veto period, there have been fewer bills moving through the legislative process due to a targeted focus of the supermajority to accomplish their legislative agenda. Over the past two weeks, the ACLU of Kansas has focused on blocking several key bills involving voting rights and the Kansas Supreme Court. This week’s update includes an in depth analysis of several important pieces of legislation as we begin to close out the legislative session. 

Judicial Selection of the Kansas Supreme Court 

SCR1611: The Senate Concurrent Resolution would seek to change the way Kansas Supreme Court Justices are selected and retained.  

Current Process: Currently, a nominating commission, made up of qualified lawyers and civic leaders nominate three candidates for a vacant seat on the Kansas Supreme Court, and the governor chooses one of the candidates for the appointment.

Proposed Changes: SCR1611 would eliminate the nominating commission and allow for direct partisan elections to be held for a position on the Kansas Supreme Court. This change would allow politics to infiltrate the Kansas Supreme Court. Supporters of the amendment openly admit that they want to change the process to be able to ban abortion, limit voting rights, and attack other constitutional rights.

Current Status: This amendment has passed will be placed on the ballot at the 2026 primary election. 

Take Action: Start preparing yourself for the 2026 elections where we will see this constitutional amendment on the ballot. Have conversations with you neighbors and loved ones about the implications of this amendment on reproductive and civil rights.

Voting Rights 

SB 4: This bill would eliminate the 3-day mail processing window, disenfranchising thousands of Kansas voters, especially voters in rural areas or who have disabilities or other limitations in movement.  

Current Process: Mail-in ballots are able to arrive 3-days past election day and still be counted, as long as they were postmarked by the deadline for mail-in ballots. The 3-day window is in place to account for postal delays, or processing timing that can occur with the United Stats Postal Service, especially during high volume time periods such as election season.  

Proposed Changes: SB 4 would eliminate the mail processing window, punishing Kansans who did everything they were supposed to while filling out their ballot, by throwing it out due to an uncontrollable mail delay.

Areas of Concern: Individuals who count on mail in ballots, such as elderly or disabled individuals who might not have access to transportation as well as those who are out of residence for college, or have recently moved, rely on mail-in ballots to make their voices heard. By eliminating the 3-day processing window, their votes are more likely to be thrown out due to measures beyond their control.  

Current Status: SB 4 passed both the house and Senate has been presented to the Governor. The Governor has 10-days to pass it, or veto it, which would send the bill back to both chambers requiring a 2/3rd’s majority to override.  

Take Action: Contact your legislator and tell them to sustain the veto on SB 4 by clicking here.

As the session begins to wind down, our focus in stopping these critical pushes against civil liberties and the best interests of Kansans. Continue to follow our legislative hub for more details and updates throughout the next couple weeks. 

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• Read more about Legislative Update: Weeks 8 & 9

The Kansas legislature has passed SB 4, a bill that eliminates the three-day mail processing period affixed to Election Day that allows fully eligible voters to have their mail ballots counted. It now goes to Governor Kelly to sign or veto.

This isn’t just an attack on our rights, it’s an affront to our core human sensibilities. 

Kansas lawmakers created the ballot processing period in 2017 with nearly unanimous support. The logic was simple: mail delays posed an obstacle to voters, so this collection period was a safeguard so votes cast on time would still be counted. 

Still, lawmakers, including the bill’s sponsor Rep. Pat Proctor, have spent over half the time since trying to overturn the law with yearly bills with specious reasoning. This time around, Proctor falsely claimed that thousands of ballots were thrown out for not being postmarked, but Loud Light’s investigation found that there were only 78 such occurrences in 2024.  

Kansans love early voting; our polling shows that 70% believe politicians should focus on making voting more accessible; 65% believe counties should be required to offer the maximum-allowed early voting period; over half even support prepaid postage for mail ballots. 

This year’s SB 4 passed both chambers of the legislature and was just vetoed by Governor Kelly. It’s up to us now to contact legislators and Governor Kelly to block the bill.

What a productive early voting bill might look like
 

Kansas state law currently only allows 20 days of advance voting. However, counties get to choose individually how many days of early voting they allow, and it can vary wildly from county to county. 

Last year, Proctor introduced a convoluted bill that masqueraded as a compromise; it got rid of the mail collection period and moved up deadlines to register to vote but allowed early voting to begin three days earlier. 

By suggesting they move up the start of early voting, Proctor is highlighting an important fact: there are no federal restrictions on how soon early voting can begin. 

This gives Kansas lawmakers a tremendous amount of freedom to open up early voting. There were 91 days between the primary and the general election in 2024, which means there’s tremendous opportunity to allow Kansans to vote earlier. 

In fact, election officials already are required to send out ballots 45 days before Election Day to military members and citizens living overseas. Since the ballots are ready and the systems underway already, we could mail out all early voting ballots at this time, no matter which county a voter lives in. 

Working within the existing framework, we would suddenly have doubled the mail early voting period for Kansans. 

You may call me a dreamer
 

My qualms with SB 4 go as deep as their baseline assumption in calling the mail collection period a “grace period.” This isn’t a favor from lawmakers to voters; this is one mechanism by which the legislature can do their most basic duty to make voting accessible. 

Maybe lawmakers would realize it’s possible to make voting easier if they didn’t spend so much time making it harder. 

Instead, Kansans receive a double portion of affront—lawmakers are not only working against the will of the people in making voting harder, but they insult the public with vapid rhetoric while discussing their true plans behind closed doors. 

And now, after years of conniving, they have passed the bill and maintain the party numbers to override a possible Governor Laura Kelly veto. 

I often wonder if others feel as out-of-place in the current zeitgeist as I do. We sit at the pinnacle of human achievement, armed with previously-unfathomable knowledge and technology, and constantly debate how poorly we can do things. 

If we looked at the bounty of opportunity to make voting easier, we could do something truly impressive. Federal law affords tremendous opportunity to ensure every eligible voice is heard.  Instead, we allow lawmakers to scheme and consolidate power, which is neither helpful nor impressive. 

This year we fell into the same tired routine of anti-civil liberties legislation: asked our lawmakers not to pass this bill, contacted Governor Kelly to veto the bill, and now, we will urge lawmakers to sustain her veto and vote against an override, praying enough of them listen.

But I yearn for the day when we’re no longer mired by disingenuousness -- where we don’t propose ways to limit citizens’ voices while pretending we’re helping them, but instead actualize sincere plans to make sure they’re heard; where we don’t squabble over how to do the least possible, but rather survey the ways we can accomplish all that is possible for us. 

I hope you’ll join me in doing everything we can to stop this insincere and harmful bill from becoming law. And I believe that when enough Kansans make our voices heard, our task will no longer be to simply impede these sinister ploys, but to implement productive plans to be the best that we can be; go to the stars, if you will. 

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• Read more about As lawmakers scheme to pass a destructive voting bill, let’s conceive of something better. 

This legislative session, extremist Senators are pushing a ballot initiative that would politicize the Kansas Supreme Court and open the door for special interest groups to buy their way into the Kansas judiciary. SCR 1611 proposes a constitutional amendment to provide for direct election of Supreme Court Justices and abolishes the current nonpartisan nominating commission.

“The Supreme Court should not be for sale to the highest bidder. If this passes, it will be a radical departure from Kansas’s longstanding commitment to judicial independence.” - Rashane Hamby, Policy Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.

We cannot allow for the injection of politics into the courts. Switching to partisan elections for Kansas Supreme Court justices will not actually give power to the people; it will give power to those with the most money. When Ohio switched to partisan Supreme Court elections in 2022, hundreds of thousands of dollars from out-of-state special interest groups poured into Ohio to buy their preferred candidate’s success. By amending the state constitution to politicize the Kansas Supreme Court, we further risk encouraging those same practices in our state.

Right now, non-partisan experienced scholars, including retired Kansas Supreme Court justices, who know Kansas and our constitution, help guide judicial appointments. This amendment will replace these merit-based experts with extreme politicians and special interest groups. In replacing experts with politicians, we risk eroding the legitimacy of an allegedly nonpartisan judiciary as well as public trust.

Furthermore, we can also look to the intent of this resolution as an indicator of extremist policies influencing our Kansas politics.

Less than three years ago, Kansans voted to enshrine abortion rights under our Kansas constitution. Now, the extremists backing this amendment are trying to remake the court so they can ignore the will of the people and ban abortion without exceptions in Kansas. Attorney General Kris Kobach himself has made it clear that his efforts to overhaul the court are in retaliation to the 2022 decision on abortion, stating the makeup of the court makes it “very difficult” for him to win cases and advance his preferred policies.

We must protect the rights of all Kansans to make personal decisions without the influence of Kris Kobach and his extremist allies.

We cannot allow this Kobach power grab to happen. The fate of our reproductive and civil rights depends on it. Take action on SCR 1611 by clicking here or by visiting our 2025 Legislative Resource Hub and clicking the take action link. It takes less than 1 minute to contact your legislator and make your voice heard, TODAY.

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• Read more about Stop the Kobach Power Grab