Research & Publications

Despite existing in the Midwest for hundreds of years, Asian American Midwesterners are broadly invisible, and our stories are severely underrepresented. Today, Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders are two of the Midwest’s fastest growing racial groups (Asian Americans Advancing Justice, 2012). We’ve been here, you just might not have known.

With so many organizations clamoring for my time and money following the disastrous 2024 election, I ultimately chose to focus the bulk of my effort with the ACLU of Kansas Beehive. I care deeply about what is happening nationally, but I also believe that ACLU of Kansas’s focus on winnable objectives at the state and local levels provides the best opportunity to have an effect that will ripple outward.

While the 2025 Kansas Legislative Session has officially come to an end, we know that the fight to protect civil liberties in Kansas is not over. President Trump has repeatedly pledged to pursue an agenda of extreme attacks on our constitutional rights, targeting democracy, immigrants, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ equality, and anyone he perceived as a political opponent — and now his administration is carrying that agenda out.

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.

The fate of the ballot collection period is in question after the legislature passed SB 4 and sent it to Governor Kelly's desk. But If we looked at how to make voting easier instead of always trying to make it harder, what could we achieve?

Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 1611 proposes an amendment to the Kansas Constitution to fundamentally change the way Kansas Supreme Court justices are selected. The amendment would eliminate the Supreme Court Nominating Commission, establish direct elections for justices, and allow justices to engage in political activity.

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.

Civil liberties continue to be the target of the Kansas legislature. This remains a multi-front assault. Attacks on voting access and singling out immigrant communities have all been on the docket this week. Take a look at what you might have missed week seven of the Kansas 2025 Legislative Session:

In the first hundred days of a second Trump administration, the public has been overwhelmed with a constant influx of new and increasingly devastating information almost every waking day. To recap, President Trump has already banned trans athletes from women’s sports, enacted bans on gender-affirming care, attacked DEIA initiatives, attacked reproductive rights, attempted to end birth-right citizenship, inspired extremist in-state policy, encouraged funding cuts to non-profit advocacy groups, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.