Kansas Republicans have an even tighter grip on state politics after dominating in local legislative elections.
Republicans expanded their supermajority in the state Legislature in Tuesday’s elections. Democrats failed to unseat Republicans in the Kansas City suburbs and lost key races in Hutchinson, Leavenworth and Manhattan.
Democrats had seen this cycle as their best chance yet at ending a power arrangement that allows GOP lawmakers to pass bills, amendments and budget line-items without a single vote from across the aisle. After all, they had millions in funding this year and Johnson County had been turning increasingly blue in recent elections.
Now, Republicans can continue to steamroll Democrats on key issues.
That could mean limiting transgender health care access, another attempt at a flat tax package and property tax cuts in the 2025 legislative session.
Republican House Majority Leader Chris Croft said the vote shows Kansans support GOP priorities.
“They have invested their trust in us and they showed that they believe in us and want us to take a role and get things done,” Croft said.
With a strengthened supermajority, Croft said the party would focus on economic relief.
“People are hurting out there,” he said. “People aren't filling up (grocery) carts. They are having trouble putting food on the table.”
Croft said it’s too early to comment on other policies Republicans have hinted at in the past, like bringing down the corporate tax rate or changing the way state Supreme Court justices are appointed in Kansas.
Wendy Bingesser, a GOP leader in the area that contained many battleground races, said her party’s messaging on public safety, inflation and property taxes resonated with swing voters in competitive districts.
“The Legislature’s number one priority will be to address the state’s broken property tax system,” she said in a text message.
Kansas Republicans have held the supermajority for over a decade and have overridden Kelly’s vetoes 15 times in the last two years. That has included laws requiring doctors to question patients seeking abortions about their reasons, banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, increasing penalties for harming police dogs and limiting access to food stamps.
But getting every one of the 100 plus Republicans to fall in line has been difficult at times. These veto fights give Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly more power in the Kansas Legislature even though Democrats don’t control the state House or Senate and have limited influence in committees.
Now, Republicans’ expanded numbers will allow them to reach the two-thirds majority needed for an override even if a handful of party members object.
Though the battle for the supermajority in Kansas is not new, this election cycle saw higher-than-normal levels of spending from both parties. A political action committee that Kelly started raised nearly $2 million in just over a year. Its goal was to break the supermajority and tip the scales in certain Democratic primaries.
Democrats needed to gain two seats in the House or three in the Senate. Instead, unofficial results from the Kansas secretary of state suggest they lost three seats in the House and two in the Senate.
The outcome of the state legislative elections became clear late Tuesday as Democrats were unable to net enough victories in battleground districts across the state.
Small business owner Jeff Klemp appears to have ousted Jeff Pittman, a Senate Democratic incumbent from Leavenworth. And in Manhattan, Senate Democrat Usha Reddi lost her seat to former school district superintendent Brad Starnes.
Chatting with colleagues and checking her phone for updates at a Democratic watch party in Overland Park, Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes said she was disappointed that early enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t seem to hold in local elections.
“It’s what we were kind of afraid of, trying to make sure that people voted all the way down the ballot,” she said.
Will Lawrence, chief of staff for Kelly, said the governor’s veto power should still be respected.
Kelly has a habit of convincing moderate Republicans to rebel against party leadership.
The flat tax plan, the top priority for conservatives, died because multiple Republicans signed on to Kelly’s tax plan. Republican legislators also bucked party leadership when conservatives tried to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
It isn’t clear how House and Senate leadership would have negotiated with Democrats if the supermajority was broken. Breaking the supermajority didn’t guarantee bills like a Medicaid Expansion would have passed, but it’s an issue Kelly has continued to push.
Kelly’s other top priorities for this upcoming session are preserving water in the Ogallala Aquifer and making child care more affordable. She wants to create a new state department dedicated to child care.
Those are not inherently partisan issues, Lawrence said, and can still be done even with a more conservative Statehouse.
The fight over how to fund education, on the other hand, is a partisan issue that could prove more complicated to negotiate given Republicans’ enhanced control of the Statehouse.
“They’ve had the supermajority this whole time,” Lawrence said. “We’ve been able to sustain vetoes in a meaningful way with Republican support. Now we may have to get a couple more votes.”
This story is a collaboration between the Kansas News Service and the Beacon.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
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