House Speaker Dan Hawkins, in his final year in the Legislature, centers his rebuttal speech on budget, policy wins

TOPEKA — Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins underscored the force of the Republican supermajority and its 2025 policy wins in his response to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s final State of the State address.

Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, also promised solutions to cost of living issues, health care woes and academic outcomes in K-12 schools during the 2026 legislative session, where Republicans maintained an 88-37 advantage in the House and a 31-9 margin in the Senate.

Kelly’s State of the State speech was part victory lap, part warning. Kelly, who will leave office at the end of 2026, celebrated enticing the Kansas City Chiefs, who will move from Missouri to play in a new stadium in five years, and her seven years in office. And she cautioned against accepting uncivil political discourse as the norm.

It’s Hawkins’ final State of the State response, too, which he prerecorded ahead of Kelly’s address Tuesday. He is running for state insurance commissioner. His rebuttal touted tax relief legislation, and he spoke of prioritizing quality K-12 schools, housing and roads.

Three things, he said, have made a difference in the state budget.

One: A focus on efficiency inspired by the Trump administration’s DOGE, or department of government efficiency. Two: Investing in government functions such as schools, roads, public safety and water. And three: Reducing state spending.

His 2024 speech was laden with critiques of Kelly and the Biden administration, and he vowed at the time to focus on shrinking government, reining in energy costs, improving civil services and cracking down on communist China.

Two years later, he threw fewer jabs. He criticized Kelly for “covering up waste, fraud and abuse” in the state budget and “massive” spending proposals. However, the Republican majority was, by its own authority, responsible in 2025 for proposing, negotiating and passing the state budget.

“The bottom line is we are focusing on the core services of government and doing those things right,” he said. “We’re putting people first, and it’s working. This past year alone, we reduced state spending by over $200 million.”

That figure is in contrast to the 2024-2025 state budget.

Republicans actually reduced spending by $38 million last year compared to the governor’s proposed 2025-2026 budget, according to numbers confirmed in August by his staff.

Hawkins said schools were the Legislature’s No. 1 budget priority. Republicans historically have not always put forth proposals that fully fund public schools, however. He voiced support for a proposed bipartisan cellphone ban in K-12 schools, hypothesizing it could improve test scores.

Health care, he said, is another priority.

“It’s beyond frustrating to see enormous federal and state government funding pumped into the system, and yet costs keep skyrocketing, and middle class families are forced to keep paying more,” he said.

Hawkins has opposed Medicaid expansion in Kansas, which has shown in some states to lower state and consumer costs.

The solutions Hawkins sees include improving hospital reimbursements, enhancing telemedicine, improving hospital pricing transparency, lowering prescription costs and creating oversight for the Rural Health Transformation Fund, a $50 billion program established in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to offset the bill’s cuts to rural health providers. He said the fund, if used wisely, has the ability to rightsize health care for rural Kansas communities.”

“Payouts to big hospital systems and programs based on buzzwords instead of actual care, as some have suggested, are not going to cut it,” he said.

He said the 2026 Legislature, “as part of our people-first agenda,” will concentrate on cost of living concerns, including housing, insurance and utility costs.

Hawkins promised to modify tort law to lower insurance costs and deregulate single-family home building to lower housing costs. Quality and affordable housing was identified as a major need, especially in rural communities, in the state’s 2021 Housing Needs Assessment. A growing population and the compounded effects of the 2008 recession have created a housing shortage in Kansas. The Legislature last year passed legislation that will whittle down the state’s low-income housing tax credit program, which helped fund the construction and rehabilitation of low-income rental housing, until it is discontinued in 2028.

Hawkins, who has served 13 years in the Legislature, ended his response by committing Republicans to having Kansans’ backs.

“When I look out on our great state, I see the challenges we face,” he said. “But we’ve faced challenges before.”

Bleeding Kansas, grasshopper plagues, ice storms, prairie fires, tornadoes and the dust bowl, to name a few, he said.

“But Kansas remains undefeated,” he said. “We dust ourselves off, and we confront our problems head on, and we carry on.”

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

Latest state news:

MORE …