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Proposed bill bans gender changes on Kansas driver’s licenses, birth certificates
A bill that would ban gender changes on Kansas driver’s licenses and birth certificates drew hundreds of opponent comments despite appearing on a committee agenda just 24 hours before the Tuesday hearing.
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Civil rights • Voter rights • Anti-trans legislation • Abortion • Immigration • Municipalities’ local control • Kansas State Board of Education
MORe STATE GOVERNMENT NEWS
Kansas Republicans vote to bar transgender women from women’s bathrooms, prisons and shelters
Kansas lawmakers have advanced legislation that would bar transgender women from women’s bathrooms, women’s prisons, women’s locker rooms and domestic violence shelters.
Kansas lawmakers plan to use COVID-19 funds to expand voucher program to public school students
A new form of the long-debated Kansas voucher program for private schools would fund the program with federal COVID-19 dollars and provide $1,000 for public school students.
Kansas House approves childhood sexual abuse law reform, expands timeframe for lawsuits
The Kansas Legislature overwhelmingly approved a landmark reform to childhood sex abuse law, voting unanimously to expand the timeframe in which survivors can file lawsuits and prosecute abusers.
Defiant transgender children, filled with love and rage, march on Kansas Statehouse
A throng of angry queer and transgender children marched Friday evening on the Kansas Statehouse grounds in joyful defiance of legislators who promote state-sponsored discrimination.
As Kansans celebrate equality, House lawmakers vote against transgender women’s rights
Kansans gathered at the Statehouse this week to celebrate equality while GOP legislators executed their latest attack on transgender people.
Kansas Republican asserts ‘God-given’ gun rights during debate on concealed carry fees
Paying for a license to carry a concealed firearm violates “God-given rights,” a House Republican argued during a tense discussion on gun law ethics this week.
Kansas Senate defeats bill leveraging food stamp access to generate child support payments
Wichita Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau said enactment of a Kansas Senate bill written to deny federal food stamp benefits to noncustodial parents not making child support payments would lead to an increase in the number of children going hungry.
House lawmakers pass flat tax proposal, ‘abortion reversal’ legislation
House lawmakers passed a flat tax proposal with bipartisan support, following weeks of debate on the topic and criticism that the policy would mostly benefit corporations and the state’s wealthiest residents.
Senate clashes over gutting of Kansas overdose fatality bill unanimously passed by House
Republicans in the Kansas Senate undercut a plan for responding to the crisis in opioid overdose deaths by gutting a bill unanimously passed by the Kansas House and converting it into a vehicle to blunt authority of officials to issue public health directives during disease outbreaks.
Kansas House advances ‘state-mandated deception’ of abortion pill reversal
Rep. Brad Boyd, an Olathe Democrat, admonished fellow lawmakers Tuesday for ignoring the will of Kansas voters who overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment on abortion last year.
Kansas House advances budget over objections to unchecked spending
Rep. Henry Helgerson appealed to his fellow House members’ sense of duty Tuesday as he asserted no more than “a handful of you” had actually read the 337-page budget proposal they were about to endorse.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Lawrence students hold walkouts for transgender rights
Students at multiple Lawrence schools participated in walkouts at 11 a.m. Tuesday to show support for transgender people and trans rights.
Kansas lawmakers strike several provisions from controversial private school funding program
In the first of what is likely to be a series of bill negotiations over the next few days, a Kansas senator proposed cutting provisions on teacher salaries and district funding from a controversial, voucher-like K-12 education proposal.
Kansas law singling out abortion clinics contested at high court
An attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights says a 2011 state law that targets abortion clinics with a “regulatory scheme” was an unjustified attempt to restrict access to a fundamental right.
Kansas attorney general urges state Supreme Court to reverse 2019 abortion-rights decision
Justices of the Kansas Supreme Court grilled the state solicitor general Monday about an appeal asking the state’s highest court to reverse its 2019 opinion finding the right to abortion was embedded in the Kansas Constitution and then pivot to affirm a state law banning an abortion procedure.
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