Kansas lawmakers, health care advocates and lobbyists packed two committee rooms Wednesday, wearing buttons and slogan-emblazoned shirts to showcase public approval of Medicaid expansion.
Kansas communities are on track to receive state money to create more shelter for people under a new proposal — but a built-in provision could mean these people are criminalized for living outside first.
Late Thursday, following fiery speeches on both sides of the aisle and lengthy debate, Kansas senators approved a new iteration of a flat tax plan that favors the state’s top earners and would cost the state nearly $650 million annually once phased in.
State employees would no longer be able to so much as call transgender children by their chosen pronouns under a bill blocking transgender minors in the state from receiving gender-affirming care. The legislation is barreling toward the governor’s desk.
Kansas House lawmakers advanced a wide-ranging bill Tuesday that includes Republican plans to ban trans children from getting gender-affirming medical care amid outcry from worried parents.
The House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard testimony on a bill creating a felony of coercion for persuading someone to terminate a pregnancy against their will and a bill designed to funnel $5.8 million into efforts to pressure women not to terminate a pregnancy.
A district court has sided with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on a temporary block to keep Kansas residents from changing the gender listed on their drivers’ licenses.
A bill supported by Sedgwick County and the city of Wichita is requesting $40 million from the state for homeless shelter infrastructure, and it also requires localities to enforce ordinances on camping and vagrancy.
House Democrats questioned the integrity of two Republicans legislators who brandished their credentials as physicians while promoting harmful misinformation about transgender children during debate Thursday on legislation that would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care.
A Lawrence teen told legislators Thursday morning that a sales tax exemption for menstruation products, diapers and incontinence products would benefit Kansans as well as a local nonprofit.
