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.
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.
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.
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
Students at multiple Lawrence schools participated in walkouts at 11 a.m. Tuesday to show support for transgender people and trans rights.
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.
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.
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.
The Legislature may not respect the public’s stance on abortion, but reproductive rights advocates find hope in knowing the record turnout Aug. 2 to defeat the constitutional amendment on abortion was fueled by young voters who are likely to keep voting.
Earl McIntosh wants state lawmakers to look at a photo of himself as a young boy, to see him as an innocent child full of joy and potential, and to think about how his life forever changed when he was sexually assaulted.
