THE OPPORTUNITY

Because they hold a supermajority — more than a two-thirds majority in each Kansas state chamber — the rightwing has the power to override Governor Laura Kelly’s vetoes. Rightwing lawmakers have used that power to override eight of Kelly’s 17 vetoes in the 2023 legislative session.

We see a path to breaking this supermajority by flipping two seats in the House. This would unlock more of Governor Kelly’s ability to block the rightwing’s extremist agenda.

THE STAKES

In their 2023 legislative session, Kansas’ supermajority has bypassed the will of their voters to enact unpopular laws that strip Kansans of their freedoms:

• In August 2022, Kansas voters overwhelmingly defeated a constitutional amendment that would have stripped away abortion access. Despite this clear message from their own voters, the rightwing-controlled legislature advanced a series of extreme anti-abortion laws through both chambers, overriding Governor Kelly’s vetoes to pass these policies into law.
• Because not every rightwing lawmaker voted to override her veto, Governor Kelly was able to successfully block a bill that would end the state’s three-day grace period for counting mail-in ballots. This policy would disproportionately impact rural and military voters whose ability to have their legitimate ballots counted would depend on an increasingly unreliable mail system in Kansas.

We can’t depend on rightwing lawmakers to help prevent overrides on Governor Kelly’s vetoes. Blocking a supermajority is the safest way to prevent similar rightwing anti-voter priorities from being pushed through the legislature and enacted in future sessions.

THE LANDSCAPE

In 2020, the last time The States Project funded state legislative races Kansas, fewer than 1,000 votes decided the result of every single House district that we fueled to attempt to shift the balance of power.

This November, the entire chamber is up for re-election. To end the rightwing supermajority, we will need to protect every vulnerable Democratic-held district and flip two additional seats, but we believe achieving this goal is within reach.

• In The States Project’s first election in Kansas, we set out to break the supermajority in either chamber to protect Governor Laura Kelly’s vetoes. We needed to net three seats in the State Senate or two in the State House.
• In the State Senate, two candidates we supported flipped seats to become Senators. While in the House, two candidates we supported flipped their seats.
• One candidate that our efforts supported performed 10 points better than Biden in their district in the Kansas City suburbs, knocking off an incumbent in a district that Trump carried by more than 3 percent.