Below is today’s morning update on published activities in the Kansas Legislature.

In an 81-43 vote, the Kansas House failed to reach the two-thirds majority required to certify Kansas as formally requesting an Article V US constitutional convention. The proposal, which would have put the US one state closer to its first-ever national gathering to rewrite parts of the founding document.

An Article V Convention of States has never been called. It is essentially a “fast track” for drafting amendments to the Constitution. Proposed amendments would still require ratification by 75% of the states, but wouldn’t necessarily require a citizen vote. Nineteen of the required 34 states have already certified an Article V request (see tracker).

The vote count was an unusual one, with both Democrats and Republicans voting opposite of their party’s overall position:

With no votes to spare, the Republican supermajority in the house passed a resolution calling for the direct election of Kansas state supreme court justices. It’s a glaring example of why elections matter: there are any number of house races from the November 2024 election where the Republican candidate won by only a handful of votes. Had any of those candidates won, the state supreme court would not be in jeopardy.

As the vote was on a resolution and not a bill, there is no governor’s signature or veto. Instead, this issue now goes directly to voters on the August 2026 primary ballot. It will likely become a rallying cry much the same way as “Vote No” was in 2022 (Vote No Again?), because the restructuring of the state supreme court is one of the final steps in a long-term strategy to work around Vote No and ultimately create the conditions to be able to enact an abortion ban.

The Senate got an early start this morning (10am), with dozens of bills still remaining on its calendar. We’ll see how far they get today. Similarly, the House calendar for today is over 30 pages long. We’re not going to dig through all of the details here except to say that despite the Republican supermajority status, nothing is guaranteed; you can still email your legislator directly with last-minute endorsements or opposition.

One quick way to look up your legislator’s contact info is LetterSwarm; if you have a (free!) registered account and have saved your address, all of your elected officials at the state and federal level are one click away. (You can click here to sign up.)

Time is short and the House and Senate journals and calendars are long, so there won’t be a segment on bills in flight today.

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