A bunch of The Majority Report Clips on different subjects.
Category: News / Information
More For Readers To Check Up On With Their State Legislatures
We read and write a great deal about the SAVE Act that may or may not pass. It is a federal law, and really it’s unconstitutional, because the states control their own elections. If it passes as a federal law, well, there are still a few things that can be done. In the meantime, state legislatures are busy. Depending upon your own state’s legislature, it’s at least likely there’s committee work happening on this. Or, possibly, your state has progressed (ha) as far as my state has. It’s a fine day to check in with your state’s business, so you aren’t caught unawares come your next election.
Kansas Legislature plots election suppression, one careful building block at a time
by Robin Monroe, Kansas Reflector
March 11, 2026
Kansas is not rewriting its election system with one sweeping law.
It is doing so in pieces.
A deadline adjustment here. A database requirement there. A repeal of mail-in ballot authority. A restriction on ballot return methods. A new reporting mandate. A rule centralizing constitutional challenges in one county. A provision that repeals advance voting if courts intervene.
Individually, each bill appears technical. Administrative. Procedural.
Collectively, they form a kind of architecture, and architecture is never accidental.
The justification offered repeatedly is election integrity, specifically, noncitizen voting. Yet documented cases of noncitizen voting in Kansas have been counted in the single digits through the decades.
National reviews of millions of ballots have found similarly rare occurrences. The problem, statistically, is exceedingly small.
The legislative response, however, is structurally expansive.
Consider what is being built.
One bill requires certain public assistance agencies to report identifying information about noncitizen recipients to the secretary of state. Another one mandates recurring comparisons between Kansas’s voter registration system and the federal SAVE database.
Others expand the removal triggers to include driver’s license status or database mismatches.
In practical terms, that creates a dubious data pipeline: Public benefits system data is sent to the Secretary of State, where it is cross-referenced against the federal immigration database, then checked against the statewide voter rolls and then returned to the secretary of state, who has removal authority.
Public benefits databases were designed to determine eligibility for food, health care, and housing assistance. The federal SAVE system was designed to verify immigration status for entitlement programs. Kansas’s voter registration system was designed to facilitate elections.
Now, these systems are being interconnected for enforcement.
Even small database error rates become significant when the right to vote is at stake. Federal oversight reports have documented reliability and oversight concerns within SAVE.
Legislative testimony in Kansas has acknowledged audit-tracking issues within the state’s voter system. When automated cross-checking expands and removal authority increases, the margin for error shrinks, and the constitutional risk grows.
At the same time, access pathways are narrowing.
Deadlines for advance mail ballots are shortened. Remote ballot return boxes are eliminated. The statutory authority for certain mail ballot elections is repealed. These changes do not eliminate voting, but they constrict time and space.
When time compresses, errors matter more.
If a voter is flagged incorrectly due to a database mismatch, an outdated record or a clerical error, there is less opportunity to correct the problem. Fewer alternatives. Less flexibility.
Then there is process.
Several of these election bills have moved rapidly through the House, advancing from committee to floor debate to final action within compressed timelines. Emergency procedural tools reduce the space between debate and final vote. Hearings are scheduled even when broad support is thin.
Procedure is not neutral.
When legislative time is compressed, public scrutiny thins. Stakeholder response shortens. Amendments shrink. The result may comply with formal rules, but deliberative depth diminishes.
Finally, litigation itself is being reshaped. House Bill 2569 centralizes constitutional challenges to election laws in Shawnee County. Another contains a provision that would repeal advance voting statutes if courts invalidate certain signature verification requirements. These measures alter the terrain of judicial review, raising the stakes of constitutional challenges.
States unquestionably possess the authority to regulate elections. That authority is granted by the Constitution. But it exists alongside equal protection guarantees, due process protections, and the Voting Rights Act.
The question is not whether Kansas can regulate elections.
The question is whether it should construct an expansive enforcement and restriction architecture in response to a statistically rare problem.
From a social work perspective, policy is not evaluated solely by its stated purpose but also by its impact.
Who is most likely to be flagged incorrectly in database cross-checks? Who relies most heavily on mail voting? Who has the least time and fewest resources to correct administrative errors?
Who bears the burden when access narrows, and timelines tighten? When election administration shifts from facilitation to filtration, those questions matter.
This is not about one bill. It is about the convergence of data centralization, verification expansion, access contraction, procedural acceleration and litigation hardening, all moving in the same direction, creating a cumulative burden on Kansas voters.
Kansas may not rewrite its election system in a single dramatic stroke.
But architecture does not require drama. It requires design. And Kansans deserve to understand the structure being built in their name.
Robin Monroe is a native Kansan living and working in Wichita. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.
Follow-up On KS Anti-Trans Law
(I need to subscribe to Kansas Reflector, so I get these more timely than my phone brings them to me.)
Clergy-led activists block entry into Kansas Senate in protest over bathroom law
By:Anna Kaminski-March 10, 20265:11 pm
Rabbi Moti Rieber watches law enforcement as they confront protesters March 10, 2026, outside the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Rabbi Moti Rieber sat on the tiled floor, legs akimbo, in front of the arched passage leading to the Kansas Senate chamber with at least 20 people behind him and more lining the walls with handmade signs.
“We are here because when injustice becomes law, then resistance is necessary,” Rieber said. “We are here as moral witnesses.”
Clergy members led a sit-in protest Tuesday in opposition to a recently passed anti-trans law. The Republican-controlled Legislature used tactics to avoid public input and overrode the governor’s veto to pass Senate Bill 244, requiring people in public buildings to use the bathroom that coincides with their biological sex and also mandating driver’s licenses include a person’s sex assigned at birth instead of their gender.
Sergeants-at-arms looked on from behind the group, and Kansas Highway Patrol troopers soon joined. But it wasn’t until the group prevented Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, from entering the chamber that troopers grabbed people by the arms to clear a path.
As troopers hoisted activists up from their seats, encouraging them to disperse, the group sang in harmony: “No one is getting left behind this time. No one is getting left behind. No one is getting left behind this time. We get there together or never get there at all.”
At one point, a trooper knocked a woman to the ground as she tried to pass through the crowd, appearing to mistake her as part of the demonstration. Protesters responded with chants of “Shame!”
The woman declined to be identified or comment but told Kansas Reflector she was OK.
Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said while sitting on the floor, addressing the crowd, that the process to pass SB 244 was “crooked.” (There is a TikTok embedded on the page, linked in the title above.)
The law has already been challenged in Douglas County District Court, where a judge decided Tuesday not to pause enforcement of the law. The state sent letters to 275 Kansans shortly before the law went into effect, telling them their driver’s licenses were invalid. Some experts say laws targeting trans people can harm their mental health and increase the likelihood of discrimination.
The Rev. Mandy Todd, pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Lindsborg, said SB 244 is hurtful, targeted and part of a culture war. She said the group is “disgusted by this Legislature’s treatment of trans people.”
The bill stokes fear and anxiety, she said.
Todd, the director of engagement for Kansas Interfaith Action, said trans people in her community have felt the immediate effects of SB 244. The closest driver’s license office is in the next town, which Todd said has hamstrung one Lindsborg woman, who now cannot legally drive to sort out her invalid license.
Pastor Charles McKinzie II of Grace United Methodist Church in Winfield is confident the law, which he said was flawed in process and in substance, will make its way to the Kansas Supreme Court to be overturned.
“In the meantime, people are hurting, and people need to know that they are seen,” McKinzie said.
Conversations about the effects of SB 244 aren’t limited to a courtroom. They are taking place in churches, synagogues and other small group settings across the state, McKinzie said, and the sit-in was meant as a show of nonviolence “to shed light on a violent system.”
About an hour after the protest, Master Trooper Scott Whitsell said that no one from the group had been cited or arrested to his knowledge. The only law the protestors broke was blocking an entryway, he said.
Sherman Smith contributed to this story.
A Post for Women’s History Month
(Well, another one!) I watched part of Sherri Shepherd’s interview of Jayne Kennedy yesterday morning. I didn’t catch the beginning, but recognized the name earlier when I read it. I looked her up, and found the following from BET, and that’s the post. In addition to what’s included, Jayne Kennedy seems to be living with depressive anxiety, from what I gleaned in the Sherri interview. I couldn’t find anything about that, but she’s written a book, Plain Jayne that I intend to read as soon as I can. From this article, I figured out how I recognized her name and her face; I recall when she was in the Miss USA pageant in the late 1970s. Then I recalled she got a job on some sports show, as covered below. Anyway, this woman, aside from being talented and beautiful, is also courageous. Follow the links within for more information.
Women’s History Month: Celebrating Jayne Kennedy, The First Black Woman To Conquer Network Sports
Explore the multifaceted journey of the Emmy-winning trailblazer who transitioned from Hollywood to the NFL, changing the game forever.
By Tamara Brown March 9, 2026
NEW YORK – JANUARY 1: Jayne Kennedy and Brent Musburger on “N.F.L. Today,” on the CBS Sports television network. Circa 1978.
In the late 1970s, the network TV sports was a club where the doors were mostly locked to anyone who wasn’t white and male. But Jayne Kennedy didn’t just knock; she blasted those doors off the hinges.
As we continue our Women’s History Month spotlight, we’re looking back at the woman who, in 1978, became the first Black woman to co-host a major national sports program. When Kennedy stepped into the anchor chair on CBS’s The NFL Today, she did more than just read highlights.
Jayne Kennedy, now 74, held that ground-breaking role from 1978 to 1980, quickly becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the country. Before her history-making run at CBS, the former Miss Ohio USA was already a star. She got her start as a dancer on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and spent years touring with legends like Bob Hope and Dean Martin.
While her Hollywood resume is long, her impact on the sports world is what truly changed the culture. Beyond the NFL, Kennedy remains the only woman to host the long-running series Greatest Sports Legends. She even stepped into the ring as the first female color commentator for men’s professional boxing.
Even now, Kennedy isn’t slowing down. She was a key player in the LA28 Foundation, helping secure the bid for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She’s also sharing her full story in her new memoir, Plain Jayne, which dives into the grit, faith, and ambition it took to navigate a career filled with hurdles.
By breaking that ceiling nearly 50 years ago, Kennedy didn’t just make a name for herself. She made sure that for the rest of us, the path was already paved with the excellence she brought to the screen every Sunday.
The Good News About Sonny Burton From DPA-
I’m copy-pasting it from my email.
Amazing news! We were in the middle of of a zoom press conference about the Gas Suffocation aspect of the planned execution of Sonny Burton in Alabama on Thursday when a reporter put into the chat:
“Did you see that Governor Ivey just commuted Burton’s sentence?”
And with that, the news was broken. Governor Ivey heard YOUR messages, received YOUR petitions, read the articles YOU sent, heard YOU ringing her phone off the hook, heard us tolling our bell outside her house…. and she acted. Amen! THANK YOU!
Once again, this proves, sometimes, our united efforts work!
Congratulations to Sonny and his legal team, his family, and to all who had a hand in creating this moment!
Governor Ivey has declared that “All Life is Precious,” which is why we made sure to bring along our 4×10 foot banner to the 24-hour vigil we helped coordinate in front of her house a few weeks ago. The banner could not be missed from any street-facing window of the Governor’s mansion. We know with certainty that the Governor was there…. NOW we know that she heard our message!
The other good news is that now we don’t have to drive all the way to Alabama. In fact, we had planned to go to Texas fiirst to toll the bell outside the prison in Huntsville at the execution of Cedrick Ricks on Wednesday, which is still on. Without our planned return through Alabama, making such a long drive makes less sense.
As you know, everything we do to support local activists working to halt executions is another expense. It’s not just the costs of being on the road that we must cover, but also the overhead…
- The four full time staff and our media consultant who do the behind-the-scenes work.
- The costs of the tools and services we use to communicate our message to the world.
- The price of existing as an organization that shows up to oppose every execution.
- (snip-donation request. You can get there from the page of any of these links.)
Thank you. Yours in the Struggle,
–abe
PS: New execution dates are being set regularly. Click here to oppose every upcoming execution.
US immigration authorities arrest Spanish-language news reporter in Tennessee
Her real crime was exercising her 1st amendment right to report negatively on ICE and the higher crime of doing it in spanish a language I would say most ICE couldn’t understand. She committed no crime and remember what DHS, Tom Lyons, Stephen Miller, and Bovino keep telling us they are only going after the worst of the worst criminals. Again look at my first sentence to see her worst of the worst crime. It is flat out racism and genocide of brown people in and name of creating a white ethnostate with an entrenched apartheid system. These people say they want people to come here legally but she is here legally. Hugs
https://apnews.com/article/reporter-arrested-immigration-nashville-5b3869f74a84023fd430f09d5515fdc0
Updated 11:58 PM EDT, March 6, 2026
A reporter for a Spanish-language news outlet in Tennessee who has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not shown any warrant when she was arrested this week, according to court documents filed by her attorney.
Estefany Rodriguez Florez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias who has done stories critical of ICE, was arrested Wednesday during a traffic stop, according to documents filed in federal court in Nashville. Her lawyer called for her immediate release, but ICE has asked a judge to deny the request.
Rodriguez, a Colombian citizen, entered the U.S lawfully and has been living in the country for the past five years, court records filed by her lawyer show. She has a valid work permit, and she has applied for political asylum and legal status through her husband, who is a U.S. citizen.
Rodriguez has said she left Colombia after receiving death threats for her coverage of crime in the region, according to a statement from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The association said it “denounces immigration tactics that detain journalists and any efforts to interfere with news coverage of immigration enforcement.”
Rodriguez was with her husband in a marked Nashville Noticias vehicle when it was surrounded by several other vehicles and she was taken to a detention center, the news outlet said in a statement.
A court filing Friday by a lawyer for ICE said an arrest warrant had been issued for Rodriguez on Monday and her visa authorizing her to stay in the U.S. had expired. The filing said her arrest and detention “are not in violation of any laws or regulations.” ICE spokesperson Melissa Egan said Rodriguez was arrested during a “targeted enforcement operation” and she will remain in custody as her case proceeds through court.
Court documents filed by Rodriguez’s lawyer said that her attorney, Joel Coxander, spoke to an ICE agent who indicated that there was no arrest warrant for her at the time of her arrest. When she was arrested, Rodriguez was only shown an immigration document telling her to appear before ICE, according to the documents.
Rodriguez’s lawyer said in court documents that ICE had twice rescheduled a meeting with Rodriguez on her case, first because the office was closed during a winter storm and the second time because an agent couldn’t find her appointment in the system.
A new meeting was then set for March 17.
Rodriguez joined Nashville Noticias in 2022, covering social, family, health, police and immigration issues, the news outlet’s statement said.
“She needs to reunite with her young daughter and husband to continue her legal process within the framework permitted by law,” the statement said.
___
This story has been corrected to show the reporter’s second surname is Florez, not Flores as her attorneys initially said in a court filing.
Now I Wonder How The New Chiefs Stadium Is Gonna Work Out…
Not worried; I was not in favor of bringing it here, though I have a “whatever” attitude about it. Meanwhile:
California activist urges national boycott of Kansas over new transgender law
by FOX Kansas News Sat, March 7, 2026 at 6:00 AM
(There’s an embedded video on the page that I can’t bring here. Just click the title above to go to the page. Basically, it’s this story, but with comments from Suzanne Ford that aren’t within the story below.)
A California activist is calling for a boycott of the entire state of Kansas because of a new law.
Last month, the law took effect requiring all transgender people to use the bathroom of their sex at birth. The same law also invalidated hundreds of transgender Kansans driver’s licenses.
San Francisco Pride released a statement calling for a national boycott of the state, saying transgender Kansans are being targeted for simply existing.
North Carolina passed a similar law back in 2016, and economic consequences followed. The NCAA pulled the first weekend of the men’s basketball tournament out of Greensboro, and the NBA moved the All-Star game out of Charlotte because of those laws.
FOX Kansas News at 9 anchor Jack Cooper shares more in the video posted at the top of this page.
“Northern Emerald-Toucanet”
Also Known As: Tucanete Esmeralda (Spanish), Tucancillo Verde (Spanish)
Aptly named for its striking green plumage, the Northern Emerald-Toucanet is actually quite camouflaged in the leafy forests where it makes its home. With its tropical take on countershading — darker green on the back and wings, lighter yellow-green below — this bird beautifully matches the color palette of forest leaves, whether seen from above or from below. With its accents of chestnut, blue, and white, and a large black and yellow bill, this pigeon-sized bird is a true beauty.
Similar to other toucans, Northern Emerald-Toucanets eat mostly fruit, capitalizing on the wide diversity of fruit-bearing trees in the humid forests of their home in Central America. These birds mostly swallow their food whole, including some larger-seeded fruits, which they repeatedly regurgitate and swallow until the flesh is consumed. Whether by regurgitation or defecation, these birds spread the seeds of their food trees throughout the forest. Many tropical trees have evolved to bear fruit specifically for this purpose, taking advantage of birds’ wings to spread their seeds far and wide. In fact, the process of moving through the digestive tract of an animal actually helps the seeds of many of these trees to germinate. In effect, these toucanets, along with a cohort of other fruit-eating birds and mammals, are gardeners of their own food forests. (snip)
Bird Gallery
The Northern Emerald-Toucanet is indeed a beautiful, vibrant green, top and bottom, with the back a deeper, darker hue and the underparts lighter and slightly yellowish. The long tail is iridescent blue and green, with a rusty or chestnut tip matched by the vent feathers beneath the tail. The eight subspecies across its geographic range vary in the coloration of the throat, either blue or white, and the bill. In all subspecies, the lower mandible is black. The upper mandible has some black as well, but may be almost entirely yellow. Some subspecies also have a reddish to brown patch near the nostrils.
Good News Here!
A safe baby, and record Girl Scout cookies sales for trans Scouts! I remember seeing the story about the young man saving the baby last week on local TV news (through a national network affiliate.) No mention of anything but his heroism and his humility about doing what anyone else would have done.
Heroic Chicago trans comedian recalls saving infant from ice-cold Lake Michigan: ‘I guess I’m going in’
“The most important part of this entire story is that the baby is okay,” Lio Cundiff told The Advocate.
A Chicago comedian is speaking out about a daring rescue that left him in the freezing waters of Lake Michigan, and saving an infant from drowning.
Six days before his February 24 birthday, on a bright winter afternoon along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront, Lio Cundiff had a thought that now reads like a setup to a joke. “I was on the phone with my friend, looking at the water, and I was like, ‘Man, that looks so beautiful. I just want to jump in,’” he told The Advocate in an interview on Friday. Little did he know.
Cundiff, 31, had arrived early for work on February 18 near Belmont Harbor and wandered down to the water, as he often does. He loves the lake. He loves floating in it in the summer — ideally, he says, “with a beer.” He had been taking phone calls, sitting on a bench, “vibing,” he said.
Then he heard screaming. “I just look up, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ I just saw a stroller headed straight to the lake, just blown by the wind,” he recalled.
In that instant, the punchline vanished. There was no bit to craft, no self-deprecating aside about his baby face or his anxiety about sending emails, both staples of his stand-up. There was only motion. He threw down his jacket and phone and ran.
“I was like, ‘I guess I’m going in.’ And I jumped in and just tried to keep us afloat as much as possible,” he said.
Early media reports suggested that Cundiff did not know how to swim. He bristles at that characterization. “I can swim,” he said, explaining that in the hospital he told a reporter he wasn’t the strongest swimmer and preferred “to float with a beer in my hand.” “They ran with, ‘I can’t swim,’” he said.
“I can swim. I just prefer not to,” he said through a chuckle.
The baby, eight months old, was zipped inside the stroller. Cundiff had to keep the entire frame buoyant while treading freezing cold water. At one point, both of their heads went under. He describes the memory in fragments, as though replaying a film whose ending he already knows but still cannot quite believe.
“There were a few minutes where I didn’t know if we were going to be able to keep afloat,” he said. “I grabbed her hand for a second. Her tiny little fingers. I rubbed them for two seconds, and I was like, ‘Okay.’ … ‘All right, we got to keep going.’”
A bystander named Lou dropped a jacket; later, a life buoy arrived. They were about thirty feet from a ladder. Cundiff’s muscles were tightening. When they finally reached it, and the baby began to cry, he felt something like release.
“As long as she’s crying, when she gets out, that’s all I needed,” he said. (snip-MORE on the page)
Trans Girl Scouts Sell 330,000 Boxes Of Cookies In Public Outpouring Of Support
The total boxes sold is the highest in the history of EITM’s trans girl scout cookie list.
Erin Reed Mar 05, 2026
Five years ago, as anti-trans legislation first began spreading across the United States, I kept thinking about the kids caught in the middle of it—transgender children suddenly facing a wave of hostility simply for existing. That year, I started something small in response: a trans Girl Scout cookie list. Only three scouts were on it. The internet responded immediately, helping them sell out their entire quota. Every year since, I’ve made the list again, and every year it has grown larger. Now, in 2026, the list has reached a staggering scale: 220 transgender Girl Scouts participating—and together they have already sold more than 330,000 boxes of cookies, with the number still climbing every minute.
One scout hoping to fund a troop trip to Alaska—and assemble backpacks for foster children—has sold 2,500 boxes of cookies, bringing those plane tickets within reach. Another scout, a competitive soccer player, was raising money so her troop could attend scouting camp without worrying about the cost; she has now sold 4,500 boxes, ensuring that trip is covered. One troop made up of transgender Girl Scouts set their sights on learning horseback riding and attending summer camp together—and sold 22,000 boxes to make it happen. And Pim, who simply wanted to go to Niagara Falls and to take her troop camping, has sold more cookies than the website can even track: more than 100,000 boxes.
And while we can’t know exactly how many of those sales came directly from our yearly list, we do know that these trans Girl Scouts have taken the internet by storm. Posts about them have racked up millions of impressions on Facebook and gone repeatedly viral on Bluesky. In the process, countless people looking for their next box of cookies discovered a cause worth supporting—and a group of scouts they were excited to cheer on.
The news about their staggering success comes during a broader regression around scouting organizations with respect to transgender people. In December, the United Kingdom’s Girlguiding—the British equivalent of the Girl Scouts—banned transgender girls from joining, reversing a policy that had been in place since 2018. In the United States, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced Scouting America to agree to classify members by sex assigned at birth, eliminate diversity initiatives, and effectively out and segregate transgender scouts from their peers. Girl Scouts of the USA, however, has yet to see the same regression—the organization still stands by its transgender inclusion policy.
For these kids, that transgender inclusion policy has given them hope. At a time when thousands of anti-LGBTQ+ bills are being proposed and passed across the country, the cookie list is proof that people out there care. When every force in the world is acting against them, for once, their identity is not treated as a curse by society, but a blessing. Parents have told me that their children have been overwhelmed with joy watching the numbers climb, realizing that strangers across the country support them. And that’s worth protecting. (snip-MORE on the page)
Why It’s Good When Someone Pays Close Attention To Legislatures
Here’s an example of another “ingenious” bill in the Great State of Kansas. From my Topeka Buzz email, where there’s lots of similarly ingenious work. I post these because I’ve read that this stuff is being brought up in almost every state, so do all you can to keep track in yours.
| Senate Passes Mail Voting Bill With Built-In Self-Destruct Clause |
| SB 394 passed the Senate 26-11 Thursday with one senator voting present and two absent. The bill adds signature requirements to mail ballot envelopes — spaces for the voter, any helper, and anyone signing on a voter’s behalf, plus a perjury-warning affidavit. But the headline provision is the court-triggered repeal: if any court issues a final, non-appealable order blocking the signature-check rule in K.S.A. 25-1124(h), the Secretary of State must publish notice in the Kansas Register and most state laws authorizing mail voting automatically void, except where federal law requires it. Three Republicans—Mike Argabright (R), Joseph Claeys (R), and Brenda Dietrich (R)—voted no alongside the Democratic caucus, while Ronald Ryckman (R) and Pat Pettey (D) were absent. The bill effectively tells the courts: strike down our signature rules and we’ll take mail voting with them. It now heads to the House. |
| Medicaid and SNAP Eligibility Overhaul Clears Senate |
| SB 363 — the Medicaid and SNAP eligibility-tightening bill we flagged when it came out of the Government Efficiency Committee — passed the Senate 25-12 Thursday with one present vote and two absent. The bill requires cross-agency data matching for eligibility verification, cuts retroactive Medicaid from three months to two, limits self-attestation, raises the SNAP work requirement age to 64, and mandates quarterly legislative reporting starting in 2027. One provision cuts the other direction: KDHE must seek federal approval for continuous Medicaid coverage for people with permanent intellectual or developmental disabilities who receive home services. The bill now heads to the House, where anti-hunger advocates and disability groups are likely to press their case that the eligibility barriers will cause coverage losses that outweigh any savings from reduced improper payments. |
| Identical Constitutional Amendments Filed in Both Chambers to Eliminate State Taxes |
| Legislators introduced matching constitutional amendments Thursday — SCR 1624 in the Senate and HCR 5034 in the House — proposing a “Freedom from Taxes Fund” in the Kansas Constitution. The plan would repeal certain sales and use tax exemptions and deposit the added revenue as untouchable principal in a state investment fund; only the interest earnings could be spent, and only to replace revenue from taxes being eliminated. The phased sequence: motor vehicle property taxes and registration fees first, then certain state-mandated property taxes, then state income and privilege taxes. A temporary Kansas Citizens Freedom Review Board would review exemptions, and each tax elimination would require the State Treasurer to certify sufficient interest earnings and the Legislature to approve by concurrent resolution. The dual filing signals serious intent, but both resolutions would need two-thirds votes in each chamber to reach the ballot — a high bar for a proposal that critics will argue relies on investment returns to replace billions in tax revenue. |
Scottie's Playtime 