On Tuesday, voters in Kansas and Missouri overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures proposed by Republican lawmakers that aimed to restrict their democratic and human rights. In Kansas, proposed Amendment 1 would have required direct elections for state Supreme Court justices. The measure was introduced by Republicans in the state legislature to counter the process for appointing jurists to the…
Source
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from abortion opponents, it’s that abortion rights, no matter how many times they are affirmed and supported by the electorate, are never a settled issue. In August 2022, less than two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Kansas made a defiant stand in favor of abortion rights, one that reverberated across the country. But abortion opponents refuse to take no…
Source
The networks of two major players who helped capture the U.S. Supreme Court — anti-abortion lawyer Leonard Leo and oil billionaire Charles Koch — have also long targeted state courts to advance their regressive agenda. One of their tactics, influencing the way that state justices are selected nationwide, is being borne out in Kansas. On August 4, voters in Kansas will decide the fate of a…
Source
Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, and other states are creating lists of trans people, moves that advocates say would make it nearly impossible to exist in a trans body. In February, Kansas revoked the state identification cards and birth certificates of trans residents, making it the first state to cancel documents of individuals who changed their gender markers. The move was made possible…
Source
TOPEKA — A Kansas Republican is once again looking for a path to stop abortion, with a new proposal to change the state constitution to say life begins at conception. Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 1623 on behalf of Doug Johnson, calling it an “equal rights amendment.” The same language is used in Senate calendar listings…
Source
Two transgender residents of Kansas are suing the state over its newly enacted anti-trans law that has invalidated the driver’s licenses of hundreds of trans people. The new law also authorizes any individual to sue anyone in Kansas who they suspect of using the “wrong” restroom, based on the state’s new definition of gender, which wrongly states that gender is equivalent to the sex a person…
Source