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With the completion of the most recent Legislative session in Topeka April 11, State District 124 Representative Marty Long (R-Ulysses) gave his final update on bills that passed and failed during the final Legislative Coffee of the year April 19, at Grant County Fire Department. State District 39 Senator Dr. William Clifford – who normally presents in addition to Long – was absent because of the Easter weekend.
Less than 20 individuals attended the meeting, more than attended in March, but far less than the first meeting in Februaery.
Long gave a brief rundown of bills that passed and failed, as well as those that Governor Laura Kelly vetoed, but the legislature overrode the veto.
“The governor vetoed 18 bills, and I think we overrode about 14 of those 18,” said Long, who spoke for 49 straight minutes before fielding a few questions.
Long said one of the first tasks of the legislature is to pass a budget bill, as required by law.
“We did pass a budget bill this year and the budget bill was $10.6 billion,” Long said. “That is $210 million less than the budget last year.”
He said the problem with the budget is the state is still spending $750 million more than it’s taking in. The state currently has an ending balance of $3.4 billion, but Long said at the current spending rate, Kansas will not have an ending balance by 2029.
“We’ll probably be in the hole at this rate,” Long said.
Democrats in the legislature say Republicans have cut taxes – property taxes, sales taxes and income taxes too much and will put Kansas in peril in five years. Republicans say there is not a revenue problem, there’s a spending problem.
“Guys like me know the truth lies somewhere in between taxes and spending,” Long said.
Long said the priorities for next year will be to fix the spending.
“If we don’t get that fixed in the next year or two, we’re gonna be in really bad trouble in three or four,” Long said.
“When I say we’re spending $750 million more than we’re taking in – to put that in context, when we did away with sales tax on groceries, which you no longer pay any state sales tax on groceries, that item alone costs the state $650 million a year.”
Long said despite that, he thinks it was the smart thing to do.
“That affects every single soul in this room,” Long said. “Property tax might not, income tax might not, but sales tax on food affects every one of you, so I think it was the right thing to do.
“I want to cut spending in areas we can afford to cut spending and not have to raise taxes during the next four or five years.”
In addition to the budget bill, the legislature passed a budget impasse bill which says if the legislative branch and executive branch can’t agree on a budget at the end of the year, Kansas would automatically enact the same budget as the previous year.
“We passed that bill because if we get into a stalemate and can’t pass a budget, Kansas can see a shutdown just like the federal government shuts down occasionally,” Long said. “That could affect your K-Pers payments, it could affect school funding, it could affect a lot of things.
“We don’t want our government to shut down, so we passed this budget impasse bill that doesn’t allow that to happen.”
Among the bills passed in the most recent legislative session:
•A Real Time Motor Vehicle Insurance Bill. The state is going to create a data base that will allow law enforcement to see if the vehicle is insured without the driver producing an insurance card.
“I expect that to take effect in July 2026,” Long said.
•An amendment to change the Kansas Constitution that asks if voters should be a resident of Kansas in order to vote. The state constitution is “rather ambiguous” about who can vote, and the amendment clears that up. It’s expected to be on the ballot in 2026.
•A new childcare bill was passed that slightly reduces the restrictions on childcare.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t care about our children or grandchildren and their safety,” Long said. “It just means some of the rules and regulations that were in effect were too stringent and we want to loosen those a little bit. This won’t solve the problem, but it will help immensely.”
•A new bill was passed that provides child support from conception.
“This bill was meant to help pregnant mothers without husbands to accept child support to help them with medical coverage during their pregnancy,” Long said. “It’s a big problem.”
Democrats viewed it as an anti-abortion bill which created very heated debate in the state house.
“The bill ended up passing in both the House and Senate, was sent to the governor, the governor vetoed the bill, the bill came back to us and we overrode that veto,” Long said.
•Long said Kansas highways are paid for by taxes on vehicles with gasoline engines, but hybrid and hybrid electric vehicles don’t pay those taxes, so the legislature passed a bill to increase vehicle registration from $100 to $150 for electric vehicles and from $50 to $75 for hybrids.
•The legislature passed a bill to prevent foreign landowners from purchasing land within a 100-mile radius of a Kansas military installation, as well prevented foreign drones from being sold in Kansas.
The state allotted money to K-State Aviation in Salina to start making drones for ag purposes to keep them out of foreign hands – specifically China.
•Long said during Covid, the county health departments were responsible for lockdowns, and limiting activities, so the legislature passed a bill that says county health departments no longer have the authority to prohibit gatherings of any kind.
“This has made our local health departments mad at me,” Long said. “But I can tell you that health department official is not elected, and she does not answer to the taxpayers, that should be a commissioner or elected official’s call, in my opinion. They can still recommend things; they just can’t prohibit things.”
•The legislature passed a new bill preventing sex offenders from entering school property.
•The legislature passed a constitutional amendment that will appear on the August 2026 ballot regarding how supreme court justices are chosen in Kansas.
•The legislature passed a bill that does not allow transgender surgery for anybody under the age of 18 regardless of parental consent.
“The legislature felt like under 18 years old is too young to make a complete, life-altering decision of that magnitude,” Long said.
The law passed the House and Senate, the governor (a democrat) vetoed the bill and legislature overrode the veto.
“So, it is now law,” Long said. “There will be no transgender surgery in Kansas to any person under the age of 18.”
•The legislature passed a new water bill to fund creating a new water plan that will create a 13-member task force to report back in 2026 with recommendations on how to fund the water plan.
•The legislature did away with the 3-day grace period for mail-in ballots.
Those listed are just a few of the bills that passed. The Ulysses News will report on Long’s thoughts on bills that failed in next week’s issue.
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