BY: SHERMAN SMITH
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly’s flurry of last-minute vetoes Wednesday night aimed to eliminate legislation that would trigger income tax cuts that favor higher-wage earners and corporations, empower the attorney general to block local government from suing big businesses, and force school children to watch videos of developing fetuses.
Those vetoes, along with ones involving health care overreach and line items in the state budget, set the scene for the Legislature’s return Thursday. GOP leaders have promised to override a number of the governor’s vetoes, a process that requires the support of two-thirds of both chambers.
The Democratic governor said Senate Bill 269 would “put the state back on the path toward the failed” tax experiment of former Gov. Sam Brownback. The legislation would lower the corporate tax rate and flatten individual income tax brackets over time, based on how much money is in the state’s rainy day fund.
The tax cuts could amount to $1.3 billion annually, Kelly said, while the state is already forecast to have a budget shortfall within three years.
“I have proposed and supported tax cuts when they are implemented responsibly and benefit the people of Kansas, especially those who need it most,” Kelly said. “This bill ignores Kansas families at a time of rising costs and inflation in favor of hundreds of millions of dollars in giveaways to corporations and the wealthy.”
In a joint statement, Senate President Ty Masterson, of Andover, and House Speaker Dan Hawkins, of Wichita, said “Republicans stand with taxpayers” and would work to override the veto.
The governor said she vetoed House Bill 2228 because she is “a strong supporter of local control.”
The legislation would restrict cities and counties from entering into lawsuits with contingency agreements, in which attorneys work for free in exchange for a cut of the settlement if they win. The local government would have to hold a public meeting on the nature of the lawsuit and receive the attorney general’s approval.
The bill was a response to lawsuits like the one Ford County filed late last year that alleges ExxonMobil, Chevron and the American Chemistry Council of “a decades-long campaign of fraud and deception” about recycling plastics. HB 2228 would retroactively apply to July 1, 2024.
During a Senate debate on the bill last month, Sen. Kellie Warren, a Leawood Republican, said the bill’s restrictions on such lawsuits “continues our strong tradition here in Kansas of being pro business and getting things done for our state.”
“More and more frequently, we’ve seen local government joining class action lawsuits for issues such as projects attributed to climate change, data privacy breaches, vehicle theft and other kind of piecemeal litigation that’s really a broad statewide level issue,” Warren said.
Sen. Ethan Corson, a Fairway Democrat, said Attorney General Kris Kobach “just didn’t like the substance” of several lawsuits that had been filed.
“This is really an impediment upon local control, gives the AG an ideological veto and really attempts to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” Corson said.
Kelly also vetoed House Bill 2382, which merged legislation that would provide for a pay raise for Kansas State Board of Education members with an anti-abortion policy that requires children as young as 5 to watch a high-definition ultrasound of a fetus or a video that shows early human fetal development.
The governor said the bill was “convoluted, manipulative and wrong.”
“This bill fails to establish standards to ensure the information included in the program is evidence-based,” Kelly said. “But it is not surprising, as the goal of this bill is not to educate developing and impressionable young minds — it is to push a specific agenda without proper research to back it up.
“As policy makers and parents, we should demand that our children are provided with high-quality, relevant, researched, and age-appropriate educational experiences free from ideological prejudice.”
The governor also vetoed House Bill 2028, which alters the cost of hunting and fishing licenses and restricts out-of-state residents from hunting migratory waterfowl on public lands, and Senate Bill 18, which authorizes a Hunter Nation distinctive license plate.
Kelly also allowed two bills to become law without her signature:
House Bill 2056, which Kelly said “cleans up some of the ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the crime of impersonating an election official,” but still leaves uncertainty about what actions are prohibited.
House Bill 2263, which designates memorial highways, including a portion of Kansas Highway 5 for former Rep. Marvin S. Robinson.