Kansas GOP chair says constitutional amendment vote is most important ‘of our lifetime’

Kansas voters were set to evaluate a proposed constitutional amendment that would spike a 68-year-old system for selecting justices for the highest court, a system born out of scandal from an era when justices were elected and the governor had total control over selecting replacements.

The amendment would instead give voters the power to vote on candidates for the Supreme Court, and mega-donors the power to influence court decisions.

Herbert, in a social media video, said the constitutional amendment “is the difference between Kansas becoming Detroit or Kansas becoming a land of prosperity.”

Conservatives have long raged about Kansas Supreme Court rulings that upheld constitutional rights to terminate a pregnancy and adequately fund public schools. They plotted for a chance to change the way Supreme Court justices are selected and, as a result, overturn those rulings.

With supermajorities in both the House and Senate, Republicans in the Legislature adopted a resolution during the 2025 session to place this constitutional amendment on the 2026 primary ballot. The goal was to hold the vote on a date when independent voters would have no other reason to show up at the polls. Republicans hold a sizable advantage over Democrats in the state in terms of affiliated voters who participate in primary elections.

The same gambit failed four years ago when voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have removed abortion rights from the state constitution. That amendment failed by a 60-40 margin with 942,851 Kansans weighing in, just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“I think a lot of people are just frustrated that we’re seeing this effort again to change the constitution because the state Legislature doesn’t like what the Supreme Court has done,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, while talking to reporters after she voted Tuesday morning.

“There are plenty of us who disagree with court rulings on a regular basis, but you don’t completely change the way that we get Supreme Court justices just because you don’t like some of the rulings that they make,” she added.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes and Kansas Appleseed joined forces to form Kansas United for Impartial Courts in a campaign to oppose the constitutional amendment. Their messaging centered on the idea that the amendment would allow out-of-state billionaires to buy the court.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, though his PAC and various conservative groups, flooded airwaves and mailboxes with ads that criticized the current selection process.

At least $12.8 million, much of it dark money, fueled “vote yes” and “vote no” campaigns ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

The Kansas Republican Party issued a statement Tuesday morning that said “the current system puts a lawyer-dominated nominating commission in charge of screening candidates, limiting the people’s voice.”

The current system is the result of a notorious political scandal known as the “triple play.” In 1956, incumbent Republican Gov. Fred Hall lost his primary election, and Democrat George Docking defeated the Republican nominee in November. Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Smith, a Republican, was prepared to retire midterm but didn’t want a Democrat to choose his replacement.

At the start of the new year, Smith resigned from the Supreme Court, Hall resigned as governor, and the new governor appointed Hall to take Smith’s seat on the court.

The following year, more than 70% of Kansas voters approved a constitutional amendment that created a merit-based system. It established a nominating commission with attorneys choosing five members and the governor appointing four. The commission vets candidates for Supreme Court openings and sends three finalists to the governor, who chooses from those three.

Justices face retention votes in the next general election, and again every six years.

This year’s constitutional amendment would require justices to run for office like candidates for other political positions, and removes current restrictions on justices engaging in political activities or raising money for campaigns. The amendment authorizes the Legislature to determine how elections would be conducted — partisan or nonpartisan, statewide or by districts that lawmakers draw.

Proponents of this year’s amendment point out that no justice has ever lost a retention election.

Rep. Bob Lewis, a Garden City Republican, said in a video ad posted on social media that it was “balderdash” to claim that voters already get to evaluate justices.

“A retention election is not an election at all. It’s not competitive,” Lewis said. “Voters are given only one choice: Vote yes or no for this particular candidate. A true election, as we all know, is grounded in competition, giving the voters a choice.”

He said a retention election is “a rubber stamp.”

“It’s a rigged election, much like in communist countries,” Lewis said. “The result is foregone. You pick the guy the politburo has picked, or you pick no one.”

The video was paid for by Derby Republican Rep. Blake Carpenter’s reelection campaign.

Advance voting totals showed a dramatic drop-off from the historic turnout four years ago, when the anti-abortion amendment was on the ballot. This year, 176,703 Kansans had voted by mail or in person as of Monday. In 2022, 320,048 voted by mail or in person before election day.

The stakes were underscored when Christopher Jayaram, minutes before becoming the newest Supreme Court justice Monday, issued an opinion that strikes down numerous abortion restrictions under state law, some dating to 1997. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly selected Jayaram, who was a Johnson County district judge, from the three finalists for an open seat on the high court.

“Four years ago, voters sent a clear message to politicians: Our constitutional rights are not up for debate,” said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes. “Now those same politicians are trying a different path to reach the same outcome by ignoring our votes and buying a Supreme Court that will undermine abortion rights.”