Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA – Kansas voters Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to rewrite the state constitution and elect Kansas Supreme Court justices, spiking a plan long coveted by Republicans who want more conservative rulings on issues including abortion and school funding.
About 62 percent of Kansans were voting “no” on the constitutional amendment with 593,695 votes counted as of 11:15 p.m.
“This victory is beyond gratifying,” said retired Supreme Court Justice Carol Beier, who opposed the amendment. “Kansans have made their wishes known, and those wishes are noble. The Kansas Supreme Court must remain fair and impartial for every citizen. It cannot and will not be bought to give a few an unfair advantage.”
The primary ballot asked voters to evaluate a proposal 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 instead would have given voters the power to vote on candidates for the Supreme Court, and mega-donors the power to influence court decisions.
Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas Republican Party, issued a warning Tuesday morning that the vote on whether to elect Supreme Court justices was “the most important election of our lifetime.”
“Yeah, I know everyone says that every year,” Herbert said. “This cycle, it’s true.”
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 against Kansas Supreme Court rulings that upheld constitutional rights to terminate a pregnancy and adequately fund public schools. They plotted 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, speaking with 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. They warned that the amendment would allow out-of-state billionaires to buy the court.
“The billionaire political donors and politicians behind this amendment tried to buy our Supreme Court,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas. “They tried to turn our justices into politicians for sale, all so they could control the court’s rulings and take away our rights. But tonight, Kansas said no.”
Attorney General Kobach, through his PAC and various conservative groups, flooded airwaves and mailboxes with ads that criticized the current selection process.
Speaking at a GOP watch party Tuesday night in Wichita, Kobach said the vote “creates more certainty” that the current justices will decide cases that are making their way through the judicial system.
“If there had been a shift, there would be some question as to who would eventually be on the court that hears those cases,” Kobach said. “Now we know it’s probably going to be the justices right now, unless somebody retires.”
At least $12.8 million, much of it dark money, fueled “vote yes” and “vote no” campaigns ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sherman Smith, Jacinda Hall and Tim Carpenter contributed to this article.
