Arrogance of power: Kansas legislative leaders obfuscate the process to pass shoddy policy

House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, speaks to colleagues during the Jan. 28, 2026, debate over anti-trans legislation in the House. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

At the Kansas Statehouse, process is policy.

The way Senate and House leaders legislate — not just the content of the bills they pass — express who they are and what they mean to accomplish. Their disregard for carefully erected guardrails meant to ensure discussion and collaboration has enabled poorly drafted, ideological and unconstitutional laws.

All of Kansas suffers. But because so much of Kansas has been excluded from the process, lawmakers never face the music. They then short-circuit the process even further to make sure no dissent pierces their ideological shielding.

This week, Kansas Reflector will publish a series of stories digging into these procedural shortcuts and their effects on state government. Editor in chief Sherman Smith, senior reporters Tim Carpenter and Morgan Chilson, and reporter Anna Kaminski all have spent weeks interviewing sources, studying documents and watching hours of proceedings.

Together, they’ve uncovered a richly detailed yet disturbing portrait of Kansas government.

Lawmakers see it every day. Now Reflector readers will be able to grasp the same uncomfortable, disagreeable truths.

“I’ve heard legislators openly say in passing that they’re annoyed and frustrated that they have to sit through hearings where opposition expresses themselves,” said Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka. “And that’s not in any one committee. I’ve heard that from a number of legislators in different contexts, and they act as though it’s such an inconvenience and a disservice to them.”

 

Connor Montgomery of Manhattan holds a sign as part of a Trans Day of Visibility demonstration March 31, 2026, outside the Kansas Statehouse. Lawmakers violated an assortment of processes to pass the anti-trans Senate Bill 244. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Day by day

From Monday to Friday, we plan to cover the following subjects.

• Calling the question: A parliamentary move that allows a chamber to cut off debate on a bill. When hotly contested legislation comes to the House or Senate floor, lawmakers can shut down further discussion.
• Impugning motive: This rule forbids legislators from speaking ill of one another. While useful for decorum, it can be abused to shut down justifiable criticism of problematic legislation.
• Fiscal notes: Lawmakers increasingly disregard the painstakingly prepared reports that forecast how much legislation will cost.
• Hidden agendas: Committee chairs give advance warning about bill hearings to supporters, while keeping opponents in the dark. Testimony faces arbitrary limits while supermajorities work their will.
• Fast work: Last year and this, House and Senate leadership shortened the time that their chambers worked in Topeka. This increased backroom dealmaking, needless confusion and slapdash decision-making.

Each one has had real, tangible effects in limiting overall civic participation.

But the effects go further. That distorted process has seeped into policy across the board, making Kansas less open, less democratic and more subject to the whims of elites.

Restrictions on legislative speech find their echoes in unconstitutional attacks on the First Amendment.

A new law squelches campus speech under the guise of respecting it. Reporters can now be charged with crimes for approaching first responders within a 25-foot radius. And journalists still cannot sit and report from the House or Senate floor.

Sneaky hearings and compressed sessions meet their siblings with an array of new voting limits.

A bevy of bills touted by House elections chairman Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, add barriers to Kansans voting. Onerous restrictions could eliminate voting by mail and make it more it difficult to challenge unconstitutional legislation in court. Overall, Proctor has aimed to cement elected Republican control at the expense of civic participation.

Republican leaders have concentrated power in their chambers — as they seize local control from cities and counties across the state.

A bizarre property tax proposal prevents localities from setting property tax rates as needed. Lawmakers pushed new requirements and restrictions on schools. They even tried grabbing the authority of health officials to set vaccine requirements. The Legislature cannot abide others exercising power.

These deplorable overreaches found their summation in the passage of the anti-transgender Senate Bill 244 early in the session.

We saw unannounced changes to the bill during the committee process, excluding public debate. Calling the question was used to shorten floor discussion. Fiscal impacts on local governments were dismissed wholesale. The bill rocketed through both chambers before Republicans headed to Wichita for their winter convention.

These procedural abuses poison policy. As law, SB 244 interferes with the First Amendment (it compels state employees to act a certain way, regardless of their beliefs), makes it more difficult for trans Kansans to vote (the measure voided driver’s licenses) and snatches local control away from towns and cities that had already managed perfectly well.

 

Rep. Alexis Simmons, a Topeka Democrat, raises a question during the Jan. 27, 2026, meeting of the House Elections Committee. She says arrogance drives Republicans to shut down opposition in the legislative process. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Making a choice

My thesis for this column was adapted from a saying by the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan. His words still resonate: The medium is the message.

McLuhan theorized that a constant stream of images delivered through technology such as television or social media means something fundamentally different than a series of words printed on a page or conveyed through conversation. The medium — that is, the way in which content is delivered — shapes us more than the content itself.

We can all see that through the attention-shattering effect of smartphones and the coma-like state produced by endless cable broadcasts. The way that things are done matters just as much as the things themselves.

As journalists, we are often urged in school and by peers to avoid process stories.

“Readers don’t care about process,” we tell ourselves. “Write about the effects of legislation, not how it comes into being. That’s inside baseball meant for political fanatics, not everyday people.”

That can be true. Lengthy digressions into minutia risk losing sight of the point. But as I hope our series proves, abuses of the process in Kansas entwine so closely with the policy that you cannot understand one without the other. You cannot explain an inexplicable piece of legislation without digging into the painful permutations of procedure.

Leaders understand that constituents often tune out when lawmakers complain about process. So they choose to mangle that process.

Let me repeat: They choose to do so.

Republicans hold supermajorities in the state House and Senate. They wield incredible power in Kansas politics. They could thoroughly examine every single bill — listen to every dissenting voice — and still pass their preferred agenda. They have the votes. Kansans have sent them to Topeka.

The fact that leaders take such shortcuts suggests that if given the opportunity, everyday Republican lawmakers might take a different path. If full debates were held over reasonable spans of time, more lawmakers would have time to consider what they were doing. They would listen to constituents. They would read bills. They would talk to fellow lawmakers of both parties.

They would, in short, legislate the way that tradition demands.

“I don’t understand how anyone can interpret the public’s engagement as anything but the process doing its job,” said Simmons, the Topeka Democrat. “That is the whole point of a democracy. So when they do things like prohibit hearings or cut conferees off, they’ve been very open, very open, behind the scenes, that a lot of that is because they just don’t want to sit through it. They don’t want to hear it, and they don’t view it as legitimate, good faith opposition, either.”

The outcome of such an open process plainly scares House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson. They do not trust their members — they do not trust Kansans’ elected representatives — to pass their agenda in the daylight without obfuscatory tricks.

If their process had been different over the past four months, their policy outcomes would be different too. If your representative or senator advertises what a great job the Legislature did this year, ask them why they took so many shortcuts.

Simmons knows the answer: “It’s arrogance.”

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.