Senate passes bill to force Kansas officials to turn over personal data

Sen. Virgil Peck oversees debate Feb. 16, 2026, on a bill that forces Kansas officials to turn over personal data of people who applied for or received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. (Photo by Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — The Senate on Monday passed a bill to force state officials to share Kansans’ personal data with the federal government.

In a vote along party lines, Senate Substitute for House Bill 2004 will now go to the House, which could vote on the bill or request negotiations with the Senate.

The bill requires the secretary of the Department for Children and Families to hand over data that has been requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Gov. Laura Kelly and DCF secretary Laura Howard have pushed back against the request for personal information related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, citing concerns about how the data will be used and whether turning it over would violate a data use agreement.

Kelly joined Kansas in a Massachusetts lawsuit that challenges whether the data should be turned over to the USDA. That lawsuit is in progress.

On Friday, a California judge in a second lawsuit said she intends to rule that states do not have to turn over the data. Kansas is not a part of that lawsuit.

Republicans have accused Kelly and Howard of refusing to give information to the federal government that it should be able to access.

However, Howard has said one of the stated uses of the data violates Kansas rules on data sharing, specifically that the data could be shared with foreign governments.

“Any agreement to share the private personal data of Kansans, including full Social Security numbers, needs to exclude the ability to share that data with foreign entities,” said Olivia Taylor-Puckett, Kelly’s spokeswoman, upon learning the Senate had passed the bill.

The House can avoid holding a public hearing on the matter because a Senate committee placed the data-sharing requirement into an unrelated bill that had already passed the House, a move known as a “gut and go.” The original bill dealt with a sales tax ballot question in Seward County.

During debate Monday, Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, questioned whether Republicans would be such a fan of HB 2004 if there were a Republican governor and a Democratic president. She said if that were the case, legislators would call it “federal overreach on our own state sovereignty.”

“This bill undermines the cooperative federalist model that SNAP and Medicaid operate under and is forcing our state from here on out to immediately comply with federal demands without any ability to pause and evaluate the demands, whether the constitutionality, legality or validity, would be a remarkable abdication from our state authority in control over these programs,” Sykes said.

Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, asked what safeguards are in place to make sure the data is protected and would not be given to foreign countries.

“Well, I would assume the same protections that are in place with all our income tax information, every type of information that the federal government has on each and every one of us,” said Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican.

Holscher said HB 2004 was a “significant departure” from established practice and conflicts with long-standing federal law. She said the bill could force the state to comply with unlawful federal directives and jeopardize the safety of Kansans’ personal data.

When questioned about expected costs to comply, which DCF officials have indicated could be up to $300,000, Erickson said savings would be made up by the fraud that was uncovered in the program.