Kansas lawmakers conjure up a fresh crime: approaching first responders. Good luck, journalists!

Reporters gather around Gov. Laura Kelly and Kansas officials at the announcement of the Kansas City Chiefs' move to Kansas. (Photo by Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)

The House Federal and State Affairs Committee will consider a bill Monday that bans broad swaths of Kansas news reporting.

Oh, how I wish I were joking.

Senate Bill 452 creates a new criminal offense that authorities can use to prosecute journalists: “unlawful approach of a first responder.” That means, according to the bill text, coming within 25 feet of said first responders while on the job. The proposed law includes conditions — such as whether law enforcement tells onlookers to stay away or feels at risk — but does little to define such broad terms.

Violating the law could cost journalists up to $1,000 and six months in jail.

The Kansas Press Association, not normally an especially agitated group, has raised alarms. According to legislative director Adam Strunk: “We see professional risk for working reporters and news agencies should it pass. The law makes it a crime to approach a First Responder (think anyone and everyone you usually interview during an emergency) while they are doing their duties if they feel distracted.”

The bottom line?

“We feel that, as broadly as it is written, this law will be weaponized by various members of law enforcement against reporters or agencies they just don’t like,” Strunk writes.

That should concern all Kansans, whether they’re reporters or not.

(Kansas Reflector video)

Over the past few years, the Kansas Legislature has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for a free press and free speech. The Senate and then the House barred reporters from their floors. Neither chamber could rouse itself to condemn the unconstitutional attack on the Marion County Record newspaper. Members have raised the rent on press offices. Leadership has spread scurrilous lies about journalists who cover them (see below for more).

This latest bill likely was inspired by confrontations between protesters and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Never mind the fact that President Donald Trump’s administration has rapidly backpedaled from its mass deportation rhetoric since the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

But collateral damage toward the news media — and members of the public working to be citizen journalists — must be considered.

“You may feel like you don’t end up in these situations or have good relationships with your local law enforcement,” Strunk wrote. “However, it only takes one emergency and one bad apple to have you arrested for doing your job under this law.”

 

End of days

From all appearances, the Legislature plans to adjourn this week after a marathon sprint.

We hear the Senate aims to complete its business Thursday, while the House could be in session up through (prepare to be astonished) Friday.

This approach deserves vociferous condemnation from legislators and the public. No one has asked for House Speaker Dan Hawkins or Senate President Ty Masterson to conduct business this way, and they know that doing so leads to poor outcomes. But as we’ve established in watching them over the past few years, they don’t much care about quality governance. No, they’re concentrated on their own personal power over members.

Pushing through dozens of bills through multiple lengthy days leaves members tired and confused. Reporters and advocates race to figure out what’s being proposed and debated.

Most importantly, this brutal sprint betrays the public. Do you want to know what your lawmaker is doing and why? Sorry! No one will be able to tell you this week because they’re so busy. Compressed schedules purposely obscures what those in power intend and obfuscates their actions behind a flurry of activity.

This is no way to run a Statehouse.

 

Kansas lawmakers are grappling with how to equalize property taxes paid by residential property owners and those paid by their commercial counterparts. (Photo by Dale Hogg for Kansas Reflector)

Cross-chamber sniping

Everyone in Topeka wants to address mounting property taxes in Kansas communities. They disagree on how to do so. The infighting reached a particularly spicy stage last week.

On Thursday, the House voted down the Senate’s proposed state constitutional amendment to cap assessment increases.

On Friday, in a neat bit of tit for tat, the Senate struck a House bill allowing communities to challenge property tax hikes from its calendar.

Welcome to the durable Statehouse subplot of friction between the upper and lower chambers. The larger and unruly House takes a more populist approach to lawmaking. Representatives have fewer constituents and like to think of themselves as voicing their concerns. The Senate comprises fewer members, each with larger districts. The GOP majority there can act swiftly and decisively.

State-level attempts to address property taxes always faced long odds. Cities and counties levy and collect most of them, after all. But I would expect senators and representatives to grit their teeth and attempt to find a compromise before the week finishes.

This is an election year, after all.

 

Sherman Smith and Clay Wirestone speak to a standing-room only crowd on March 12, 2026, at Red Fern Booksellers in Salina. (Photo by Jessica Tufts for Kansas Reflector)

Salina notes

Thanks to roughly 50 folks who showed up to discuss Kansas politics with editor in chief Sherman Smith and yours truly Wednesday evening at Red Fern Booksellers in Salina.

In chatting with locals after the event, I realized how little of my work as an opinion writer during the legislative session includes debates about governing ideals and public policy. I would like it to! Yet Kansas politics at present has drifted far from the realm of honest disagreement.

GOP legislative leaders have made up their minds about what ideas they believe and what policy they mean to pursue. Anyone who pushes them to examine either is treated as an inconvenience at best and an annoyance at worst. You may ask, “What’s the difference between an inconvenience and an annoyance?” That’s precisely the point.

There’s nothing to discuss. There’s no there there. From the perspective of an opinion writer, I can only write about what happens and what it means for all of you.

I look forward to returning to Salina after my book drops in October.

 

Protesters demonstrate March 10, 2026, outside the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Time to vent

I don’t know if it’s the lingering chill of winter, my shortened temper as the years proceed, or the uncommon stupidity emanating from the walls of the Statehouse, but I’ve been in a particularly choleric mood about the Kansas Legislature.

As you may have observed elsewhere in this column, I don’t have a lot of patience for how legislators have been conducting themselves this year. I doubt they have much patience for me, either. But we’re stuck with one another for now.

I’ve never written these pieces for legislative leaders who flounce about marble hallways while devouring tables full of free food. I write them for Kansas Reflector readers. I write them for the brainy and beautiful folks throughout the state who want to know what’s actually going on while demanding better from there elected representatives.

However, the temptation can be strong during weeks like this to throw up one’s hands and abscond to a yak farm somewhere in the Himalayas. I could learn to make do with less air.

The mission remains, however. At times like this — when we are most frustrated and when lawmakers are at their most obstreperous — journalists must document what happens in Topeka. We must gird our loins and record each offense against the state we love.

If nothing else, my roundups this session have shown what and why our legislative leaders are doing what they’re doing. They’re not motivated by any interest in making our state better. They want to concentrate political and personal power, drive a reactionary agenda that has as much to do with conservatism as it does with Scientology, and get paid a good wage for working three days a week.

They hope you’ll forget all this hubbub in November, when it comes time to figure out who will represent you next.

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.