2025 Statehouse Snapshot: Veto Session
Kansas Action for Children | April 11, 2025
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Supermajority Reigns During Veto Session
While the session was much more abbreviated than any session in recent memory, we’re thankful the gavel has fallen for the final time this year.
The supermajority was apparent in much of the decision making this year, from lawmakers playing partisan political games with the state budget and reducing transparency with short-notice hearings, to ignoring diverse voices and strongarming of votes.
During veto session, the Legislature easily overrode 12 of the Governor’s vetoes on a number of issues, including several we’ve advocated against since January. It became quite clear that regardless of the sound arguments against why a flat income tax isn’t good for everyday folks (SB 269) or why we shouldn’t take away the state’s ability to prevent further spread of extreme disease outbreaks (Sub. for SB 29), or how restricting the Executive Branch’s authority in making decisions about public assistance programs will prevent timely responsiveness (Senate Sub. for HB 2240), the Legislature was going to forge ahead and force them to become law anyway.
Unfortunately, with the same quickened pace set for next session, we’re going to be up against similar battles, which means that we can’t stop now just because the 2025 session is complete.
With the extra time lawmakers are being given to stay in their communities instead of coming to Topeka because of a compressed schedule, we hope you and your neighbors will take advantage of their proximity and meet with them to share what you’d like to see when they return next January. A lot might change before we see lawmakers in Topeka again, and they need to hear from their constituents more often on how those changes are impacting their lives.
Veto Override: SB 269, Flat Income Tax Trigger
With the passage of several tax bills, including a flat income tax trigger, the Legislature has set themselves up for problems down the road. We’re in times of great uncertainty when it comes to the state’s revenue and economic conditions. But instead of meaningfully considering massive federal funding cuts or the strong chance we could soon experience a recession, lawmakers plowed ahead as if these policy choices weren’t going to be impacted by our changing world.
The Legislature easily overrode the Governor’s veto on SB 269, which puts Kansas on a path to a single income tax rate for both individuals and corporations if state revenues exceed a certain amount each year. This mechanism will create challenges for the Legislature to further reduce sales and property taxes in the future and is likely to hinder targeted investments like special education funding.
We know that housing costs and ever-increasing property taxes are challenging for most Kansans – and the Legislature has made it clear they’ve heard this from their constituents on the campaign trail. A meaningful decrease in property taxes is incredibly difficult to enact both for the Kansas Legislature and local governments. The Legislature ultimately passed what they hope will help, like an elimination of 1.5 mills the state collects.
In the end, it’s been business as usual for the Legislature, which usually chooses to give tax breaks to the highest-income folks in the state instead of working families barely making ends meet. As we continue to evaluate the scope of their decision-making this now that session is complete, we will keep elevating the needs of everyday Kansans.
Budget Games
As the Legislature considered overriding the Governor’s budget line-item vetoes, legislative leadership continued playing partisan, political games with the state budget. Anti-transparent and anti-democratic tactics included the bundling of veto override votes, reconsidering a final budget vote on the day after the vote took place, and eliminating the opportunity for any debate on the final budget decisions on the Senate floor.
The Governor line-item vetoed 31 items in the state’s budget bill, and the Legislature overrode 15 of those items. We’re thankful that one particular line-item veto was not considered, which will keep the 12-month eligibility window the same for parents and caregivers with KanCare. We sent out an action alert about this in our Snapshot on Wednesday evening, and we thank you for taking action on that – it made a difference!
While several structural changes were made to our revenue/tax system, we also saw a significant change to budget statutes with the passage of SB 14. While it wasn’t needed this year, SB 14 opens up the possibility that a new state budget would not need to be passed each year – and if that happens, the previous year’s budget would just continue as is for the most part.
The Kansas Constitution requires the Legislature to pass a state budget each year because state expenditures require constant care, attention, and responsiveness to the current economic landscape and unique needs of Kansans. The changes we saw in this year’s budget process raise serious concerns about the Legislature’s ability to keep politics, special interests, and consolidated power out of its most important responsibility.
Child Care Bill Passes, with Governor Ready to Sign
Before either chamber even gaveled in for Veto Session on Thursday, the conference committee made up of House Commerce and Senate Health members met to finish negotiations on Sub. for HB 2294, the child care bill coupling a few troublesome provisions with the creation of the Office of Early Childhood.
For weeks, we have elevated our concerns about two portions of the bill, including loosening vaccine requirements and preventing the state from requiring a provider be licensed if they care for no more than four children (two of which can be infants) for 35 hours each per week.
Even though there was an attempt by one Senator to remove the language loosening vaccine requirements in day care settings during the conference committee meeting, that motion failed. After the bill contents were put into HB 2045, both the House and Senate easily passed the measure.
The next (and final) stop for the bill is the Governor’s desk; she has signaled for weeks that she’d sign the bill, regardless of the two provisions many advocates are concerned about.
We look back on our hope from early in the session that the bipartisan compromise negotiated alongside the child care community would lead to collaborative results – and prevent harmful provisions from becoming law. Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened.
We’ll continue to partner with parents, child care providers, pediatricians, and other advocates to urge lawmakers to keep children’s health and safety as their top priority and remove harmful policy in the future.
Legislature Overrides Slew of Vetoes on Bills Threatening Health Policy
The Governor had vetoed Senate Sub. for HB 2240 (restricting agency authority over public assistance) and HB 2217 (expanding the Office of Medicaid Inspector General to investigate TANF and SNAP), but both chambers easily overrode those, placing extreme legislative oversight on public assistance programs that low-income Kansans rely on. Instead of helping Kansans better access those critical programs that help families get back on the path to self-sufficiency, the Legislature deliberately chose to push policy that will make it harder to respond and innovate, while also increasing the chances of punitive harm.
The Governor also vetoed Sub. for SB 29, which would prohibit local health officials from banning public gatherings. In their floor arguments, several lawmakers spoke against the bill because of the ongoing measles outbreak in the state (now more than 30 cases) and nation (more than 700 cases). The Legislature overrode the veto in the end. While much of these policy pushes have been in response to the Covid pandemic, removing these tools from the public health toolbox will leave communities more vulnerable to the spread of previously eradicated diseases.
While it may seem minor in light of the score of poor policy decisions this week, the Governor signed House Sub. for SB 126 into law, permanently codifying important changes to the newborn screening program, local health department funding formula, and hospital funding mechanism, ending the need for annual temporary budget fixes for these provisions. While we remain committed to fixing the CHIP statute permanently to ensure all eligible children can access the program (although, it remained a temporary measure in the budget bill), we are glad to see some of these permanent funding fixes addressed in statute.
Legislature Passes Bill “Right-sizing” Housing Program in Final Hour
Lawmakers adjourned on March 27 at a standstill on what to do about HB 2119, a bill concerning eliminating (via the House) or downsizing (via the Senate) the state’s Affordable Housing Tax Credit program. The House and Senate Commerce Conference Committee met to begrudgingly come to an agreement.
The compromise version of the bill, which was placed into HB 2289, significantly reduces the investment in affordable housing over the next several years. The program that was implemented in 2023 has been providing about $25 million in tax credits per year for developers to build affordable housing. Under the new version of the bill, the program will be capped at $8.8 million per year. They also added a provision to close the program December 31, 2028. The bill passed both chambers and will be headed to the Governor’s desk.
While a much better version than total elimination of the program, this bill will drastically slow the progress the state has been making toward addressing our massive shortage of affordable housing. Addressing the affordable housing crisis is not something the state can afford to ignore.
While the Governor did not veto the provision in the state budget that requires the state to ask the federal government for permission to allow it to ban EBT card recipients from using benefits on state-defined “candy” and “soda” (due to it being tied to Summer EBT funding), the bill that would have pushed the state to do this every year did not receive a final veto override in the House. The Senate was able to override the Governor’s veto on SB 79 with a vote of 29-11, but it never came to a vote in the House. In fact, this bill was one of four vetoes that the Legislature ended up not being able to overturn.
There was some controversy around this topic earlier this week, as local and national media reported that the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) had already submitted the waiver to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on April 2. Days later, DCF rescinded the waiver to the USDA and claimed it was submitted in error. For Summer EBT benefits to be available this summer for thousands of Kansas kids, it appears DCF will still have to request the waiver. We’ll have to wait and see what the administration decides to do.
Reflecting on the 2025 Legislative Session
This session, KAC’s inaugural group of legislative interns joined us to learn more about state politics and the efforts of advocates to make a difference. With the close of the legislative session, so do their internships.
We asked them a series of questions about their experiences over the past few months. Read here to see what they expected from the Statehouse and what their plans are after college.
What to Expect Next
Even though the 2025 session is wrapped up, our work doesn’t stop here! We will begin tracking the real-life impacts of the legislation passed this year by state lawmakers. If you or someone you know is negatively impacted by a bill we’ve tracked this year, don’t hesitate to let us know at [email protected].
KAC is also looking at ways to keep you informed and give you action opportunities regarding what’s happening at the federal level. Our newsletters will begin coming out monthly after we send our final legislative summary.
As always, thanks for hanging in there with us this session. We take comfort in knowing there are thousands of you across the state who want to make a difference for kids and families.
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