Kansas election results: All six state Supreme Court justices to stay on the bench

Months after Kansans overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment removing the state level right to an abortion, a majority of voters opted to retain state Supreme Court justices likely to uphold that right.

Six of the seven justices on the Kansas Supreme Court stood for retention on Tuesday’s ballot.

Two of those judges – Chief Justice Marla Luckert and Justice Dan Biles – signed onto a 2019 opinion finding that Kansas constitution contained a right to an abortion. Three of the other justices – Evelyn Wilson, KJ Wall and Melissa Standridge – were appointed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly following that decision. Justice Caleb Stegall, the court’s lone appointee of former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, was also up for retention. Stegall had dissented on the 2019 abortion decision.

Kansans solidly voted to retain all six judges during Tuesday’s election. With 3,800 out of 4,040 precincts reporting results, 73% of voters favored retaining Stegall; 67% chose to retain Standridge; 66% voted to retain Luckert and Wilson; and 65% voted to retain Biles and Wall.

The organization Keep Kansas Courts Impartial said in a statement that it applauded Kansas voters.

“Kansans have sent a clear message that they want the Judicial Branch of government to remain impartial and free from political pressure and interest groups,” the group’s statement read.

The vote maintained a pattern Kansas has held since its current system for judicial appointment and retention was established in the 1950s. Under Kansas law, judges are appointed by the governor from a list of applicants presented by a selection panel. Those judges stand for retention in the first election after they are appointed and once again every six years.

Kansans have never voted to remove a state Supreme Court justice from the bench.

In previous years, Republican and anti-abortion groups have launched unsuccessful bids to remove judges.

Following the August vote, which firmly upheld abortion rights in Kansas, abortion rights advocates pivoted to protecting the judges. With abortion no longer literally on the ballot, abortion rights advocates argued it remained so in the form of judicial retention.

Kansans for Life issued recommendations against retention of every justice except Stegall in their general election endorsements.

No formal campaign to oust judges materialized, but in the final days of the race a group tied to Republican consultant Kris Van Meteren sent mailers falsely implying that a vote to oust the justices would be a vote to protect abortion rights.

It featured photos of the five U.S. Supreme Court judges that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in an effort to conflate the two courts. “It took just five anti-choice justices to overturn Roe v. Wade,” it read. “But Kansans pushed back and said, ‘No!’” It urged voters to vote no on retaining the state court justices even though the Kansas court has ruled in favor of abortion rights.

In the months leading up to the vote, former Kansas Supreme Court justices traveled the state urging retention of all justices.

They argued that ousting justices based on individual decisions and political beliefs risked the independence of the judicial branch of government.

In the final weeks of the campaign former Republican U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and four former Kansas governors – Democrats Kathleen Sebelius and John Carlin and Republicans Mike Hayden and Bill Graves – issued statements in support of retaining the justices.

“We all expect the executive and legislative branches of government to be political. And we expect our judges at all levels to not be political. We want the Judicial Branch to be independent and hold politicians accountable to the people and to the Kansas Constitution,” the governors said in a joint statement.