Through tornado sirens and late-night lawmaking, Kansas Legislature wraps. They'll be back

Working through tornado sirens and late into the night, Kansas lawmakers wrapped up their 2024 legislative session in the wee hours of Wednesday morning — but they will likely be coming back to Topeka later this month.

The Legislature adjourned at 12:34 a.m., knowing that Gov. Laura Kelly has vowed to veto its last-day attempt at a tax cut compromise and call a special session.

Here's what to know.

Legislature adjourned sine die, but special session looms

The Legislature adjourned sine die, the term for the end of the legislative session when lawmakers are done with their work for the year. While legislators would normally be able to turn their attention to the 2024 elections, their work isn't yet done.

Kelly plans to veto Senate Bill 37, the latest bipartisan attempt at enacting substantive tax cuts during an election year while the state has a burgeoning budget surplus.

"It's unacceptable," said Will Lawrence, the governor's chief of staff. "The governor's not going to sign it. She will veto it. We will be in a special session."

No date has been announced, but Lawrence said it would be within the month.

Rep. Ken Rahjes, R-Agra, took issue with voting on the bill without assurances the governor would sign it.

"The thing is, we stayed here this long, so I guess I'd much rather do a plan that she's going to sign than to do all of this theater," he said.

Republican leadership remain hopeful the governor will sign the bill. Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said the bipartisan support means Kelly "needs to take a serious look at this, because at this point, if she really does bring us back, you're going to now spend $84,000 a day bringing the Legislature back to what, make a point?"

If Kelly vetoes the bill, it is unclear whether legislators and the governor could find a compromise in a special session.

"We've been trying all year long," Masterson said. "This is try No. 7 ... the goalpost keeps moving."

When Republicans first started tweaking the tax cut plan on Tuesday, Lawrence said: "This isn't a serious proposal. It's an attempt to leave town without tax relief."

House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, said they are being serious.

"At some point you have to say, 'Governor, you may be a problem here," Hawkins said.

While the tax plan picked up support from a majority of House Democrats, most Senate Democrats opposed it.

"Running yet another irresponsible tax proposal was simply a waste of this body's time and will only lead to a special session," said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa.

More: Kansas lawmakers end session, but Laura Kelly vows to veto tax cuts and call special session

Lawmakers tried to work through tornado sirens

The day saw moments of waiting on legislation to be written or on the other chamber to act. There were also some weather delays.

Lawmakers initially tried to work through a tornado warning.

The House was in caucuses when tornado sirens first started sounding in downtown Topeka.

House Majority Leader Chris Croft, R-Overland Park, told members to "move away from windows" in the Old Supreme Court Room, but they kept working and returned to the floor.

Later sirens sent legislators, staff, lobbyists and others at the Statehouse to seek shelter — except for those who went outside to watch the storm moving north of the Capitol.

"It is Kansas, so whenever there's a tornado everybody's going to try to check it out," said Rep. Adam Smith, R-Weskan, who was presenting on a tax bill in caucus, speaking over sirens.

Kansas lawmakers saved substantive work for last day

Legislative leadership had long ago scheduled April 30 as the last day of the session.

Even though they knew the deadline to complete their work, they still saved several pieces of legislation for their final hours.

But going into the last day, lawmakers hadn't yet done their omnibus budget, hadn't found a compromise with the governor on tax cuts, were reviving a tax cut package with a controversial tax break designed to benefit Genesis Health Clubs, proposed a new subsidy designed to lure the Kansas City Chiefs and had several other pieces of legislation that weren't passed earlier in the year.

One was Senate Bill 172, the latest attempt at banning foreign land ownership in certain situations.

"This goes back again to my whole juxtaposition of the process here," said Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City. "When you have a bill that is so constitutionally flawed, it's only been worked in one chamber, and here we get it from a conference committee on the last day of session. The process is obviously broken, this bill is broken, send it back to committee and don't have the floor of the Senate waste any more time on this legislation."

Another was House Bill 2530, which would overhaul the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission. Lawmakers were split on previous versions of legislation targeting the commission, which is alleged political retaliation for ending the fall turkey hunting season and discussions about banning deer baiting.

A new version emerged during veto session, garnering more passionate and lengthy debate than typical for bills on the last day of session.

"We have less than nine hours left in this session," Rahjes said in caucus. "Pretty quiet the last couple days. Quite honestly, I'm very, very upset. We got to make a decision, do we want the Chiefs, do we want a budget, do we want a tax cut — or do you want crap like this?"

Another was the omnibus budget, House Bill 2551.

Technically, under the rules, only subjects that have passed at least one chamber are supposed to be able to be considered in conference — though budget provisos are allowed. But the omnibus budget never passed either chamber before going to conference.

Instead, the appropriations committees came up with House and Senate plans that were then negotiated by the four Republicans and two Democrats on a conference committee.

Rep. Henry Helgerson, D-Eastborough, took issue with the spending plan, including on money for attracting a professional sports team. That item in the omnibus budget was in addition to a proposed change to the STAR bonds program designed to entice the Chiefs to build a new stadium on the Kansas side of the border.

"My objection to all this is if it's such a good idea, why do we wait until the sirens blast and why do we wait until it gets dark?" Helgerson said. "Why don't we have an honest-to-God discussion about what's good economic policy and what's not?"

Meanwhile, leaders on the commerce committees crafted their own legislation that hadn't passed either chamber. That gut-and-go of House Bill 2663 made changes to the STAR bond program to attract a professional sports team to Kansas by diverting future tax revenue to finance facility construction.

While the bill died after never getting a debate and vote on the House and Senate floors before the session ended, the idea isn't entirely dead as it could come back up during a special session.

More: Can Kansas lure the Kansas City Chiefs to leave Missouri? Lawmakers didn't vote on it.

What happened to Laura Kelly's vetoes during veto session?

Lawmakers were in Topeka for veto session, and they had a lot to consider. Going into veto session, Kelly had vetoed 16 bills plus 24 line-items in the budget.

They overrode three line-item vetoes in Senate Bill 28 providing funding for anti-abortion counseling centers, money to send the Kansas National Guard to the Texas border with Mexico and more slots for intellectual and developmental disability waivers.

Legislators said some of the other line-items were negotiated with the governor and put into the omnibus budget.

Republicans hold supermajorities in the House and Senate but have had trouble overriding vetoes when some members vote with Democrats or when others are absent.

Dissention in the Republican ranks killed two high-profile bills, as the Senate failed to override the veto of the main tax cut package in House Bill 2036 and the House failed to override the veto of the ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths in Senate Bill 233.

But they did succeed in overriding vetoes on other bills, including a pair of abortion-related bills, ones on tougher penalties for killing police dogs and restricting costly regulations. Other bills saw no attempt at an override, like one banning local bans on plastic bags and one deregulating sugaring hair removal.

Jack Harvel, of The Capital-Journal, contributed reporting.

Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Tornado sirens and late night mark end of Kansas legislative session