Key Votes

This bill lets just 10% of registered voters sign a petition to freeze local government and school district budgets at prior-year levels, blocking tax revenue increases above inflation plus 3%. The petition mechanism includes no protection for wages and benefits already negotiated in collective bargaining agreements, meaning a successful petition could prevent a school district or city from funding raises it already agreed to pay teachers, public employees, and other union workers. The bill also provides government-funded petition infrastructure by embedding signature pages in tax notices mailed to every property owner.

This bill creates a government-funded petition process that allows just 10% of registered voters to block school districts, cities, and counties from raising property tax revenue above the prior year's level. There is no protection for wages and benefits already negotiated in union contracts — meaning a successful petition could prevent a public employer from funding raises it already agreed to pay. The bill also embeds petition signature pages directly into tax notices mailed to every property owner at taxpayer expense, giving anti-tax groups a built-in organizing tool that labor has no equivalent way to counter.

This bill eliminates mandatory fire sprinkler systems in new townhouse construction of four units or fewer and prohibits cities and counties from requiring them locally. It directly reduces work hours for UA sprinkler fitters who install these systems, removing a key source of building trades employment in residential construction. The bill also strips local governments of the authority to set their own fire safety standards — the same preemption approach used to block local wage protections.

This bill lets just 10% of registered voters in a community block local governments and school districts from raising property tax revenue — even when increases are needed to fund negotiated wage agreements. Protest petition forms would be mailed directly to every property owner at taxpayer expense, giving anti-tax groups a powerful new tool to squeeze the budgets that pay public employees. There is no protection for existing union contracts, meaning a successful petition could make it impossible for employers to fund already-negotiated raises for teachers, firefighters, and other public workers.

This bill creates statewide electrician licensing with an 8,000-hour experience requirement for journeyman electricians — a standard that matches union apprenticeship programs — and explicitly recognizes completion of a U.S. Department of Labor registered apprenticeship as a qualification for licensure. It replaces the old patchwork of city and county licensing with a single portable state license, ensuring consistent quality standards and making it easier for skilled electricians to work across Kansas. A YEA vote supports strong training standards that protect both workers and consumers.

This bill requires the Department of Insurance to produce cost reports on health coverage bills — but the reports only count premium increases, not the savings workers get from better coverage. Even worse, the underlying data submitted by insurance companies is kept secret from the public, making the reports impossible to verify or challenge. The result is a tool that can be used session after session to kill coverage mandates that protect working families' health benefits.

This bill eliminates mandatory fire sprinkler installation in new townhouse construction of four units or fewer and bars cities and counties from requiring sprinklers on their own. It directly reduces work hours for UA sprinkler fitters who install these systems, while removing a key fire safety protection for Kansas families. The bill also sets a troubling precedent by using state law to override local building and safety standards — the same preemption strategy that has been used to block local wage protections.

HB 2504 prohibits cities and counties from passing local laws that protect renters who use housing vouchers or have criminal or eviction histories. The bill strips local governments of the power to require landlords to give these tenants a fair chance at housing — undermining the same fair-chance principles labor has fought for in hiring. This hurts working families trying to find stable housing, especially low-wage workers and those rebuilding their lives after incarceration.

SB 391 prohibits Kansas cities and counties from passing local laws that protect tenants who use housing vouchers or other rental assistance. It also bars local governments from restricting landlords' use of criminal history, credit scores, and eviction records when screening tenants — blocking fair chance housing policies that help working people with records stay housed after getting back to work. This bill uses the same state preemption playbook that has already been used to strip local minimum wage authority from Kansas communities.

This bill repeals the 2013 state law that blocked Kansas cities and counties from setting wage and benefit standards on publicly funded construction projects. After Kansas eliminated its statewide prevailing wage law in 1987, local governments began adopting their own wage standards for public construction — until the legislature preempted that authority in 2013. This bill restores it. It also raises the threshold for competitive public bidding on county construction contracts from $25,000 to $100,000.

SB 462 shields corporations from public nuisance lawsuits by prohibiting claims based on the design, manufacturing, or marketing of legal products — the same legal theory communities used to hold opioid manufacturers accountable. The bill also bars private class actions for public nuisances, hands sole authority over multi-county cases to the Attorney General, and retroactively applies to cases already pending in court. For workers and their families harmed by corporate pollution, chemical exposure like PFAS, or future public health crises, this bill shuts the courthouse door.

This conference committee report subjects all new occupational licensing requirements to legislative approval and automatically sunsets every existing agency-adopted licensing requirement by July 2030 unless the legislature affirmatively renews each one. Workers who invested years and thousands of dollars earning credentials in trades, cosmetology, and other licensed occupations face the real prospect that their licensing standards simply vanish through legislative inaction or gridlock. The bill strategically exempts the six most politically powerful health licensing boards — nursing, pharmacy, dental, healing arts — while leaving less politically connected working-class occupations exposed.

This bill says that if a pesticide carries an EPA-approved federal label, that's good enough to shield the manufacturer from state lawsuits over failure to warn about health risks. In practice, it takes away the main legal tool that farmworkers, groundskeepers, and other workers exposed to pesticides on the job have used to hold chemical companies accountable when they get sick. The bill goes beyond what federal law requires and eliminates state tort claims that have been workers' last resort — especially for agricultural workers who already have the fewest workplace protections.

This bill requires legislative approval before any state agency can seek federal waivers to expand Medicaid eligibility or make changes to services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It creates a major barrier to federal funding that could raise wages for Kansas's roughly 10,000 direct support professionals — chronically underpaid workers who provide daily care to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. By adding political hurdles to routine federal waiver requests, this law makes it harder for the state to bring home federal dollars that support healthcare jobs and working families' access to care.

This bill requires legislative approval before any state agency can seek federal waivers to expand public assistance programs like Medicaid or make changes to services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It creates a new bureaucratic barrier that can block federal funding for healthcare coverage and delay rate increases for the roughly 10,000 direct support professionals who care for Kansans with disabilities — workers already among the lowest-paid in the state. By adding a legislative veto over routine program improvements, this law makes it harder to expand healthcare access for uninsured working families and harder to raise wages for direct care workers.

HB 2291 creates a "regulatory sandbox" program that allows businesses to apply to have state rules and regulations suspended — including potentially workplace safety and wage protections enforced by the Kansas Department of Labor. The program is overseen by a business-dominated advisory committee with no labor representation, applications are kept secret from the public, and if an agency fails to respond within 30 days, rules are automatically waived. Labor opposed this bill because it undermines the regulations that protect working people on the job, with no transparency or worker voice in the process.

This bill creates a new program in the Attorney General's office that allows businesses to apply to have state regulations waived or suspended for up to three years. Workplace safety rules, wage protections, and other labor regulations are not excluded from the program, and there is no seat for workers or unions on the advisory committee that reviews applications. If an understaffed agency like the Kansas Department of Labor fails to respond to an application within 30 days, the rules are automatically treated as waived — a built-in trap that puts working people at risk.

SB 14 creates a "continuous budget" that keeps last year's spending levels in place if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget, eliminating the governor's ability to use a budget impasse to push for better pay, benefits, and funding for workers' programs. Even more concerning, it gives the Secretary of Administration power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce programs, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced — bypassing the legislature where working families have a voice. Labor opposed the veto override because this bill shifts budget power away from the democratic process and puts public sector jobs and critical services at risk of cuts by unelected administrators.

SB 14 establishes a continuous state budget, meaning if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget, last year's spending levels automatically roll forward — eliminating the governor's ability to use a budget impasse to push for state worker pay raises, KPERS pension contributions, and funding for worker-serving programs. The bill also gives the Secretary of Administration power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce development, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced, bypassing the legislative process where working families have a voice. Labor opposes this bill because it locks in the status quo of underfunded state services and removes a critical tool for negotiating better outcomes for Kansas workers.

This bill removes the authority of local health officers to prohibit public gatherings during infectious disease outbreaks, downgrading that power to a non-binding recommendation. For nurses, meat-processing workers, corrections officers, and other frontline employees, this eliminates a critical legal backstop — when a health officer could only "recommend" against gatherings, workers who stay home to protect themselves have no legal protection from being fired. The veto override vote stripped away public health enforcement tools that essential workers depend on during emergencies.

This bill removes the authority of local health officers to prohibit public gatherings during infectious disease outbreaks, replacing it with the power to merely "recommend against" them. Without enforceable closure orders, essential workers — nurses, teachers, corrections officers, and food processing employees — lose a critical legal backstop that protected them when employers ignored public health guidance during disease emergencies. The bill also adds new barriers to state-level disease response and gives legislative leaders the power to override health orders, politicizing future outbreak decisions.

This bill prohibits Kansas courts and administrative hearing officers from deferring to state agency expertise when interpreting laws and regulations. That means when the Department of Labor, Workers' Compensation Board, or Public Employee Relations Board rules in a worker's favor, employers can now relitigate those decisions from scratch in court — with no weight given to the agency's interpretation. The result is a playing field tilted toward employers who can afford lengthy court battles to overturn worker-protective rulings on wages, unemployment benefits, workplace safety, and public sector bargaining rights.

Nine senators voted to force SB 216 — the Kansas Paid Sick Time Act — out of committee and onto the floor for debate. The bill would guarantee every private-sector worker in Kansas earns paid sick leave, a core labor standard that Kansas currently lacks entirely. Thirty senators voted to keep it buried in committee, refusing to allow even a floor vote on a policy that directly affects the health and economic security of working families.

Nine senators voted to force SB 218 — a minimum wage increase — out of committee for a floor vote. Kansas has been stuck at the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour since 2009, one of the lowest in the nation. Thirty senators voted to keep the bill buried in committee, blocking any debate on raising wages for the lowest-paid workers in the state.

This bill makes the previous year's state budget automatically continue if the legislature doesn't pass a new one, eliminating the governor's ability to use budget deadlines to push for state employee pay raises and full KPERS pension contributions. It also gives an unelected appointee — the Secretary of Administration — the power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce programs, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced, bypassing the legislature where working families have a voice. Labor opposes this bill because it shifts budget power away from the tools that have historically protected state workers and the programs Kansas families depend on.

This bill bars state agencies from requiring college degrees for most government jobs and promotions, replacing them with experience-based criteria. While skills-based hiring sounds good on paper, state employee unions raised serious concerns that removing degree requirements without safeguards could lead to wage compression, downgrading of job classifications, and lower pay for experienced workers. The bill also lacks any enforcement mechanism, leaving state workers with no way to hold agencies accountable if they misapply the law.

This constitutional amendment would let the legislature revoke any state regulation — including workplace safety rules, workers' comp standards, and wage enforcement procedures — through a simple concurrent resolution that the governor cannot veto. A catch-all provision allowing revocation whenever the legislature decides a rule is "not beneficial to the public good" gives lawmakers unlimited power to gut protections with no executive branch check. Because it amends the constitution, this change would be permanent and could not be reversed by a future governor or legislature without another statewide vote.

SB 161 requires a full act of the legislature before any state agency can adjust Medicaid reimbursement rates for disability services or expand public assistance programs. For Kansas's roughly 30,000 direct support professionals — care workers already earning poverty-level wages of $13-15/hour — this hands a historically hostile legislature veto power over the only realistic path to pay increases. Labor opposes this bill because it freezes the administrative flexibility that agencies need to raise care worker wages and capture available federal matching dollars.

SB 222 prohibits courts and administrative hearing officers from relying on state agency expertise when interpreting the law — even inside workers' comp hearings, unemployment appeals, and wage claim proceedings where most working people's cases are actually decided. This means employers with deep pockets can re-litigate settled questions from scratch at every level, dragging out cases and discouraging workers from pursuing their claims. Kansas would go further than any other state or even the federal standard by reaching inside the administrative process itself, weakening enforcement of every labor protection on the books.

SB 76 dictates the exact words every school employee — including custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers — must use when addressing students, and creates a new parent-triggered complaint process to discipline workers who don't comply. This complaint pipeline bypasses union grievance procedures and collectively bargained due process protections, letting school boards investigate and punish employees with no right to representation, no evidentiary standard, and no appeal. Labor opposes this bill because the government should not be mandating workplace speech for public employees or creating discipline systems that go around the contracts workers fought to win.

This bill bans gender transition care for minors, but buried in its enforcement provisions are direct attacks on workers: it strips healthcare workers of malpractice insurance coverage, mandates automatic license revocation with no professional board discretion, and restricts what state employees can say on the job. The legislature voted to override the Governor's veto, exposing nurses, doctors, and state workers in SEIU and AFSCME bargaining units to career-ending liability with no due process protections. A NAY vote sustained the Governor's veto and protected workers.

The Legislature overrode the Governor's veto of SB 63, which bans gender transition care for minors. Buried in the bill are provisions that directly harm healthcare workers: automatic license revocation with no professional board discretion, a ban on malpractice insurance covering affected providers, and vague restrictions on what state employees can say on the job. These provisions strip due process from licensed workers and leave nurses, doctors, and state employees in SEIU, AFSCME, and KSNA bargaining units personally exposed to career-ending liability. A NAY vote sustained the Governor's veto and protected workers' rights.

SB 14 would put the state budget on autopilot, automatically continuing last year's spending levels if the Legislature doesn't act. This eliminates the annual pressure on lawmakers to negotiate and fund public services, making it easier to freeze wages, staffing, and programs that working families depend on. By removing the urgency to pass a budget, it weakens the leverage public employee unions have during the appropriations process and hands sweeping reallocation power to unelected administrators.

SB 63 bans gender transition care for minors, but buried in the bill are provisions that directly hit healthcare workers: automatic license revocation with no professional board discretion, a ban on malpractice insurance covering affected providers, and strict personal liability lasting a decade. It also restricts what state employees — including social workers and hospital staff — can say on the job using vague, undefined terms. Labor opposes this bill because it strips workers of due process protections, eliminates insurance coverage, and exposes union members in hospitals, clinics, and state agencies to career-ending punishment without the safeguards that professional licensing boards are supposed to provide.

SB 63 automatically revokes the license of any healthcare worker found in violation — with no review by their professional board and no second chance. It also bars malpractice insurance from covering these workers and restricts what state employees can say on the job using vague, undefined terms. These provisions set a dangerous precedent: the legislature can override professional licensing boards to end a worker's career with zero due process, a template that could be applied to any licensed profession in the future.