Key Votes

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 creates a voluntary "portable benefit plan" for independent contractors but includes a critical provision that prevents benefit contributions from ever being used as evidence that a worker is actually an employee. That legal shield lets gig companies like Uber and DoorDash make token benefit contributions while permanently blocking workers from using those contributions to prove they deserve full employee protections — including wages, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize. The benefit framework itself has no minimum contribution requirements and no mandate for companies to participate.

SB 452 makes it a crime to come within 25 feet of a first responder — including federal immigration agents — after being told to back away, even during lawful picketing where police are present. It also shields state and local officials from civil lawsuits when they help enforce federal executive orders, including immigration raids at workplaces. Together, these provisions threaten workers' ability to picket freely and create a chilling effect on organizing at meatpacking plants, farms, and construction sites where immigrant coworkers could face enforcement actions.

This amendment to the five-year state budget penalizes school districts financially when staff "encourage, facilitate, or enable" student walkouts — language broad enough to punish a teacher for simply not blocking a door. Public school employees face an impossible choice between exercising professional judgment and exposing their district to funding cuts that hit salaries, staffing levels, and working conditions. The amendment attacks the principle of collective action itself: penalizing institutions for failing to suppress organized protest sets a precedent that could extend to worker actions.

This biennial state budget set spending levels for all state agencies but included zero pay raises for the roughly 40,000 Kansas state employees, despite a market salary study showing workers falling further behind. The budget also directed conference committee negotiations on a pay plan but failed to guarantee any outcome, while containing provisions that weakened job security for university workers. A NAY vote supported sending the budget back for meaningful investment in the state workforce.

This amendment to the state budget would have directed $40.6 million to special education, drawing first from unspent federal ARPA funds already allocated to Kansas. State law requires 92% reimbursement of special education costs, but Kansas has funded only 70-75% for years — a shortfall that forces school districts to increase caseloads, cut support staff positions, and suppress wages for the thousands of teachers, paraprofessionals, and therapists who deliver these services. The amendment represented less than four-tenths of one percent of the state general fund budget.

This bill creates a new exception to Kansas law that previously banned prison-made homes from competing with construction workers and manufactured home builders. While contractors must pay regional average wages, that money goes to the state — not the incarcerated workers doing the job — giving contractors a workforce that can't quit, organize, or file safety complaints. The bill undermines building trades workers by allowing a private company to use prison labor for home construction at the Hutchinson correctional facility, setting a dangerous precedent that could expand beyond this pilot program.

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.

This bill doubles the maximum time juveniles can be held in detention (from 45 to 90 days), increases penalties for young offenders, and requires the state to contract with private residential facilities for juvenile beds. The mandatory private contracting provision routes state dollars to private operators with no requirements for fair wages, adequate staffing levels, or worker protections — undermining public-sector corrections workers who provide these services today. It sets a troubling precedent for privatizing juvenile justice functions without any labor standards attached to the contracts.

This bill makes it a criminal misdemeanor for public employees to use any government resources — including work time — to communicate about constitutional amendments or ballot questions. It removes an existing legal safe harbor that allowed public workers to respond to citizen inquiries and share neutral information, leaving school communications staff, city clerks, and agency employees exposed to prosecution for routine job duties. The bill also imposes new restrictions on how local governments can inform voters about bond issues, making it harder for school districts and cities to explain construction bond proposals — threatening the publicly funded building projects that put trades workers on the job.

This bill forces state agencies to collect detailed personal information — including alien registration numbers, Social Security digits, and home addresses — of noncitizen public benefit recipients and report it quarterly to the Secretary of State. It will discourage immigrant workers in meatpacking, agriculture, and construction from filing workers' comp and unemployment claims they've legally earned, making them more vulnerable to exploitation on the job. It also burdens public-sector state employees with an unfunded surveillance mandate and no data security protections.

This bill creates a voluntary "portable benefits" framework for independent contractors working for gig companies like Uber and DoorDash, but its real impact is a legal shield buried in the fine print: companies that make even token contributions to a worker's benefit account can't have those contributions used as evidence that the worker is actually an employee. That matters because when workers are misclassified as independent contractors, they lose access to minimum wage protections, overtime, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize. By severing this key legal link, the bill makes it harder for misclassified workers to prove they deserve full employee rights and benefits.

This bill restricts restroom and locker room access in all public buildings based on sex assigned at birth, imposing fines and criminal misdemeanor charges on workers who don't comply. It directly affects transgender public employees — including teachers, state workers, and municipal employees — by threatening them with arrest for using workplace restrooms. The law also forces changes to driver's licenses and birth certificates, disrupting identity documents workers need for employment verification, and redefines "gender" across all Kansas law in ways that could weaken workplace discrimination protections.

SB 413 prohibits attorneys from suggesting a specific dollar amount for pain and suffering damages in civil cases — but only for the injured party's lawyer. Defense attorneys face no such restriction. This one-sided rule hurts workers who sue over workplace injuries, discrimination, or harassment by making it harder for juries to put a fair dollar figure on their suffering, while employers can freely argue damages should be minimal.

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.

SB 463 rewrites Kansas negligent security law to make it far harder for workers to hold employers accountable when they fail to protect against foreseeable workplace violence. Under current law, employers have a duty to address safety risks a reasonable person would anticipate; this bill replaces that standard with a near-impossible requirement that the employer had actual documented knowledge of a substantially similar incident at the same location within the past year — rewarding employers who simply don't keep records. The bill also lets employers escape liability by hiring any security contractor regardless of quality, and forces juries to spread blame to police departments and other parties to dilute what injured workers can recover.

This bill requires all restrooms and locker rooms in public buildings to be designated by biological sex at birth, with criminal penalties for violations — including for workers simply using the restroom at their own workplace. It also forces the state to invalidate and reissue driver's licenses and birth certificates, creating potential gaps in the identity documents workers need for employment verification. The bill redefines "gender" across all Kansas law in ways that could weaken employment discrimination protections for years to come.

This bill requires "NONCITIZEN" to be printed on the driver's licenses of lawfully present green card holders, visa workers, and other immigrants. Because driver's licenses are used for employment verification and everyday workplace identification, this marks immigrant workers — many of whom are union members in Kansas meatpacking and agriculture — in ways that make them more vulnerable to employer intimidation and less likely to report safety violations, wage theft, or participate in organizing.

SB 387 requires school districts to annually verify household income for every at-risk student — an unfunded mandate the Kansas Department of Education warned violates federal regulations and risks $250 million in annual federal school nutrition funding. The bill also blocks schools from participating in the federal Community Eligibility Provision for free meals without first obtaining legislative permission, inserting a political veto into a federal anti-poverty program. Working families with irregular hours or modest wages face the highest documentation barriers, and children who lose at-risk status don't become less poor — their schools just lose the supplemental funding that supports paraprofessional positions, counselors, and support staff. Thirty-nine organizations testified against the bill and only three in favor; even eight Republican senators voted no, citing the burden on resource-stressed rural districts. The Senate passed the bill 22-18 on Emergency Final Action.

SB 254 bars undocumented immigrants from state and local public benefits, voids Kansas's in-state tuition law, and creates a presumption that noncitizens charged with any crime are a flight risk who can be held without bond. The bill chills workplace safety complaints and wage theft reporting by immigrant workers in meatpacking and construction — making job sites less safe for all workers — while imposing unfunded verification duties on state and county employees who administer benefits programs. A NAY vote protects workers' ability to report unsafe conditions and prevents an unfunded mandate on public employees.

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.

SB 244 restricts restroom access in public buildings based on biological sex at birth, imposing criminal penalties — including misdemeanor charges — on workers who violate the policy. It also forces reissuance of driver's licenses and birth certificates, disrupting identity documents that workers need for employment verification. This amendment would have addressed the bill's harshest provisions, but it failed. Labor supported the amendment because the underlying bill creates a hostile work environment for public employees, exposes union members to criminal penalties for using workplace facilities, and redefines "gender" across Kansas law in ways that could weaken employment discrimination protections.

This bill makes it a crime for transgender public employees to use restrooms matching their gender identity at their own workplaces, with escalating fines and misdemeanor charges. It also forcibly invalidates driver's licenses and birth certificates, disrupting the identity documents workers need for employment verification. The law creates a private lawsuit mechanism that allows coworkers to sue transgender employees for using workplace facilities, and redefines "gender" across all Kansas statutes in ways that could weaken employment discrimination protections for years to come.

This bill requires restrooms and locker rooms in all public buildings to be segregated by biological sex at birth, with criminal penalties for repeated violations — meaning transgender public employees like teachers, state workers, and city employees face misdemeanor charges for using the restroom at work. It also invalidates driver's licenses and birth certificates that don't match sex assigned at birth, disrupting identity documents workers need for employment verification. The bill redefines "gender" across all Kansas statutes in ways that could weaken employment discrimination protections for years to come.

SB 254 bars undocumented immigrants from receiving state and local public benefits, voids Kansas's existing in-state tuition law, and creates a legal presumption that noncitizens charged with any crime are a flight risk — making pretrial detention more likely. For workers in meatpacking, construction, and other industries, the flight-risk provision discourages reporting unsafe working conditions, filing workers' comp claims, and speaking up about wage theft — putting all workers on those job sites at greater risk. The bill also imposes new federal verification duties on state and county employees who administer public benefits, adding workload with no additional resources.

This bill removes longstanding legal protections for 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts from child support claims, and allows courts to order full liquidation of those accounts — with workers paying early withdrawal penalties and taxes on top. The bill's vague "voluntary underemployment" trigger, which activates the retirement seizure power, is never defined and could potentially reach workers who go on strike, take FMLA leave, or accept a union-negotiated buyout. Workers who spent years building retirement security through collectively bargained benefits could see those accounts drained, losing far more in penalties and taxes than the support obligation satisfied.

HB 2062 removes longstanding legal protections that shielded workers' 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts from being seized to pay child support arrearages. The bill allows courts to order the total liquidation of a worker's retirement savings — with the worker absorbing early withdrawal penalties and taxes — when a judge determines the worker is "voluntarily underemployed," a term the bill never defines. That vague trigger could potentially reach workers who go on strike, take FMLA leave, or accept a union-negotiated buyout, putting hard-won retirement security at risk.

This bill gives the Attorney General's inspector general sweeping new powers — including subpoenas, search warrants, and criminal jurisdiction — to investigate families who receive food assistance (SNAP), cash assistance (TANF), and Medicaid. Many union members in lower-wage jobs rely on these programs to make ends meet, and healthcare and social service workers at Medicaid-participating facilities could be compelled to turn over records or testify against their own employers. Labor opposes this bill because it builds a coercive enforcement apparatus targeting working families who depend on the safety net, while doing little to hold large contractors accountable.

This bill gives the Inspector General sweeping new powers — including subpoenas, search warrants, and criminal jurisdiction — to investigate families who receive food assistance (SNAP), cash assistance (TANF), and Medicaid. Many working families rely on these programs to make ends meet when wages fall short, and this law creates a hostile, punitive environment around accessing benefits they've earned. It also allows the IG to compel healthcare and social service workers to turn over records and testify in fraud investigations of their own employers. The Governor vetoed this bill, and this vote was to override that veto.

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.

This vote forced a single up-or-down decision on overriding all of the Governor's line-item vetoes on the state budget at once — denying senators the chance to deliberate on each provision individually. The overridden vetoes included eliminating 12-month continuous Medicaid eligibility for low-wage workers, mandating an AI-driven budget audit program with no collective bargaining protections for affected state employees, requiring elimination of all DEI positions across state government, and imposing across-the-board agency budget cuts that directly pressure state employee wages and staffing.

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.

HB 2160 creates the Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, making it illegal for supervisors to fire, demote, suspend, or retaliate against city, county, and school district employees who report unlawful or dangerous conduct. Workers can report problems to any person or agency — including their union, the press, or law enforcement — without first going through their boss. This law directly protects AFSCME, IAFF, IBEW, and Teamsters members working in public service, giving them a legal right to speak up about corruption, safety hazards, and misuse of public funds without fear of losing their jobs.

HB 2160 creates the Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, making it illegal for supervisors to fire, demote, suspend, or retaliate against city, county, and school district employees who report unlawful or dangerous conduct. Workers can report problems to any agency, organization, or person — including the press or their union — without first going through their boss. This law covers tens of thousands of public-sector workers represented by AFL-CIO unions and gives them the right to sue for damages and attorney fees if they face retaliation for speaking up.

HB 2160 creates the Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, making it illegal for supervisors to fire, demote, suspend, or retaliate against city, county, and school district employees who report unlawful or dangerous conduct. Workers can report problems to any outside agency, the press, or their union without going through their boss first — and can sue for damages and attorney fees if they face retaliation. This law directly protects AFSCME, IAFF, IBEW, KNEA, and Teamsters members working in public service across Kansas.

This constitutional amendment would abolish Kansas's merit-based system for selecting Supreme Court justices and replace it with partisan elections, while also allowing justices to raise campaign money and participate in party politics. The Kansas Supreme Court is the final word on workers' comp appeals, public employee bargaining rights, and wage enforcement — and partisan elections would open the door for corporate donors to spend unlimited money electing judges friendly to their interests. Labor opposes this measure because the court that decides whether injured workers get compensated and whether public employees can bargain should not be beholden to the biggest campaign contributors.

This bill creates the Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, making it illegal for supervisors to fire, demote, suspend, or retaliate against city, county, and school district employees who report unlawful or dangerous conduct. Workers can report problems to anyone — the media, a state agency, or their union — without first going through their boss. This is a direct win for AFSCME, IAFF, IBEW, and Teamsters members in public employment, giving them real legal protections when they speak up about corruption, safety hazards, or misuse of public money.

This bill transfers the state employee health benefits program to the Insurance Department — a reasonable reorganization on its face. But buried in the fine print, it deletes injured workers' right to have their attorney notified when workers' comp payments are made electronically, repeals ten statutes governing employer contributions for state employees' children's health coverage, and hands permanent control of the state employee health care commission to the elected Commissioner of Insurance rather than a governor's appointee accountable to state workers. These hidden rollbacks were never debated as standalone bills and directly harm the roughly 40,000 state employees and their families who depend on these programs.

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 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.