A belly flop into a swimming pool full of curdled milk

A curtain of clouds sets off the Statehouse dome in Topeka on April 10, 2025, the first day of veto session. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Statehouse scraps

Opinion editor Clay Wirestone’s weekly roundup of legislative flotsam and jetsam. Read the archive.

When do you call failure success?

When you have a supermajority of Republicans in the Kansas Legislature.

Whatever else you might have heard about the 2025 session, it was a disastrous bellyflop into a swimming pool full of curdled milk. Lawmakers wrapped up their work on Friday, leaving the state crueler, sicker, poorer and weaker. A bill mugging transgender kids made it into law. So did a bill promising tax cuts but threatening fiscal ruin. Public health officials’ power to fight illness was restricted. Special education students were left out to dry.

It was, as I just wrote, a nauseating catastrophe.

But it’s just what Republicans wanted. Boasting strengthened supermajorities in their respective chambers, House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson rode roughshod over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly during the two-day veto session. Few backbench Republicans dared speak up or challenge leadership.

On the House side, members apparently met in secret nearly every day, giving and taking marching orders. Committees heard precious little actual debate. Bills speeded through and landed on the floor, where they passed with scant discussion. Meanwhile, the whole affair wrapped up in the middle of April, leaving little time for serious consideration or compromise.

You might expect Democrats to raise holy heck about this state of affairs, and some did. But others tried to model reasonableness, while their opponents modeled radicalism.

Since returning to Kansas in the summer of 2016, I’ve endured nine sessions of the Kansas Legislature. Never have I witnessed such a disconnect between what was actually achieved and what members believed they had done. Republican lawmakers gloried in their wins.

Everyone else was left in their dust, fearing what might come next.

Schwab roasts Masterson

You could witness a hint of unrest, however, in Secretary of State Scott Schwab‘s emergent campaign for governor.

The Republican announced early this year, and he could well face Masterson in the Republican primary. He blasted out a press release Friday that should leave the Senate president at least a bit concerned.

“Leadership repeatedly assured voters that cutting property taxes would be one of the first bills out of the chute in 2025,” the release reads. “Kansans would receive a reprieve, and taxes would be kept in check. But when it came time to lead, both the governor and leadership came up short. Instead of giving Kansans a break, they gave them a bill backed by Senate leadership. The result? A paltry $25.88 tax break signed by the governor for someone owning a $150,000 home. Not enough to fill the gas tank or have the lawn mowed, let alone make life more affordable for families or seniors on fixed incomes.”

Let the man cook.

He continued, later in the release: “Kansans expected better. Kansans expected leadership that would address runaway property tax increases, arrest out-of-control valuations, and restore confidence that they can afford the homes they live in — not rent them from the government.”

Final batch of questions

I’ve started asking questions aplenty in my Statehouse scraps columns this year, both for my own amusement and to cover further ground. Here’s what came to mind over veto session.

• Have Republicans finally lost their fear of being blamed for a Gov. Sam Brownback-styled fiscal disaster? Or have they just forgotten?

• After all the drama surrounding Rep. Ford Carr’s disciplinary hearings, isn’t it interesting how the whole situation seemed to fade away once the panel had to settle on doing something?

• Will Statehouse Democrats recalibrate before next session? If they have so little legislative power, what do they have to lose by attacking Republicans with a bit more glee?

• Will Kelly call a special session of April revenue estimates come in under expectations? How much with leadership bellyache if she does so?

• How on earth could next session be worse than this one? I ask a version of this question every year, and the Legislature seldom disappoints me. Still, how?

Secret secrets

Hawkins never allowed journalists back into the press box on the House floor. Despite our coverage, and despite the many reporters just doing their jobs at the Statehouse, the speaker decided to put his animus toward facts ahead of serving the public.

Over in the Senate, Masterson continued a similar policy unfurled in 2022. More than three years on, he appears to have paid no price for limiting access.

Meanwhile, House Republicans met secretly. Reporters were ejected from caucus meetings on multiple occasions, all for the simple act of trying to inform members of the public about what their representatives were doing.

You might like what the 2025 Kansas Legislature did. You might, as I do, detest it.

At the very least, lawmakers and their leaders should have the courage to do it in the sunlight.

With this column, Statehouse scraps wraps its 2025 run. It will resume when the Kansas Legislature does, in January 2026.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.