Republicans support electing the Kansas Supreme Court, while Democrats say it will politicize the state judiciary.
The Kansas Legislature gave final approval on March 19 to place a question on the August 2026 ballot that would allow voters to elect members of the state’s supreme court.
The state House passed the bill authorizing the proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution, Senate Concurrent Resolution 1611, by 84–40 on March 19. The state Senate had approved the bill 27–13 on March 6.
The current “merit-based nomination process” comes into play whenever a vacancy occurs on the officially nonpartisan, seven-member court, according to a state judiciary website. A nine-member nominating commission, most of whose members are required to be lawyers, recommends three applicants to the sitting governor who then appoints one of the applicants to the court.
The proposed constitutional amendment came after the Kansas Supreme Court clashed with Republican lawmakers in recent years. The court found in 2024 that the Kansas Constitution protects access to abortion, and, in 2017, that the state was not spending enough on public schools.
Republican officeholders who support the bill say the commission system gives legal insiders too much control over who sits on the Kansas Supreme Court. Democrat officeholders counter that allowing direct election of the justices will politicize the state’s judiciary and give abortion opponents an opportunity to ban the practice.
Republicans hailed the passage of the bill.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach wrote on social media platform X, that approval of the measure was “an historic turning point in Kansas.”
“Voters will now get to decide whether to reclaim the right to vote for justices, which they enjoyed from statehood until 1958,” he wrote. “Polling shows Kansans overwhelmingly prefer voting on Supreme Court Justices to the status quo. Seventy-four percent support the direct election of Supreme Court Justices, while only 20 percent like the current attorney-controlled system.”
The constitutional amendment would help voters “reclaim their voice at the ballot box,” House Majority Leader Chris Croft, House Speaker Dan Hawkins, and Speaker Pro Tem Blake Carpenter said in a joint statement posted on X.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, told reporters on the day of the vote that electing justices directly would be a mistake.
She criticized the Legislature for scheduling the vote on the constitutional amendment for August 2026, during the primaries, instead of the November 2026 general election, when voter turnout is expected to be higher.
Kelly said the Legislature used “a similar maneuver” when it scheduled a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion for a vote during the August 2022 primary election, months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled the Constitution does not include a right to abortion.
The Republican-backed amendment stated that the Kansas Constitution does not safeguard access to abortion or require government funding of it. The state’s voters rejected the measure 41 to 59 percent.
“Kansans turned out and I hope that Kansans will recognize that this whole election of Supreme Court justices is starting down the path again to ban exactly what Kansans said they didn’t want banned in 2022,” Kelly said.
State Rep. Lindsay Vaughn, a Democrat, said the current selection process works because it places would-be justices’ judicial temperament and legal experience over their political loyalties.
The judiciary is “a coequal impartial branch of the government that provides an important check and balance on the other two branches,” Vaughn said.
The vote on the proposed constitutional amendment will take place on Aug. 4, 2026.