Most Kansas voters want abortion access, but their legislators may further restrict it anyway

Kansans decisively rejected a state constitutional modification that will have eliminated the fitting to an abortion. However many conservative lawmakers will go unchallenged on the poll field this 12 months, permitting them to proceed the push to limit abortion entry within the legislature.

Voters made past clear that they didn’t wish to give the Kansas Legislature extra energy to limit abortion.

However the state’s lawmakers spent the final technology enacting ever-tighter restrictions. And their ranks are loaded with individuals who wish to go even additional.

Now, regardless of voters declaring by an almost 60-40 margin that they didn’t wish to change the Kansas Structure in a method that will have opened the door to an outright ban, legislators might nonetheless take a look at simply how far they’ll limit abortion.

“There’s a proper to abortion in Kansas, for now, (however) the anti-abortion motion goes to attempt to chip away at abortion rights because the anti-abortion motion has been doing for many years,” mentioned Greer Donley, a Kansas native and abortion legislation skilled on the College of Pittsburgh.

Definitely elections matter. However when voters select who they need representing them in each Kansas Home district within the state this fall, they’ll have comparatively little alternative.

Practically half the folks working for the Home face no opponent. A few of these Republican seats even characterize swing districts the place Democrats have typically received up to now. That may make it exhausting for any abortion rights wave to remake the Legislature.

So even districts that voted in opposition to a constitutional modification to strip abortion rights from the Kansas Structure will in the end ship conservatives to characterize them in Topeka.

Nathaniel Birkhead, a political scientist at Kansas State College, mentioned the Aug. 2 election reveals a mismatch between Kansas voters and their representatives. Whereas a majority of Kansans clearly assist some stage of abortion rights, they’ve elected lawmakers who don’t.

Gerrymandering that virtually locks down a district for one social gathering or the opposite, he mentioned, could possibly be an element.

“As a consequence,” Birkhead mentioned, “we’ll proceed to see mismatches like these, the place legislators are selling concepts and points that won’t actually align with … what the residents need.”

Think about Crawford County, the house of Pittsburg State College in southeast Kansas. In recent times, the Democratic and Republican events have traded off possession of their seat within the Kansas Home.

However this fall, Pittsburg’s Republican state Rep. Chuck Smith will cruise to reelection. No one ran in opposition to him. Smith’s county rejected the constitutional modification by a ten% margin. However he needs tighter restrictions.

“Irrespective of how I vote, I’m voting with (solely) 50% of my constituents,” Smith mentioned. “However you don’t change your values.”

It additionally reveals {that a} decisive election on one of the crucial contentious points within the state over the past three a long time shouldn’t be going to carry the battle to an finish. Kansans for Life, the biggest anti-abortion group within the state, characterised the vote as solely a short lived setback.

Political mismatch

Kansas Republicans might cross extra restrictive abortion legal guidelines, even when incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who helps abortion rights, wins reelection this fall over Republican challenger Derek Schmidt.

Republicans will doubtless preserve their supermajority within the Kansas Legislature and the ability to override Kelly’s veto.

Whereas each seat within the Kansas Home was up for grabs, 55 of the 125 seats solely have a single candidate working. That overwhelming majority of these candidates — 36 of them — are Republicans. That’s greater than 40% of the seats the social gathering would want to retain to maintain its supermajority within the chamber.

In the meantime, 22 of these unchallenged Republicans — greater than half — are set to characterize districts that embody a part of counties that rejected the modification on abortion. These seats alone make up the entire distinction between a easy majority and a supermajority within the Kansas Home.

Birkhead mentioned that results in the mismatch, the place lawmakers maintain views that don’t align with most of their constituents. With out an opponent, these lawmakers received’t threat their seats by passing extra abortion restrictions.

“In the event you fail to stick to this kind of medium in your district,” he mentioned, “there’s no sanction since you’re not going to lose your election.”

Smith is a type of lawmakers. Over the past 10 years, his district has routinely switched palms between Republicans and Democrats. However he faces no challenger from both social gathering this 12 months. That’s after he voted in 2021 to place the state constitutional modification on the poll that his constituency voted in opposition to.

Nonetheless, Smith mentioned he nonetheless needs some extra restrictions on abortions. However what restrictions lawmakers might pursue could must be scaled again.

New restrictions

The election made one factor clear: abortion rights will proceed in Kansas. What it doesn’t clarify is what precisely these rights are. Presently, state legislation bans abortion after 22 weeks.

Smith, as an illustration, mentioned he “might dwell with” a 15-week ban. Some states, like Florida and Mississippi, have put in 15-week bans. The problem to Mississippi’s ban was the catalyst for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Donley mentioned Republican lawmakers might use a 15-week ban to check the Kansas Supreme Courtroom’s ruling by passing such a legislation and attempting to defend it in courtroom. However with the way in which the state’s excessive courtroom dominated in 2019, Donley mentioned it’s unlikely it could then permit a 15-week ban to enter impact.

But, the courtroom might permit a softer, 20-week legislation to enter impact, she mentioned.

“I might think about a courtroom being extra more likely to entertain that legislation than a 15-week legislation,” Donley mentioned.

Reshaping the courtroom

Conservatives and anti-abortion activists nonetheless have one other choice to attempt to take away the fitting to an abortion from the state. They may push voters to take away Kansas Supreme Courtroom justices by means of retention elections, permitting for Republican leaders to reshape the courtroom with their ideology on abortion.

That may be much like what occurred on the federal stage when former President Donald Trump nominated three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. It led to the overturning of the decades-old precedent, Roe v. Wade, that supplied abortion rights nationwide.

That’s a concern that has already been expressed by abortion rights activists.

Ashley All of Kansas for Constitutional Freedom, the marketing campaign that labored to reject the constitutional modification, mentioned the day after the election that she anticipated conservatives to shift their focus to the state supreme courtroom.

Six of the courtroom’s seven justices might be up for retention within the November normal election. If a number of the justices are eliminated, and a Republican governor is ready to put extra conservatives within the courtroom, the fitting to an abortion could possibly be challenged once more.

“Regardless that your complete state voted and primarily mentioned no,” Donley mentioned, “if the courtroom modifications its construction, they might overrule that earlier holding and Kansas would lose the fitting to abortion.”

Dylan Lysen experiences on politics for the Kansas Information Service. You possibly can comply with him on Twitter @DylanLysen or electronic mail him at dlysen (at) kcur (dot) org.

The Kansas Information Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and Excessive Plains Public Radio targeted on well being, the social determinants of well being and their connection to public coverage. 

Kansas Information Service tales and photographs could also be republished by information media without charge with correct attribution and a hyperlink to ksnewsservice.org.

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