Kansas voters reject GOP-backed measure to directly elect state Supreme Court justices

There are no new alerts at this time Kansas voters have rejected a Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have allowed them to directly elect state Supreme Court justices, The Associated Press projects. In Kansas, the governor — who since 2019 has been Democrat Laura Kelly — has the power to appoint state Supreme Court justices, chosen from a list created by a nine-member nonpartisan commission. The measure on Tuesday’s ballot, which was referred by the GOP-controlled Legislature, proposed abolishing that system in favor of contests that would have more closely resembled partisan races for other elected offices. The move came after the Kansas Supreme Court has dealt conservatives some setbacks in recent years, including a 2019 ruling that the state constitution protected the right to an abortion Voters sided with that decision three years later in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v.

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Scoop News DeskKansas · Published Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 1:10 AM UTCUpdated Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 1:22 AM UTC

Scoop News reporting summary

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Tuesday’s ballot measure campaign drew more than $12 million in spending in the airwaves, according to the tracking firm AdImpact, with opponents outspending supporters by more than 2 to 1. In a spot run by the biggest spender on the pro-amendment side — a group called Kansans for Democracy Inc. — a narrator criticizes the current commission system, ripping “elites” for getting to “decide who’s on the Kansas Supreme Court, behind closed doors, trading favors, rewarding friends.” “The public can’t see it or control it.