TOPEKA ? Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius could face Republicans reluctant to respond to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling on education funding during a special legislative session.

Some Republicans contend the court overstepped its authority in ordering the Legislature to double the amount of extra money provided to schools for the next academic year. The court’s July 1 deadline guaranteed the first special session in more than 15 years.

House Speaker Doug Mays said Monday that the special session will begin June 22.

“I’m not advising that we simply thumb our nose at the court,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson. “But by the same token, my advice is, you are still elected representatives who have a responsibility to the constituents of your districts.

The conservative Kansas Republican Assembly did call for legislators to defy the court.

“Who do these judges think they are?” Tamara Cooper, the group’s executive director, said Monday. “This is, purely and simply, a brazen power grab by unelected and unaccountable judges and it must not stand.”

Sebelius has promised to call the special session and planned to meet Monday afternoon with legislative leaders. Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton; Mays, R-Topeka; Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, and House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg, were invited to participate.

The meeting was closed to the public but Sebelius planned a news conference afterward to discuss it.

“Kansas parents – Kansas kids – expect us to do this, and we owe it to them to get it right,” Sebelius told reporters before the meeting.

The Supreme Court rejected an education funding plan pushed through the Legislature by Republicans, providing a $142 million increase, relying on existing revenues and tapping cash reserves.

The court said spending must increase by $285 million, or about 10 percent, to more than $3 billion annually.

It will be the first special session since December 1989, when lawmakers met for two days to consider emergency property tax relief measures.

The court’s decision will force legislators to consider raising taxes, expanding gambling, cutting social services or other government programs, or some combination of those alternatives. Sebelius has advocated both higher taxes and new gambling.

“We’re looking at all the options,” Sebelius said. “I don’t have a plan with me in my pockets today, but I’m anxious to work with the legislators to get this problem solved.”

Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt said the court made the task more difficult by striking down provisions in the Legislature’s plan to give local districts authority to raise local property taxes to supplement state aid.

The court said those provisions made the school finance system less fair by helping wealthy districts more than poor ones. But Schmidt said such provisions helped legislative leaders build a coalition to pass a plan.

“There will be some who want to dig in their heels and defy the court,” Schmidt said, referring to his colleagues.

He said he thinks it’s wise for legislators to comply with the court’s mandate but added, “I’m not sure yet whether that’s possible.”

The court ruled in a lawsuit filed in 1999 by parents and administrators in the Dodge City and Salina school district. They argued the state spent too little on its schools and distributed the money unfairly, so that some districts received too little money for bilingual and special education and programs that help kids at risk of failing.

“I think they’ve clearly exceeded their authority,” O’Neal said.

Cooper said: “Nobody elected them to establish spending policies and priorities for our state. That’s a function reserved exclusively for the people’s elected representatives.”