TOPEKA — A flurry of proposals in the Kansas Statehouse this session take aim at rising medical costs, including one that may be the state’s first attempt to rein in “surprise bills.” Republican Sen. Richard Hilderbrand has introduced two price-transparency proposals and Democratic ...
Topeka — Kansas and national Democratic Party groups on Friday sued the Republican official who oversees the state’s elections, accusing him of violating voters’ rights by delaying the implementation of a law designed to make voting on Election Day more convenient. The lawsuit was filed ...
Story updated at 12:11 p.m. Friday TOPEKA — A top Republican lawmaker in Kansas on Friday disputed the claims of GOP colleagues that a bipartisan plan to expand the state's Medicaid program would lead to taxpayers funding elective abortions. Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a Kansas ...
University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod and Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday stressed the importance of a collaborative effort to improve the state’s workforce after what the two called a “lost decade.” During that decade, a majority of which was governed by Republican Gov. Sam ...
TOPEKA — Kansas' top election official says the state needs another year to prepare before it can give voters a choice of polling places on Election Day, even though it has been nearly 10 months since the Legislature enacted a law aimed at making voting more convenient and boosting ...
Topeka — Cody Carter, who leads a Christian ministry at Lansing Correctional Facility, sees firsthand what happens as inmates age behind bars. “I do have guys in my program that have like a colostomy bag or are wheelchair bound or have seizure problems — a number of issues that make it ...
Story updated at 10:00 p.m. Friday TOPEKA — Republican lawmakers in Kansas failed to get a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution on the ballot Friday, and abortion opponents responded by moving aggressively to block a Medicaid expansion plan backed by Democrats and GOP ...
TOPEKA — Kansas legislators considering a proposed amendment to the state constitution on abortion are raising the spectre of women being forced back into going to unsafe and unclean “back alley” clinics if their measure does not pass. But in a twist away from what's typical in such ...
TOPEKA — A conservative legislator in Kansas is pursuing a proposal to prevent transgender high school and middle school students from playing on sports teams aligned with their gender identities, and LGBTQ rights advocates are trying to kill it even before he can formally introduce ...
Topeka — Republicans expect to consider a work requirement when a Kansas legislative committee begins debating a bipartisan bill for expanding Medicaid, despite opposition to the idea from a GOP leader. The Republican-controlled Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee plans to start its ...
OLATHE — A fight in the Kansas Legislature over protecting its power to restrict abortion has become an unlikely complication in the Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate seat, even though the top candidates all oppose abortion. Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle is campaigning for ...
TOPEKA — The Kansas law that makes it a crime to grope, rub or touch others in a sexual manner without their consent doesn’t apply to spouses, and state lawmakers are moving to eliminate the loophole after the same fix failed last year. The House could debate a bill next week that would ...
TOPEKA — Kansas has collected more tax revenue than expected almost every month for more than two years, and Republicans are growing increasingly angry that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly still insists that the state can't afford income tax cuts favored by the GOP-controlled Legislature. The ...
Nine organizations in Douglas County failed state health code inspections in January. Each month, I take a look at inspection results and list every place either listed out of compliance or with 10 or more code violations. Full reports are available online at agriculture.ks.gov. There, you ...
Wichita — When Mary Coffman and her husband moved to Overland Park from Oklahoma City in 2014, they found a comparable home – and expected their property taxes to be about the same, too. They were wrong. The retirees went from paying around $2,600 a year in Oklahoma to $3,200 in Kansas. ...
TOPEKA, Kansas — The new Medicaid expansion bill, the product of a compromise between Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and some Republican leaders, would change how state prisons and county jails fund health care for prisoners. By expanding the types of people who can qualify for the program, the ...
TOPEKA — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly declared Thursday that a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution would return the state “to the Dark Ages” and called it a political attack on women’s rights that will hurt the state’s business climate. Kelly, a strong ...
TOPEKA — Conservative Republicans are pushing for a law requiring government buildings and schools across Kansas to post the national motto of “In God We Trust,” an idea critics say is part of a broader effort by the Christian right to promote its religious beliefs in public life. A ...
Story updated at 3:14 p.m. Thursday WICHITA — Ninety-three percent of the Kansas Highway Patrol's traffic stops in 2017 involved cars with out-of-state plates, according to a lawsuit challenging the practice as an infringement on motorists' constitutional rights. In an amended lawsuit filed ...
Story updated at 8:39 p.m. Wednesday TOPEKA — Republican lawmakers in Kansas pushed a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution through the state Senate on Wednesday even as abortion rights advocates argued that it would lead to a ban on most abortions like a measure being ...