Kansas

Kansas has a plural executive of statewide elected officials: the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, and the Commissioner of Insurance. Since the 1970s the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have run together as a single ticket and so share a party; the Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner are elected independently and can come from the opposing party.

The Governor appoints the heads of the executive agencies that aren’t separately elected and leads the rest of the bureaucracy. Because four of the down-ballot statewide offices are independently elected, divided control of the executive branch is common in Kansas.

The Kansas Legislature is bicameral: a 40-seat State Senate (four-year terms) and a 125-seat House of Representatives (two-year terms). It is a part-time, citizen legislature, members earn a $43,000 annual base salary (nearly doubled effective January 2025) plus per diem allowances during the session, and there are no term limits.

The Legislature convenes each January and typically aims to finish in about 90 days, with the session running somewhat longer in odd-numbered years when it writes the bulk of the budget. There is no hard constitutional cap on session length, so leadership and the demands of the budget shape when the body adjourns.

A bill is introduced, referred to committee, and, if it advances, voted on the floor of each chamber, with differences reconciled before final passage. The Governor can sign a bill, veto it, or let it become law, and holds a line-item veto over appropriations; a veto override takes two-thirds of each chamber. Because party control of the governorship and the Legislature has often been split in Kansas, veto-override fights are a regular and consequential feature of state politics.

Kansas has no general citizen initiative or referendum, voters cannot place ordinary statutes on the ballot themselves. Proposed constitutional amendments reach the ballot only when referred by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, which keeps lawmaking firmly in legislative hands.

The Governor appoints the heads of the non-elected agencies, proposes the budget, can call special sessions, holds emergency powers, wields a line-item veto, and holds the clemency power. With the governorship and Legislature frequently in different parties’ hands, the veto and the two-thirds override are central tools in Kansas governance.

The main internal checks are the independently elected Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner. The state’s long-running fight over how judges are chosen (below) has also been a defining feature of the relationship between the Governor, the Legislature, and the courts.

Kansas selects its Supreme Court justices through a distinctive merit system that has been the subject of years of political battle. A Supreme Court Nominating Commission, a majority of whose members are chosen by the state’s licensed attorneys, not by elected officials, screens applicants and sends the Governor a short list, from which the Governor must appoint; the justice then faces periodic up-or-down retention votes. Critics, including many legislators, have repeatedly tried to replace this lawyer-led commission with federal-style appointment-and-confirmation or with elections, making judicial selection an unusually contested issue. The Kansas Supreme Court sits at the top, above the Court of Appeals (whose judges are now appointed by the Governor with Senate confirmation) and the trial-level District Courts.