At-a-glance:
- Thanks to KFL member outreach, state legislators voted to override Gov. Kelly’s veto of the updated Congressional district map, required every 10 years.
- By overriding the veto, legislators helped protect the federal Hyde Amendment, which has prevented federal tax dollars from directly funding abortion for the last 40 years but is currently under threat from abortion industry allies.
- Your next step: Send a message to your state legislators about their actions on the override of the governor’s veto of SB 355. KFL’s system will help create a thank you for those who voted to support the override or a note of disappointment for those who did not. Just type in your address and send! Time to complete: less than one minute.
Full details:
Every ten years, the Kansas legislature is tasked with redrawing a map of the state’s U.S Congressional districts with updated census data.
The legislature’s redistricting committee, made up of both senators and representatives, passed SB 355 out of committee, and sent it to the Senate for floor debate. It passed on January 21 by a vote of 26-9.
On January 25, the House was set to begin debating the bill. That same day was the Kansas Rally for Life where rallygoers learned that Congressional redistricting is important to the prolife movement because the abortion industry’s allies in Congress are committed to eliminating the Hyde Amendment, which for over 40 years has protected federal tax dollars from directly funding abortion.
The House debated and passed the bill on January 26 by a vote of 79-37. KFL took no positions on any of the amendments to SB 355 that were offered during the floor debates in both the Senate and the House.
SB 355 was then sent to Governor Kelly. The governor vetoed SB 355, an action which could have impacted Kansas’ Congressional districts for the benefit of the abortion industry.
You, as members of Kansans for Life, quickly got involved by sending emails through our alert system to ask senators and representatives to override the governor’s veto of SB 355.
On February 7, the Senate’s first attempt to override the governor’s veto failed by a vote of 24-15. The next day, another motion was made to override the governor’s veto and it passed by a vote of 27-11, indicating that there may have been other issues involved in legislators’ decision making.
The House successfully overrode the governor’s veto on February 9 by a vote of 85-37.
See the final veto override vote list on SB 355 for the Senate here and House here.
Next step: If you haven’t done so yet, please be sure to thank your legislators for voting to override the governor’s veto of SB 355. It only takes a minute but makes a big difference!