Residents of Kansas may soon be able to have a say in who sits atop the state’s highest court.
On Thursday, March 6, 2025, the Kansas Senate approved SCR 1611, a constitutional amendment giving Kansans the right to elect justices to the Kansas Supreme Court. The Senate vote was 27-13, with all Democrats and four Republicans voting against the bill.
Kansas is the only state in the Union in which members of the state supreme court are nominated not by the governor but by a nominating commission controlled by the Kansas Bar Association.
The bar association then nominates three candidates from whom the governor then makes an appointment.
If also adopted by the House, SCR 1611 would be put on the ballot in August 2026 for a vote of the people. If passed on the ballot with a simple majority, elections for the Kansas Supreme Court would begin in 2028.
Kansas would join 22 other states that use direct elections for their state supreme courts. A number of states use a nominating commission, but only Kansas has a commission controlled by the state bar.
“Kansas currently stands alone as the only state in the union that enshrines the power to decide who sits on our highest court to a commission controlled by five lawyers selected by other lawyers,” Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson (R-Andover). “This outlier system has failed, producing an often-overturned court that has no real accountability to the people. Rather than a system that consolidates authority in the hands of an elite society of super voters, it’s time to restore that power to all Kansans.”
It’s not the first time Masterson has called for changes to the way state justices are nominated.
In July 2019, two justices, Lawton Nuss and Lee Johnson, announced they were stepping down prior to the mandated retirement age for justices of 75.
At the time, Masterson moved for a constitutional amendment that would have put Kansas on the “federal model” in which the governor makes selections with the advice and consent of the Kansas Senate. While his motion was made on the last day of the session, and the only vote was procedural, it did receive the 27 votes that would have been needed to put the matter on the ballot.
Lawmakers changed the appointment system for the Kansas Court of Appeals from a merit-based system to a federal model in 2013, allowing the Governor to nominate appellate court judges subject to Senate confirmation.
The Kansas chapter of the ACLU opposed SCR1611.
“SCR 1611 seeks to dismantle Kansas’ merit-based judicial selection system and replace it with partisan judicial elections,” the submitted testimony reads. “This would inject politics into our courts, undermine judicial independence, and erode public trust in the judiciary. The ACLU of Kansas opposes this proposal because it threatens the rule of law, weakens the separation of powers, and allows special interests and partisan agendas to influence our state’s highest court.
