Kansas voters reject GOP-backed measure to directly elect state Supreme Court justices

Kansas voters have rejected a Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have allowed them to directly elect state Supreme Court justices, The Associated Press projects.

In Kansas, the governor — who since 2019 has been Democrat Laura Kelly — has the power to appoint state Supreme Court justices, chosen from a list created by a nine-member nonpartisan commission. The measure on Tuesday’s ballot, which was referred by the GOP-controlled Legislature, proposed abolishing that system in favor of contests that would have more closely resembled partisan races for other elected offices.

The move came after the Kansas Supreme Court dealt conservatives some setbacks in recent years, including a 2019 ruling that the state constitution protected the right to an abortion. Voters sided with that decision three years later after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Tuesday’s ballot measure campaign drew more than $12 million in spending on the airwaves, according to the tracking firm AdImpact, with opponents outspending supporters by more than 2-to-1.

Opponents of the initiative argued that Kansas voters already have some say in who their state Supreme Court justices are: After they are appointed, justices face retention votes from voters after one year and then every six years afterward.

Another core part of their message was keeping the judicial process separate from electoral politics to avoid partisan influences. In Wisconsin, for instance, recent state Supreme Court elections — which are nonpartisan in name only — have drawn tens of millions of dollars and attention from billionaire donors like Elon Musk.

“‘No’ stops judges from becoming politicians. ‘No’ prevents billionaires from buying seats on the court,” a narrator said in an ad from Kansas United for Impartial Courts, one of two major groups that opposed the ballot measure.

Supporters of the effort argued that voters should have more input in the process. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, voters in 21 states directly elect supreme court justices.

In a spot run by the biggest spender on the pro-amendment side — a group called Kansans for Democracy Inc. — a narrator criticizes the current commission system, ripping “elites” for getting to “decide who’s on the Kansas Supreme Court, behind closed doors, trading favors, rewarding friends.”

“The public can’t see it or control it. Voters like you completely cut out,” the narrator adds.

While none of the ads from either side mention abortion rights or other hot-button political issues that state supreme courts tend to rule on, Democratic operatives in Kansas told NBC News that the intent of the measure was clear.

They noted that as far back as 2019, state Attorney General Kris Kobach, formerly Kansas’ secretary of state, had called on the Legislature to advance a ballot measure to pave the way for the direct election of Supreme Court justices. In 2022, Kobach told The Wichita Eagle that such a move would allow, “slowly and quietly,” for anti-abortion justices to be placed on the court.

“This is about abortion,” Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s vote. “Plain and simple.”

Progressives also argued that Republicans chose to put the measure on the August primary ballot, rather than on the one for the November general election, to take advantage of lower voter turnout.