Health at the Capitol — 2026 Veto Session, episode 3

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Health at the Capitol - 2026 Veto Session, episode 3

Join us for Health at the Capitol - a Kansas Health Institute podcast and webcast focused on health-related policy discussions and action at the Kansas Legislature.

Summary:

The latest episode of Health at the Capitol takes a closer look at the 2026 Kansas legislative veto session, which brought significant attention to a range of health-related policies, with lawmakers overriding multiple gubernatorial vetoes and finalizing high-profile legislation.

Overall, the veto session underscored the legislature's willingness to assert its priorities through overrides, setting the stage for continued debate on access, affordability and public health.

Watch the episode. Listen as a podcast.

Full Transcript - Recorded April 22, 2026

Theresa Freed 0:00
The Kansas Health Institute supports effective policy making through nonpartisan research, education and engagement. Each legislative session, KHI is hard at work keeping you informed on the latest health policy discussions from across the street in Downtown Topeka. Health at the Capitol is a KHI production, a monthly recap with our legislative monitoring team, offering you a closer look at policy work happening now in Kansas and coming up.

Theresa Freed 0:27
Thanks for joining us for another edition of Health at the Capitol. I'm Theresa Freed, your host, joined by Linda Sheppard, who is the strategy team leader for our legislative monitoring team, and we are talking today about veto session, and there was a lot of activity in a short amount of time for this one. I remember, you know, I was sifting through my emails, and you'd see email after email from the governor saying she had vetoed something. So let's kind of recap some of the highlights of that.

Linda Sheppard 0:59
Yeah, so the legislature came back on the ninth for the for the veto session. They were scheduled to be here two days, and they did, in fact, stay, actually leaked over a little bit into very early on Saturday morning. But yeah, those days leading up to Thursday and Friday, that Thursday and Friday, the governor was signing bills and also vetoing bills, and obviously in preparation for them coming back and knowing that it was likely there were going to be some overrides that were going to be attempted. So while they were here, yes, they did a number of overrides for bills that she had previously vetoed and then, but a lot of bills went through signed, and she puts in her signing messages, you know, her support for the things that were done by the legislature that she could really agree to, and felt like they were very bipartisan. So, it was kind of what we expected. But yes, it was sort of a whirlwind of activity right there at the end.

Theresa Freed 2:02
Yeah. And then so again, there were three options, essentially, when they hit her desk, either sign it into law, let it go into law without her signing officially, or veto. So what exactly did she veto?

Linda Sheppard 2:15
So she vetoed. There were some bills that were related to probably the most significant one, the one that we were watching the most for all throughout the session, I think I mentioned this one when we did the first adjournment recording, that what we saw happening there towards the end of the session was bills were being moved around, and language being taken out of bills and moved down to other bills. And so all throughout the session, we had been following what was known as Senate Bill 363, that was focused on making some changes to eligibility and also the ways that people signed up for public assistance programs. And so it put some new rules into place for how that was done, the types of information that was needed to determine if you were eligible for those public assistance programs. And there was a lot of discussion in the agency of KDHE, specifically looking at the Medicaid program, and then also DCF, looking at SNAP, trying to figure out what was going to be required, if the items in that bill had had been approved. And the bill did sort of morph and change over time, but right towards that end, right before the veto session, everything got thrown into 2731 so now we had to start thinking about 2731 now. But that bill did get vetoed by her. I think there was clearly some concern about what those new rules meant and what kind of a burden that was going to place on the agency it tried to get those new rules through and getting people's eligibility approved. So, that was definitely one of those things. The other one, the other things that she was looking at, there were some bills that were related to notification and certain requirements, again, on KDHE, related to abortion providers and providing information to the women that were going there, making sure that they had the kind of information that the legislature wanted them to have. And again, I think there was some concern on her part about those new rules being put into place.

Theresa Freed 4:28
Those two bills that were vetoed ended up being overturned [overridden] and became law.

Linda Sheppard 4:33
But it was mostly those things. I mean, again, as I said, there was a lot to be celebrated in terms of some bills that that went through that she was certainly in agreement with them as well.

Theresa Freed 4:46
Okay, and so some of the legislation that we were monitoring, again, as a reminder, because of our name, obviously, we're very focused on the health-related legislation, but there was a lot of activity on legislation regarding substances and how they should be regulated. And so where did we end up?

Linda Sheppard 5:05
Yeah, there were a number of changes to the Controlled Substances Act. And so there were some, there were like 14 new substances that were added to schedule one, three and four, I think, and also some changes to definitions related to fentanyl and cannabinoids, and specifically, I mean, there's clearly, you could see some intention to trying to get state law to comply with some of the changes that are happening at the federal level. Although within the last few days, we've seen some potential changes in a different direction, particularly as it relates to marijuana at the federal level. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in upcoming sessions related to particularly to marijuana.

Theresa Freed 5:50
Okay, and another big area of focus has been child welfare. We saw some activity there as well.

Linda Sheppard 5:55
Yeah, you know, before the session even started, and I think we talked about this, our expectation was that we were going to see a lot of child welfare activity and we absolutely did. And it ran the gamut from very simple things to very extreme things. So, there was a lot of discussion and focus on, you know, social media. We had the cell phone bill that went through, and that one actually went through very early, so that didn't come down to the end, but the bell-to-bell cell phone bill went through and they were also increasing penalties for crimes against children, particularly very young children, so children under the age of 6, and also looking at some things that related to children in need of care, so for the CINC code, and also looking at and taking into consideration people who are being asked to deal with DCF as it relates to things happening to their children. And so, some new rules, tightening up who can go on a neglect or abuse registry, and giving them some opportunity to appeal that, or to have a chance to make some changes in the information that's provided on that registry. So that was on there too. But so, we went clear of the gamut from, you know, the crimes against children down to something really simple, which, by the way, this bill is still pending, which is kind of interesting. There's still a bill pending related to making sure the kids get 30, at least 30 minutes of recess every day. So I expect that bill, I think that bill was just handed to her within the last few days. So she she hasn't done anything with that yet. I don't think there's any expectation that she won't sign it. But anyway, so yeah, it ran really broad things that were happening related to children.

Theresa Freed 7:55
So among you know that item, are there other things that are just lingering that we're waiting on?

Linda Sheppard 8:01
Really, as far for the purposes of the bills. And again, as you alluded to the health-related bills, there are actually a handful of bills that we're still pending on a lot of different topics. But yeah, that recess bill is still out there. And then there's one other bill that's related to the Controlled Substances Act, and there was something that was left off the bill that was originally approved by her, and so they had to do a little quick fix. So that's still pending as well.

Theresa Freed 8:30
And so we're recording on April 22, so when will we be officially completely done with this session?

Linda Sheppard 8:36
Well, I mean, for all practical purposes, it's over. I think the other, you know, again, this has nothing to do with us, but the, I think the sort of big question right now is they did do a property tax bill, again, right at the last minute on Thursday and Friday, getting that through. And that bill has also not been signed. So it was, I think that one was actually just barely presented to her on Monday, the 20th, so it's not clear when that's going to happen. You know, I think we mentioned before that getting that property tax bill passed, which, of course, has nothing to do with health, but was a high priority for the legislature. If she were to veto that bill, for some reason, it's not clear, you know what they would do, because that was something that they were really trying to get done and wanted to accomplish. So that one's still hanging out there. But again, for our purposes, anyways, relates to health, I think, you know, we've seen everything that we're going to see.

Theresa Freed 9:37
And so over the next few months, there's still going to be activity happening, right? So kind of describe what that looks like.

Linda Sheppard 9:45
So, typically what happens is that throughout the session, and then after the session is over, the legislature starts talking about, were there particular issues that they wanted to take a look at or to study that they just really didn't have the time during the session, and so they will assign certain topics and charge certain interim committees with a topic that they want them to investigate and to discuss during the interim session. So, the interim committees typically don't start until sort of mid to late summer and then have been going clear into the fall. Now, we do think that maybe this year, we may not see as much of that, because this is the re-election year for all of the House members, so they may have fewer of those. We know the Bob Bethel KanCare Oversight Committee, it is statutorily required to meet as an interim committee, and also the Child Welfare Oversight Committee that one, there's already indication that they will be meeting, so we expect to see those, but the rest of the schedule may be a little light this year, so we'll see.

Theresa Freed 10:55
Well, as far as the interim committee, we will continue to monitor the activity, even if it's a little bit lighter and there's still plenty of activity happening at the federal level. We encourage you to keep up with those happenings through our Hill to the Heartland products. We have regular blogs where we look at in-depth topics, but also a digest-style information, where we're talking about just the things that are happening and what we should be watching. So we'll continue to provide both of those things throughout the year. So stay tuned. Thanks for joining us for Health at the Capitol. Sign up to receive our emails at khi.org to get a weekly recap of health policy activity during the Kansas legislative session. You'll also receive our latest publications and information about upcoming events you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Health at the Capitol Production Team

Theresa Freed, M.A., Host, Producer, Editor

Linda J. Sheppard, J.D., Strategy Team Leader, Health at the Capitol

Stewart Cole, Editor, Production Designer

Karsen DeWeese, M.P.H., Accessibility and Evaluation Lead

Cathy McNorton, Website Lead