Kansas political watcher makes November predictions, highlighting major U.S. Senate spending
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Why did Kansas voters reject the Supreme Court selection amendment?
Three cheers for passage of the 2026 Kansas primary election. Everybody, settle down, take a deep breath of fresh air. So we're gonna have a brief pause in the flood of mailers and ads assorted uh uh on assorted ri local, state, and federal government campaigns. I'm Tim Carpenter, a reporter with Kansas Reflector. And I'm here with Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University, and he's uh uh Really aggressive observer of Arkansas elections, and he's gonna try to help us sort it all out. Probably the big ticket item that uh occurred yesterday in the Tuesday primary was that the proposed constitutional amendment uh regarding the process for selecting justices to the Supreme Court was rejected.
Bob, do you have a general sense of why the Kansas voters said no to that?
Well, that they spoke in twenty twenty two big time about a similar type of amendment that involves abortion. And Four years later, uh, the attempt came in a different form, but many would argue in a worse form. А інс дайс аменмент вас аскін. Uh, voters to elect Supreme Court justices at the very time when there seems to be kind of the vibes out there uh in America of um not politicians not being so popular. So the vote no campaign this time around, one of their main themes was really, do you want our justices of the Supreme Court to be politicians? Do you want more dark money in PACs? Do you want more TV ads? So, in many ways, this was a an easier message for the no folks than in 2022, because it it had that element of not just
Just being involved with with the abortion debate, but asking voters, hey, you want more uh politics in your life? And the answer obviously was a resounding no.
And before you go on, Bob, I think uh I want to just provide people a little bit of background about how the current system is and how it might have been in the future. So currently we have a commission and they publicly interview all the applicants uh for to be a Supreme Court justice. They publicly vote on those and then they pick three finalists and they forward that to the Kansas governor. The Kansas governor deliberates interviews and just simply makes the appointment to the Supreme Court. Under this new system, as you suggested, the justices and uh potential justices would just become ordinary politicians. They'd raise money, they'd go out and campaign and they'd make pledges and they'd talk about issues, and they would have PACs trying to get in involved.
And so you'd really have them Involved in the process, just like politicians. What could go wrong? So when you think about uh the the idea, the the conservatives in the legislature uh put this on the ballot, what do you think the advocates for it had to do to prevail? What did they need to do to convince a majority of voters to go with this? Keep in mind, two-thirds said no.
Well, the the the advocates were in a bind because The the real the the intent was linked with abortion, the abortion issue. And if people say, What are you talking about? It was about democracy in the judges, then I asked this question. If the Kansas Supreme Court uh had ruled there is no right to an abortion in the Kansas Constitution, would the Republican supermort majority still have changed the system? And I think my answer at least for that is I don't think so. So it is linked to abortion. But the so the but the advocates, their hands were tied behind their back because they couldn't mention abortion. Because in 2022 that went down in flames when because there that's what that was about. So the those arguing for no definitely mention abortion.
I got mailers uh that literally just simply said, hey, did we already dealt with this abortion issue and it's back again. So they use that prominently prominently in their messaging, whereas the advocates couldn't. So what I I noticed was the advocates sort of were falling back on the tropes of generic campaigning, which were uh Illegal aliens, criminal cartels are running loose, murders, rapists, and arguing that that's the Supreme Court were coddling these people.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Kansas voters reject the Supreme Court selection amendment?
0:00–5:37
2
How did the primary results shape the Republican governor’s race?
5:37–10:03
3
What factors made Ty Masterson the GOP nominee for governor?
10:03–14:25
4
Why is Adam Hamilton’s fundraising advantage crucial for the U.S. Senate race?
14:25–18:26
5
How will the Kansas Senate race become the nation’s top Senate contest in November?
18:26–22:00
6
What role will the Kansas State Fair debates play in the general election?
22:00–25:52
7
How could the attorney‑general and insurance‑commissioner races impact down‑ballot dynamics?
25:52–30:16
8
What are the key takeaways and predictions as the episode wraps up?
30:16–34:29
Speakers
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