Kansas House leadership lays out priorities for 2025

by Staff Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (KAKE) – With the bang of a gavel, the 2025 session of the Kansas legislature got underway Monday afternoon. Lawmakers’ main job is to decide how to spend your tax dollars for your benefit and decide if they should change how much you pay in taxes, from sales tax to income tax.

Monday was day one of the 90 days lawmakers give themselves to get their yearly job done. Leadership, the Speaker of the Kansas House and President of the Kansas Senate, determines in large part what lawmakers actually end up working on.

Property taxes are top of mind this year for the top man in the Kansas House. He told KAKE News that’s because it’s something he’s been hearing about from voters since before lawmakers called it quits last spring.

You may remember the fight over a tax bill last year that led to a special session over the summer. One thing Republicans wanted but didn’t get much of was a cut to property taxes. They promised to try again this year. That’s a promise Speaker Dan Hawkins says he plans to keep.

“Property tax is the thing that we heard consistently at the doors throughout the campaign. I really believe us staying on message on property tax relief was one of the things that helped give us a bigger supermajority than what we had. So property tax is something that everybody’s felt,” he said.

Hawkins didn’t give much detail on what those changes might look like. And, while property tax cuts are the first thing on his to-do list this year, they don’t stand alone. His other top priority is getting the budget done quickly. To a certain extent, Hawkins controls what will go on the agenda for House members to work on. But that’s where his control ends, making predicting the outcomes of this session a lot harder.

That’s because every lawmaker, on both sides of the aisle, has his or her own ideas of what should happen. Democrats say they want property tax cuts, too, and are hopeful of reaching a compromise with Republicans on the issue.

“I think we can do something that, you know, will address property tax but also help renters throughout the state as well,” said Rep. Brandon Woodard, the House Minority Leader.

He says Democrats want to concentrate on overall affordable housing for all Kansans, regardless if they own or rent a home.

While it’s not a priority in the House, both Woodard and Hawkins agree that an attempt to ban gender affirming care will probably come up again this year, likely starting in the Senate.

“The transgender affirming care, having to do with surgery and…and puberty blockers on minors, you can bank on that coming out,” Hawkins said. “That will probably be out fairly quick.”

“Last year, Republicans wanted to ban and criminalize talk therapy alone. That bill was far too extreme,” Woodard said. “You know, obviously, we are going to have the backs of trans folks and LGBT folks.”

Some things just aren’t likely to happen at all, no matter how much support they have among Kansas voters. Things like legalizing medical marijuana and expanding Medicaid.

“I have been very upfront and transparent in the fact that we’ve done it,” Hawkins said of passing a medical marijuana bill. "It didn’t go anywhere. And so I’ve said the next bill has to come from the Senate.”

“If we can’t pass (Medicaid) expansion, we are going to look at what else we can do to help our rural health care system address things like uncompensated care, looking at mental health parity,” Woodard said.

He added Democrats aren’t giving up on expansion, despite the increased size of the Republican supermajority. And, of course, every year something pops up that no one can predict.

“It’s really kind of hard to say, because some of those things you don’t even know about, and they just come up,” Hawkins said.

KAKE News will be watching to see when those items do come up and let you know all about them and what they might mean for you and your family.