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 has 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 in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Tuesday’s ballot measure campaign drew more than $12 million in spending in 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 their state Supreme Court justices: After they are appointed, justices face a retention vote from voters after one year, and then every six years after that.

Another core part of their message was that keeping the judicial process should be kept 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 one 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 , voters in 21 states directly elect state Supreme Court justices.