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Frustrated by the appointed court’s support of abortion rights, which has been affirmed resoundingly by voters, Republicans are pushing an Aug. 4 referendum to elect Kansas justices.
July 11, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET
A summer ballot measure in Kansas four years ago showed the enduring popularity of abortion rights even in deeply red states, and started a trend of ballot measures to defend them.
Next month, Kansas will again vote on a measure with consequences for abortion — as well as for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, congressional redistricting and other hot-button issues. But none of those words will appear on the ballot.
Kansans this time will decide whether to elect their state’s supreme court.
Frustrated by the appointed court’s decisions, especially on abortion, Kansas’ Republican-controlled legislature put a measure on the Aug. 4 primary ballot to abolish the current system under which the governor — since 2019, a Democrat and supporter of abortion rights — chooses justices from a list submitted by a nine-member commission of lawyers.
Republicans see this as their best hope to finally overturn a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that recognized a right to abortion in the state’s Constitution, a decision affirmed by voters in 2022 when they declined to overturn it.
The state has become an abortion access point for women from the South in the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the federal Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. Planned Parenthood, the state’s largest provider, says its affiliate there has seen a 700 percent increase in abortions since Roe v. Wade was overturned, well outpacing the national rates. Some 75 percent of women have come from out of state.
Opponents and backers alike say that if the measure passes, it could inspire similar moves to elect courts in other red and purple states where nonelected supreme courts have blocked Republican efforts to ban abortion or gender transition treatments, and to abolish independent redistricting commissions.
