Kansas Legislature – 2025
The 2025 Kansas Legislature convened on Monday, January 13, 2025. Republicans increased their super-majority in both the Kansas House and the Kansas Senate in the 2024 election, meaning that there will likely be fewer positive changes to Kansas Family Law and possibly some regressive bills and concepts introduced. As in past years, the pundits anticipated the right-wing House and Senate leadership would be more partisan and less concerned about populations that did not vote for their party representatives. The culture war drumbeat has been strong in the Kansas Senate, where reactionary senators were put in charge of major committees, and will likely increase in the Kansas House with the primary defeat of “moderate” Republicans in favor of hard-right wing candidtes in 2024.
The Kansas legislative session generally runs for 90 days, from early January until approximately mid-April.
Bills introduced in the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions are dead, and any bills to be considered must be introduced anew. Any bills introduced in 2025 that are not enacted will carry over to the 2026 legislative session.
For the 2025 Session of the Kansas Legislature, individual requests for bill introductions had to be submitted before February 8, 2025; with committee introductions on or before February 10, 2025. All bills must pass the house-of-origin on or before February 23, 2025 (with some exceptions), or they die for the session. The second house turn-around is scheduled for March 29, 2025 (unless by exempt committee). No bills can be considered after April 6, 2025, except for bills vetoed by the Governor, Omnibus Appropriations bills, and Omnibus Reconciliation Spending Limit bills unless there is a vote to suspend those deadlines. The House and Senate returned for a veto session on or about April 26, 2025.
Senate:
SB135: Child custody; Protection from Abuse; precedence of child-related orders issued under the Protection from Abuse Act.
This bill was introduced on January 30, 2025, through the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was requested by the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. The bill provides that any child custody provision contained in a protection from abuse order cannot be modified by a subsequent ex parte or temporary order issued in any action, except as provided by orders issued in a child in need of care or under the juvenile justice code.
The bill was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee for hearings. A hearing on the bill was scheduled for Tuesday, February 4, 2025, at 10:30 AM in Room 346-S.
House:
HB2026: Marriage; requiring persons to be 18 years of age or older to be eligible to give consent for marriage; excluding certain days from being counted toward the current three-day waiting period
This bill was introduced on January 16, 2025, by Rep. Stephanie Clayton (D-Johnson County). It would change Kansas law to mandate that a person must be at least 18 years of age to get married, and it would also eliminate exceptions currently recognized by Kansas law (parental consent). Rep. Clayton filed the same bill in 2021 (2021HB2422) and 2024 (2024HB2046). The bill introduced in 2021 was heard by the House Federal & State Affairs Committee without opposition and with tens of presenters speaking in favor. Because the bill was introduced close to the end of the 2021 Session, however, the Committee did not advance it. The 2024 bill did not receive a hearing. Similar proposals have been pushed for decades throughout the world by various organizations (including the International Academy of Family Lawyers) and other advocates to stop children from being abused and enslaved by their families. In an article about the previous bill from 2021, the Kansas City Star noted that Clayton’s 2021 bill was the first attempt to change the minimum age for marriage in Kansas in recent years. Until 2006, the state allowed children of any age to marry with parental permission. That year, the Kansas Legislature finally limited the state’s practice of allowing common-law marriages only to those persons who were aged 18 or older.
The bill was assigned to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee for hearings
This bill was introduced on January 22, 2025, through the House Judiciary Committee at the request of Rep. L. Williams (R-Lenexa). It is a repeat of a bill introduced on January 31, 2024, by Rep.Leah Howell (R-Derby) on behalf of Kansas Family Voice, a right-wing, anti-choice, “conservative Christian” advocacy group. The bill would amend KSA 20-165, which sets out the factors the Kansas Supreme Court should consider in adopting and modifying child support guidelines required by federal law. The bill would require the Supreme Court to adopt rules that consider the direct medical and pregnancy-related expenses for the mother of an unborn child and the unborn child. Additionally, the bill would specify the maximum amount of ordered child support of an unborn child is not to exceed the direct medical and pregnancy-related expenses of the mother of the unborn child, excluding any costs related to an elective abortion. (Kansas law already allows for assessing birth expenses–including expenses related to pregnancy–in a parentage case. The insertion of this provision for consideration of birth expenses in child support guidelines is an uneducated attempt to insert anti-choice rhetoric into parentage cases through the guidelines–at a statutory location where it simply does not belong).
The bill was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee for hearings.
HB2075: CINC; requiring a permanency hearing for a child in custody be held within nine months from child’s removal from the home.
This bill was introduced on January 23, 2025, by the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care at the request of Laura Howard, Secretary for Children and Families. The bill would reduce the required time for a permanency hearing in a CINC matter from 12 months to 9 months after a child’s removal from the child’s home.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care for hearings.
HB2076: CINC; reducing the authorized number of days a child may be placed in a secure facility and eliminating the court’s option to extend such authorization.
This bill was introduced on January 23, 2025, by the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care at the request of Laura Howard, Secretary for Children and Families. The bill would reduce the number of days a child may be placed in a secure facility from 60 days to 45 days.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care for hearings.
HB2181: Kansas Uniform Arbitration Act.
This bill was introduced on January 30, 2025, by the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice. The bill was previously introduced into the Kansas Legislature in 2020 and in 2022. This bill would enact the Uniform Family Law Arbitration Act (UFLAA). If enacted, Kansas would be the fifth state to adopt the UFLAA (North Dakota, Arizona, Hawaii, and Montana being the other states that have adopted the Act) since it was proposed in 2016. The UFLAA was previously introduced in the 2020 legislative session as 2020HB2533, and again in the 2022 legislative session as 2022HB2496. In 2023, the bill was introduced as 2023HB2017. In 2020, the bill died when it was stricken from the House Calendar after being passed out of the House Judiciary Committee favorably, because of adjournment of the Covid-19 shortened 2020 session. The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the bill in the 2022 session, with the full House passing the bill 121-0. In 2022, the bill died when it was not taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 2023, the bill pass the House Yea: 122 Nay: 0, sending it to the Senate for Consideration. The bill was received and introduced into the Kansas Senate on February 1, 2023, and assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration on February 2, 2023. The Senate Committee scheduled a hearing on the bill, but it was passed over by the Senate Committee on the day of the hearing without comment.
The uniform act sets out arbitration procedures chronologically, from defining an arbitration agreement to providing standards for vacating a confirmed award. Many of the provisions of the UFLAA are familiar to arbitrators and practitioners in the dispute resolution field because the UFLAA is based in part on the Uniform Arbitration Act (1955) and Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (2000) (which was adopted by the Kansas Legislature in 2017). The UFLAA’s provisions for arbitrator disclosure, award, appeals, and arbitrator immunity, among others, are drawn substantially from these earlier uniform acts. Since family law disputes are different from traditional commercial disputes, however, the UFLAA contains some key provisions that do not appear in the Uniform Arbitration Act or Revised Uniform Arbitration Act. The Reporter for the UFLAA was Washburn Law School Professor Linda Elrod.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice for hearings. On February 5, 2025, the bill was withdrawn from the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice and referred instead to the House Committee on Judiciary.
HB2192: Crimes; Domestic battery; prohibiting work release to a person convicted of a second or third offense of domestic battery
This bill was introduced through the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice on January 31, 2025. It would require that a person convicted of domestic battery serve at least 90 days in jail and would prohibit a work release for a person convicted of a second or third offense of domestic battery during that time.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice. The Committee scheduled a hearing on the bill for Monday, February 10, 2025, at 1:30 PM in Room 546-S.
HB2198: Enacting the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act
This bill was introduced on January 31, 2025, by Rep. Barbara Ballard (D-Lawrence). It is a re-introduction of previous sessions’ filings of ‘red flag acts’ proposed in the 2018 and 2019 legislative sessions (2018HB2769 and 2019HB2129). It would provide a way for police and family members to petition the district court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Federal and State Affairs for consideration.
HB2207: CINC; authorizing parents of a child subject to investigation to access those investigative records
This bill was introduced on February 3, 2025, through the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care. It would allow the parents of a child who is the subject of an investigation of abuse or neglect or a child in need of care proceeding and victims of childhood abuse or neglect to access the court records and social file for that such investigation or proceeding. The bill would also require that the court or agency must provide the information from the court file and social file to the requesting parent within three days of the request–excluding the identities of any person who reported the abuse or neglect. The bill is amazingly over broad, and incredibly dangerous for any child who may be in protective custody.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care for hearings. The bill was scheduled for a hearing to be held on Monday, February 10, 2025, at 1:30 PM in Room 152-S.
HB 2302: CINC; requiring a law enforcement officer to contact and consult with the secretary for children and families before taking a child into custody
This bill was introduced on February 5, 2025, by Rep. Jerrod Ousley (D-Merriam). It would amend KSA 38-2231, which provides for law enforcement to remove a child from a place or residence if the officer reasonably believes the child will be harmed if not immediately removed. The proposed amendment would require the officer first contact and receive a response from the Department of Children and Families before the removal — and require that DCF provide a rapid response to such inquiries whenever made.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care for hearings.
HB2311: Foster care; prohibiting policies for placement, custody and appointment of a custodian that may conflict with “sincerely held” religious or moral beliefs “regarding sexual orientation or gender identity”
This bill was introduced on February 6, 2025, through the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care. It would prohibit the Department of Children and Families from adopting or enforcing any policy for placement, custody, or appointment of a custodian that “may conflict with the ‘sincerely held’ beliefs of the foster parent regarding sexual orientation or gender identity” further diving into the culture wars by instituting religious-based beliefs of one fringe group over the entire population.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care for consideration.