A two-thirds majority of the Kansas Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Laura Kelly's veto on a bill banning transgender students from girls sports as well as a bill ensuring parents can view and challenge classroom content.
But the bills' chances of becoming law are far from certain.
It's unclear if and when the Kansas House will take up the measures or if they'll have the 84 votes needed. The chamber was 10 votes short of a veto-proof majority when it passed the bill earlier this month.
"This week we don't, we still have members missing," House Speaker Ron Ryckman said Tuesday when asked whether he had sufficient votes to pass the overrides. "We'll have some time to revisit both those issues with our members."
Ryckman said he hopes to bring the issues for a vote before the Legislature's 30-day deadline and may call the House back in the coming weeks to vote.
Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, said Ryckman's comments indicated he planned to spend the next several weeks "bullying" lawmakers into changing their votes.
"They don't have enough votes to override the veto and they know it and they're going to spend the next couple of weeks twisting people's arms and threatening them," Witt said.
The Senate passed both the bill banning transgender athletes from girls sports and the parents bill of rights with a veto-proof majority.
In the Senate's sixth debate on the transgender athletes ban in the last two years, lawmakers repeated arguments they've consistently made. Proponents said the bill would ensure fair competition, saying transgender athletes have an unfair advantage.
Opponents said the bill puts transgender students at risk.
"This bill shreds personal privacy and health care privacy rights," said Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin Democrat.
Following the vote, Senate President Ty Masterson wouldn't predict whether the override would succeed in the House.
"I'm very proud of our chamber," Masterson said. "I was very pleased. Quite frankly until the vote was cast I wasn't sure how it was going to land."
Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for Kansas Family Voice — a main proponent of both bills — said she wasn't yet concerned that the House hadn't scheduled a vote.
"We feel pretty decent that if the leadership decides to run 'save girls sports,' we can get there," Jones said, referring to a name proponents' use for the policy. "I want them to take a vote at some point. At this point because I don't know what the schedule is. I'm not super concerned about what the timing will look like."
Witt said leadership is simply interested in bullying, as evidenced, he said, by a lack of response to Mulvane Rep. Cheryl Helmer's comments disparaging Rep. Stephanie Byers, the first transgender lawmaker in Kansas.
Witt, on behalf of Equality Kansas, sent Ryckman and other members of House leadership a letter demanding disciplinary action against Helmer.
The parents bill of rights proposal came as Republican candidates nationwide push for educational transparency, following anger over COVID-19 restrictions and how topics like race and LGBTQ rights are taught in schools.
The bill codifies 12 "rights" for parents and requires public school districts to develop processes by which parents can challenge materials. Advocates argue that the bill would ensure that schools across the state uniformly grant parents involvement in their children's education.
"How are parents involved in that educational, that vital role of parental engagement? What we have happening, we saw that occurring right here in this area of the state, we have parents that have been turned away by school boards, by educators, because they're asking questions," Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican, said. "Because they want to see the materials that will be provided to their minor children."
Opponents, including many educators, have argued that parents already enjoy the rights that lawmakers have sought to establish, including having access to school board meetings and an ability to see and question learning and reading materials.
Kelly previously called the measure a "teacher demoralization act."
Nationally and across the state, some parents have been challenging library books, most of which have racial or LGBTQ themes, deeming them too graphic or inappropriate for students. Under the parents bill of rights, any parent could challenge the material or educational benefit of any book available in a school library.
"This bill creates division in our schools in a time where we are emerging from a pandemic. Puts even more workload on overworked educators when we are facing a teacher workforce shortage," Sen. Jeff Pittman, a Leavenworth Democrat, said. "This bill incentivizes book bans at a time when kids have almost unlimited access to content on the internet. It limits critical thinking activities and has empty processes and transparency already in existence."
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The Star's Jonathan Shorman contributed to this story.
