Starting off 2025: January State Legislative Update

Health Forward is supporting and building inclusive, powerful, and healthy communities by prioritizing people who experience the greatest injustices in health outcomes. We are working to remove those injustices through our leadership, advocacy, and resources.

The 2025 sessions have really leapt out ahead of where we were at this point last year. Lots of legislation is moving on both sides of the state line and we’ve got our hands full tracking and weighing in on them, all while balancing our community events like our Annual Policy Forum on Jan. 9 and Missouri Advocacy Day on Feb. 4.

Take a look at our policy agendas for Kansas and Missouri, to get a sense of how the action in Kansas and Missouri impacts the outcomes we seek to advance through Health Forward’s purpose plan.

Kansas

• Once again, the push to eliminate the three-day grace period for returning advance mail-in ballots is on the menu for some legislators. SB 4 and HB 2017 both would require that these ballots be returned by 7 p.m. on election day, which would potentially disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially rural Kansans. We testified in opposition to SB 4 earlier in the month, but the hearing on HB 2017 was cancelled, which means SB 4 is the main bill for this.
• The post-COVID push to limit the authority of public health officials at the local and state levels continues into its third year with SBs 19 and 29. Our primary concern in these bills is that they limit the authority of local and state health officials to implement reasonable regulations, like isolation or personal protective equipment, to prevent the spread of infectious disease outbreaks. We testified in opposition to both of these bills.
• Legislation on housing is also starting to make headway in committees. HB 2119, which we oppose, would eliminate the statewide affordable housing tax credit in Kansas, which has spurred the development of thousands of homes in the state. Thank you to UCS of Johnson for their efforts to coordinate advocacy on this bill. On a brighter note, we recently supported HB 2074 when it was heard in committee, as it would restore the homestead property tax refund to renters.

People policy goal: People can easily access safe, quality, and affordable whole—person care.

Power policy goal: Participation in our democracy and policymaking process improves health outcomes.

Place policy goal: Our communities are healthy place where people fully participate in the digital economy and build wealth through safe, quality, and affordable housing and homeownership.

Platform policy goal: Community health is influenced by systems, policies, and stories that promote racial equity and economic inclusion.

A comprehensive view of what we’re tracking can be found at our full Kansas Bill Tracker, which includes bills from last year that are still viable.

Missouri

• The House of Representatives is moving a high volume of legislation extremely fast. We’ve seen a new anti-DEI bill, HB 742, get heard quickly and move out of committee. It bans all state money spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion which jeopardizes billions of dollars in economic activity and thousands of jobs, not to mention health equity programs across the state. We testified in opposition.
• We’re also watching and actively working against the slate of bills that either undermine the will of the people or make it more difficult for people to express their policy needs through the ballot initiative process. Proposition A – which voters passed to guarantee paid sick leave and raise wages for 1.1 million Missourians – would be undermined by proposed legislation. HBs 546, 567, 758, and 958 would prevent Proposition A from going into effect in a variety of ways. This is in addition to the attacks on reproductive rights that were enshrined by Amendment 3, too. Some of these include HJR 54 and SJR 23 which use misleading language to ban access to reproductive health and prohibit gender affirming care.
• On top of all that, there are well over a dozen bills to undermine the initiative petition process or resolutions that go to a vote of the people. SB 22 would make it so courts couldn’t modify summary statements on resolutions coming from the General Assembly, and HBs 551 and
• Finally, we testified against the bills that preempt localities from requiring landlords to accept housing assistance for people with limited optons for affordable place to live – those are HBs 343 and 595. In a time where rents are increasing at unprecedented rates, this takes away a tool for local communities to help people secure a roof over their head and the opportunities for improved health outcomes that result

People policy goal: People can easily access safe, quality, and affordable whole—person care.

Power policy goal: Participation in our democracy and policymaking process improves health outcomes.

Place policy goal: Our communities are healthy place where people fully participate in the digital economy and build wealth through safe, quality, and affordable housing and homeownership.

Platform policy goal: Community health is influenced by systems, policies, and stories that promote racial equity and economic inclusion.

These bills highlighted are ones we are keeping a focus on, but here is a full list of the bills we’re tracking in Missouri.