Minutes after an anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution failed in the House, Senate President Susan Wagle made clear the consequences.

In a nearly empty Senate chamber Friday afternoon, the Wichita Republican sent more than a dozen bills that could be used as legislative vehicles for Medicaid expansion back to committee, ensuring they won’t be passed anytime soon.

“We will not take up Medicaid expansion until the amendment is on the ballot,” declared Wagle, who running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

House Republicans tried in vain Friday to pass an amendment asserting that the state constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to an abortion. Even after taking the desperate parliamentary step of holding the roll open for more than five hours, lawmakers ended up four votes short of the two-thirds support needed to place it on a statewide ballot.

The measure cleared the Senate last week.

Amendment supporters, including the influential group Kansans for Life, are now engaged in an aggressive effort to block any progress on Medicaid expansion until their proposal clears the Legislature. Gov. Laura Kelly, Democrats and some Republicans have made increasing eligibility in the healthcare program a top priority.

The hardline tactic added a chaotic factor to the debate over the amendment, which had largely centered on abortion itself. Now the fate of both the amendment, and a measure that could bring health coverage to an additional 150,000 low-income Kansans, may be tied together.

For backers of the amendment, few things exceed its importance. Restrictions on abortion enacted over 30 years are now in danger, they warn, after the Kansas Supreme Court this spring found that the right to personal autonomy extends to a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.

Opponents fear the amendment would give the Legislature too much power over abortion, creating a legal environment in which lawmakers could ultimately ban the procedure if the federal right to an abortion is ever eliminated. Kelly said Friday the constitution “should not be permanently altered to make it easier for politicians to interfere with women and their doctors when serious medical decisions need to be made.”

For advocates of Medicaid expansion, hope had been growing that victory was finally within reach after years of setbacks. A deal struck by Kelly and Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, late last year paved the way for expansion in 2020, or so they thought.

All of it is now in doubt. Amid rising tensions, lawmakers fled the Capitol for the weekend with neither side signaling it planned to give in.

Responding to Wagle’s actions, House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said the senator was being “pretty childish to pull that.”

“You’ve got 150,000 Kansans that have been waiting seven years for the passage of Medicaid expansion,” Sawyer said. “It’s unfortunate that she’s going to make them wait longer.”

The blockade also drove a wedge between the Senate’s top Republican leaders. Denning, who faces a tough re-election bid, said Wagle hadn’t consulted him beforehand and that her actions and statements “in no way reflect the session plans of my office.”

“I believe in the legislative process,” Denning tweeted. “Her statements are obstructive and not how we should be governing.”

A Senate committee was expected to begin debating the Kelly-Denning compromise plan on Monday. It was unclear Friday whether that would still go forward.

In defending the linkage of the amendment and Medicaid, Wagle and Kansans for Life invoked the prospect of taxpayer-funded abortions. Under the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision, they argue, bans on abortions using state Medicaid dollars could be thrown out (federal law largely prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion).

“Absolutely it’s coming,” Wagle said of future court decisions eliminating the restrictions.

Kansans for Life lobbyist Jeanne Gawdun said in a statement that the amendment “is the only way to ensure expansion does not turn into a new public funding stream for abortion.”

Sawyer called their argument “ridiculous and a total red herring.”

“If they were truly pro-life they would support Medicaid expansion. It almost seems like they ought to change their name to Kansans for Fetuses or something,” Sawyer said.

Election concerns

Amendment supporters could potentially win House votes by moving the proposed date of the election from the August primary to the November general election ballot, which attracts a higher turnout.

All four Republicans who voted against the amendment Friday cited the election calendar as one of their concerns.

“That was one part of it,” said Rep. Jan Kessinger, an Overland Park Republican who voted no. “But the other is, if you want to stop abortion, stop pregnancy and that’s with low-cost or no-cost birth control.”

“I believe we must ensure an electoral process that guarantees the largest voter turnout,” Rep. Tom Phillips, a Manhattan Republican who also voted no, said in a statement.

But Kansans for Life has repeatedly called moving the election from August to November a “poison pill.” Other proponents have said the August election would allow voters to focus on Kansas-specific issues without also having to make decisions on federal races.

In an interview, Gawdun said that “anyone who votes against the amendment has do endorse the fact that there’s unlimited abortion in the state of Kansas throughout the entire nine months. And that’s what they have to own.”

Other amendments

Amending a state constitution to allow lawmakers to limit abortion rights is a relatively recent practice. Tennessee became the first in 2014, when voters decided the state constitution should not allow public funding for abortions and that lawmakers could regulate them .

Other states, like Alabama and West Virginia, have adopted similar amendments.

“The difference of a constitutional amendment is that you’re not just saying this is what we think is good policy,” said Katie Glenn, government affairs counsel at Americans United for Life. “You’re saying this is a fundamental right.”

Abortion rights advocates say these changes made at the state-level are a part of a broader, parallel initiative to ban abortion at the federal-level.

“If neither the state nor the federal level constitution protect abortion rights, then it will be possible to pass outright abortion bans,” said Elizabeth Nash, senior states issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group supporting abortion rights.

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