The Senate approved a resolution Wednesday condemning a federal directive over the use of school restrooms by transgender students as the final act of the 2016 legislative session.

The attorney general’s office also joined a lawsuit challenging the guidance, assailing it as federal overreach. Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office said the state will join a federal lawsuit filed in May by a number of states.

The federal guidance urges schools to allow transgender students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify. The guidance cites federal law, commonly known as Title IX.

"The bottom line is that Kansas will challenge the Obama administration’s attempt to unilaterally rewrite Title IX in an unprecedented way that further expands federal power," Schmidt said. "In our federal system of government, not every decision needs to be handed down from Washington, and this is a matter best left to state or local authorities, including school boards, as it traditionally has been — and as the law requires."

Tom Witt, director of Equality Kansas, predicted the state would lose the lawsuit.

"I’m still puzzled why this state wants to pick on transgender children. They’re about keeping transgender kids from going to the bathroom," Witt said.

A few hours after Schmidt’s announcement, the Senate took up a resolution brought by Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, criticizing the guidance. Wagle said schools face the threat of losing federal funds if they don’t comply.

The Senate approved the resolution 30-8 after a lengthy debate. The chamber, which had returned for the formal last day of session, adjourned immediately afterward.

Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, R-Leavenworth, said the federal directive amounted to an announcement that Kansas should "bow down" to the federal government and serve up children to those who would take advantage of them.

"We have to return to sanity. We have to return to that civilization — western civilization, Christendom — that we were lucky enough to have inherited from our parents and our grandparents. We have a responsibility, sacred responsibility to preserve and pass it on for our children and grandchildren and we are failing, badly," Fitzgerald said.

The resolution became entwined in a debate over school funding. GOP lawmakers opted not to respond Wednesday to a Friday state Supreme Court ruling that found funding unconstitutionally inequitable. The decision drew criticism from Democrats.

"If we are truly concerned about keeping schools open in August, we should have used this sine die session to appropriate the required amount of money — in this case, $38 million — for school funding equity rather than waste taxpayers’ dollars on an election-year charade over which bathroom students should use," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka.

Wagle said the Legislature wasn’t ignoring the ruling but had chosen not to act at this time. Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, R-Nickerson, also pushed back against criticism for responding to the transgender guidance but not the Supreme Court ruling.

"If you believe your son has a right to see my daughter in various stages of undress, you’re wrong. And if you believe the Kansas Legislature avoided its duty to equitably fund schools, you’re equally wrong," Bruce said.