Top 5 Kansas news stories
July 27 2026
Kansas Primary Enters Final Week With Tuesday Ballot Deadline
Wichita's Republican DA Urges 'No' on Electing Supreme Court Justices
Data Center Freezes Sweep Kansas as Dickinson County Vote Nears
Hays Pegs R9 Water Pipeline at $120 Million
Goodland Hits Record 107 as Heat, Drought Grip Kansas
Kansas Primary Enters Final Week With Tuesday Ballot Deadline
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas's Aug. 4 primary enters its final week, and Tuesday, July 28, is the deadline for voters to apply for an advance ballot by mail through their county election office. In-person advance voting continues at county offices. Election officials say mail ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, a deadline complicated by ongoing litigation over the Legislature's repeal of the state's three-day mail-ballot grace period. The ballot includes an open governor's race with seven Republicans and three Democrats and a U.S. Senate primary in which incumbent Republican Roger Marshall faces a challenger while 11 Democrats seek their party's nomination. Unlike the candidate contests, the constitutional amendment on judicial selection will be decided outright on Aug. 4: a simple majority would end the merit-based system in which a nominating commission sends Supreme Court finalists to the governor and switch Kansas to directly electing its justices. Unaffiliated voters, who cannot vote in party primaries, are fully eligible to vote on it.
Kansas Secretary of State · Sedgwick County · KSN · KCTV5
Wichita's Republican DA Urges 'No' on Electing Supreme Court Justices
WICHITA, Kan. — Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett, a Republican who has led the state's largest local prosecutor's office since 2013, urged Kansans on Thursday to reject the Aug. 4 constitutional amendment that would switch Kansas to direct elections of its Supreme Court justices. Bennett argued that electing justices would pull campaign money and partisan politics into the courtroom and risk rulings swayed by donors, adding that he supports reforming the appointment process but not rewriting the constitution. Kansas currently uses a nominating commission of lawyers and citizens that screens applicants and sends finalists to the governor, a merit-selection system adopted in 1958 after a court-packing scandal, and Bennett said about 34 states plus Washington, D.C., use some form of commission. Supporters of the amendment, chiefly the Republican legislators who placed it on the ballot, counter that voters deserve a direct voice in choosing justices and that the current system gives attorneys outsized influence over the court. The measure passes with a simple majority at the primary election, when turnout typically runs far lower than in November, and every registered voter, including unaffiliated voters, may vote on it. Passage would mark the most significant restructuring of the Kansas judiciary in nearly 70 years, shaping who decides future cases on abortion, school funding and elections.
KWCH · KAKE · Wikipedia
Data Center Freezes Sweep Kansas as Dickinson County Vote Nears
ABILENE, Kan. — The Dickinson County Commission is expected to vote during the week of July 27 on a planning commission recommendation for a three-year moratorium on data centers, alternative energy projects and battery energy storage, making the county the latest to join a rolling freeze on data-center development that has swept Kansas local government in 2026. A Citizen Journal review of roughly 1,186 meeting reports on file finds "data center" and "moratorium" now appear together in 48 of them, a wave regional coverage has captured only in pieces. Harvey County voted unanimously in January to bar the projects in unincorporated areas through 2028, Saline County followed in March with a three-year ban that also covers nuclear and hydrogen plants, and Riley County imposed a 180-day pause in April after energy-company inquiries. In July, Topeka's council unanimously passed a 12-month moratorium that includes battery storage, and Lawrence stretched a proposed 12-month pause to 24 months while stripping data centers' by-right zoning status. The wave is not unanimous: a proposed Shawnee County moratorium died for lack of a second, though that planning commission voted 6-1 to require conditional use permits for data centers and battery storage, and Edgerton's council overrode its own planning commission July 16 to approve a Dubai-backed 400,000-square-foot data center, the Johnson County Post reported. Officials across the state cite water demand, grid capacity and farmland preservation, and the regulations these bodies write during their pauses will decide where one of the fastest-growing land uses in rural Kansas can locate for a decade.
Citizen Journal meeting archive · Johnson County Post · Lawrence Journal-World · WIBW · KSN · The Mercury · MSN
Hays Pegs R9 Water Pipeline at $120 Million
HAYS, Kan. — Hays and Russell's decades-long plan to pipe groundwater from the R9 Ranch in Edwards County to the two drought-prone Interstate 70 cities now carries an estimated $120 million cost for its 70-mile transmission line and wellfield, project manager John Braun told the Hays City Commission on July 23. The city plans to pay for it with federal grants, a federal infrastructure loan and $15 million in state matching funds from the Build Kansas Fund. City Manager Toby Dougherty reported that the Kansas Supreme Court's ruling on the original challenge to converting the R9 water rights from irrigation to municipal use, argued in December 2025, could come any Friday, and the city also awaits a judge's ruling on its motion in a lawsuit against Edwards County over zoning practices the city contends are unlawful. The pending rulings will determine whether one of the largest municipal water investments in western Kansas history can go to construction.
Cronkite
Hays City Commission · Hays Post · Kansas Reflector
Goodland Hits Record 107 as Heat, Drought Grip Kansas
GOODLAND, Kan. — The National Weather Service station in Goodland reached 107 degrees Sunday, breaking a daily record of 106 that had stood since 1936, as dangerously hot air settled over the entire state and Wichita logged its first 100-degree day of 2026 on Saturday. Heat index values across northeast and east-central Kansas climbed to between 108 and 115 degrees Sunday, extreme heat warnings and advisories remain in effect into Tuesday morning with Monday highs forecast near 106, and more than 1,000 Evergy customers in the Kansas City area lost power Sunday afternoon as the grid strained. Heat kills more Americans in a typical year than tornadoes or floods, and officials urged residents to limit outdoor activity, drink water and check on elderly neighbors and pets. The heat compounds a deepening drought, as Brownfield Ag News reported Friday that parts of north-central Kansas have gone nearly a month without meaningful rain, leaving soil cracks up to two inches wide and corn browning from the bottom of the plant up in tighter and sandier ground. Late July is when corn pollinates and fills grain, so the next two weeks of heat and rain will largely shape the fall harvest in a state already debating how to stretch the declining Ogallala Aquifer.
KSN · KWCH · WIBW · KCTV5 · Fox4 · Brownfield Ag News
Sources
- Kansas Secretary of State / Sedgwick County / KSN / KCTV5
- KWCH / KAKE / Wikipedia
- Dickinson County Commission / Topeka City Council / Lawrence City Commission / Saline County Commission / Riley County Commission / Harvey County Commission / Shawnee County Planning Commission / Lawrence Journal-World / WIBW / KSN / The Mercury / Johnson County Post / MSN
- Hays City Commission / Hays Post / Kansas Reflector
- KSN / KWCH / WIBW / KCTV5 / Fox4 / Brownfield Ag News
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