Doug Shane for Kansas Senate: Learn About the Issues

Top Issues

Kansans are wanting to know that their government is helping them reach the stars, not get in the way. Regardless of where you live in senate district 37, you understand that affording daily life is becoming more difficult. Whether you are a service-disabled veteran, a young single mom, or family preparing to send your first child to college - the toll of taxation and inflation has become unbearable.

I am PROUD to be your senator

At the most fundamental level, government exists to serve you. So, I embarked on this journey in the Kansas Legislature emphatically passionate about being the voice of the citizen and committed to viewing all issues through the lens of the citizens’ interests. Some things I worked on as your Senator:

Working to make government more transparent and accountable
Added $300,000 in funding to support reading and special education specialist positions at the State School for the Deaf
Advocating for tenants in uninhabitable conditions
Increasing youth and senior access to the outdoors
Working to improve K-12 education, focused on student wellness, outcomes, and accountability
And more

Doug's Bills 2026

Policy items that I was involved (as sponsor or co-sponsor) that made it across the finish line include:

SB 364: This bill makes the discounted lifetime hunting and fishing license program for seniors and children permanent. It also expanded the age eligibility of children up to 15 years old.
HB 2763 (originally SB 339) - Vetoed by the Governor: This bill was called the “Recess Bill”, which would have mandated a minimum of 30 minutes of recess K-5. In addition, it allowed up to 1 hour of recess to count as part of the instructional day, prohibited taking recess as a form of punishment, and eliminated other barriers to offering recess. Current Kansas State Board of Education policy only allows 30 minutes of total recess to count towards the instructional day with other restrictions.
HB 2111 - Vetoed by the Governor: This bill would have created a new category of non-public agritourism businesses, not subject to municipal regulations.
HB 2513: School walkout budget proviso (veto overridden): The budget included a section to address the school walkouts occurring in Kansas public schools, creating certain requirements for such walkouts. Essentially the proviso states the following expectations for walkouts: 1) students should obtain parental permission before being allowed to exit school buildings during the school day, 2) students violating attendance policies should be held accountable for willful violation of school attendance policies, and 3) school staff should in no way facilitate or encourage a school walkout. This is a commonsense approach to school walkouts and in no way limits or threatens the free speech of minors.

There were also some near misses on policy items that I was involved in:

SB 415: This bill would have narrowly applied the Kansas Consumer Protection Act to the Kansas Residential Landlord Tenant Act, giving greater protection to tenants who find themselves living in uninhabitable circumstances due to the negligence of the landlord. This bill was passed 38-2 out of the Senate but ran out of time in the House.
SB 390: This bill would have prohibited various chemical food additives from being in school lunches. Unfortunately, this bill was subject to political gamesmanship from a member of the house that wanted to leverage this bill to pass a pesticide immunity bill. My colleagues and I tried to navigate the process to keep the bill alive, but in the end, there was not enough support in the House to pass the bill (even though it was 40-0 in the Senate). This bill was a MAHA priority bill.
SB 344: This bill would have made simple policy changes for pet shelters and their ability to foster newborn puppies and kittens during a statutorily required 3-day holding period. This bill passed unanimously in the Senate but faced opposition in the House. It was ultimately held up by the same individual who held up SB 390.
SB 387: This bill would have reduced the amount of fraud and error in at-risk funding in K-12 public schools. However, the House was not willing to move the bill forward.

Complete Bill Listing

SB 314 Prohibiting the use of public assets by government officers and employees to advocate for or against proposed amendments to the constitution of the state of Kansas and ballot questions submitted to qualified electors. The bill was not included in a conference committee report and died.
SB 323 Modifying the definition of earnings to include paid compensation for wage garnishment exemption purposes.
SB 339 Requiring school districts to provide at least 30 minutes of daily recess time for students in grades kindergarten through five and designating such time as part of the school term. The bill passed in HB 2763. Vetoed by the Governor.
SB 344 Authorizing animal shelters to place certain animals needing treatment or care in foster homes and requiring shelters to display photographs of animals at a location other than the shelter during a holding period. The bill was not included in a conference committee report and died.
SB 346 Prohibiting plaintiffs from filing abusive civil actions against certain defendants with whom the plaintiff has a current or former family, household or dating relationship and authorizing the court to impose prefiling restrictions on such plaintiffs.
SB 349 Requiring the Kansas state high school activities association to establish a school classification system for activities based on student attendance and a multiplier factor that adjusts certain schools' student attendance.
SB 364 Requiring the department of wildlife and parks to offer a discounted resident senior combination hunting and fishing license to residents of Kansas who are 65 years of age or older and increasing the maximum age to qualify for the Kansas kids lifetime combination hunting and fishing license and decreasing the maximum fee and removing the expiration of such license. SB 364 has been signed into law.
SB 387 Requiring school districts to verify the household gross earned income of each student who meets the definition of at-risk through qualification for free meals under the national school lunch program and requiring legislative authorization to receive special assistance payments under federal law. The bill was not included in a conference committee report and died.
SB 390 Prohibiting certain additives in food provided by schools as part of certain food service programs and requiring schools to certify that school facilities do not serve food that contains such food additives. The House did not pass the contents of SB 390. We will make another attempt at this bill next session.
SB 415 Making certain violations of the residential landlord and tenant act subject to the remedies and enforcement provisions of the Kansas consumer protection act. The bill was not included in a conference committee report and died.
SB 416 Authorizing interior inspections of residential property without the consent of the occupant pursuant to an administrative warrant or when there is probable cause of imminent danger related to health and safety.
SB 447 Creating a domestic violence task force to study domestic violence across the state and make policy recommendations.
SB 482 Requiring landlords to return the security deposit and certain portions of rent payments that would be due when a dwelling unit is condemned due to action or inaction of the landlord.
SB 488 Enacting the Kansas property tax freedom act of 2026, providing for the phased elimination of property taxation and for revenue replacement grants to taxing subdivisions, establishing the Kansas fair share purchase surcharge and providing such revenue to taxing subdivisions, the state general fund and the new property tax freedom reserve fund and providing for freedom dividend rebates.
SB 491 Enacting the Haylee Weissenbach protecting students act to establish the office of education inspector general, authorize the education inspector general to conduct audits, investigations and reviews of educational institutions, require reporting of suspected professional and criminal misconduct by school employees and agents, require certain individuals to register on an educator misconduct registry, require criminal history record checks of school employees and agents and provide for civil penalties for violations of this act. This bill had a great start. We will plan to rework the bill for next session, following excellent feedback from stakeholders.
SB 494 Expanding the definition of stalking to include more technology-based methods, requiring law enforcement agencies to adopt policies for making primary aggressor assessments when responding to domestic violence calls and requiring a prosecutor to affirm such assessment was completed, prohibiting public agencies from charging fees to victims of domestic violence for public records, allowing evidence of other domestic violence offenses to be admissible in a criminal action in which the defendant is accused of a domestic violence offense, adding certain contact to options for protection from abuse or stalking orders and allowing lifetime extensions of protection from abuse orders for victims of domestic battery.

Doug's Bills 2025

SB 70 Providing for reasonable fees for electronic copies of records under the open records act, exempting from disclosure formally closed investigations with no found violations, requiring county or district attorneys to file reports of violations with the attorney in December instead of January, determining the membership calculation of subordinate groups under the open meetings act, requiring public bodies or agencies that live stream meetings to ensure that the public is able to observe and providing for a five minute deviation to resume an open meeting at the conclusion of executive sessions.

NOTE: Enrolled into law in HB 2134

SB 93 Providing for the statewide election of commissioners of the state corporation commission

SB 102 Clarifying the identifying information in mandatory reports of abuse or neglect of children and increasing the penalty for failing to report such abuse or neglect.

SB 112 Prohibiting cities and counties from requiring land as part of a right-of-way as a condition for issuing a building permit unless the property owner consents and is paid fair compensation.

SB 124 Imposing unilateral annexation restrictions on cities and expanding the causes of action for landowners to challenge such annexations.

SB 134 Authorizing school districts to request and receive an applicant teacher’s employment files from another school district if such teacher was previously employed by such other school district and establishing which school district is responsible for and the custodian of teacher employment files that are records under the Kansas open records act.

SB 140 Requiring school districts to provide certain information on school district annual budget forms.

SB 145 Requires immediate notification of a report of abuser neglect to a law enforcement agency and provides for law enforcement agencies to request resources from the secretary for children and families.

SB 159 Requiring school district budget forms and summaries to include all expenditures of bond proceeds.

SB 160 Granting the attorney general concurrent authority to prosecute any crimes related to schools.

SB 163 Prohibiting school employment contracts from excluding documentation of disciplinary actions or behavioral corrective actions taken with regard to an employee.

SB 165 Requiring school district bond elections and other tax levy question submitted elections to be held only on primary or general election dates and only permitting one such bond election to be conducted each calendar year.

SB 172 Prohibiting a school from excluding a child who has been exposed to an infectious or contagious disease without an isolation or quarantine order.

SB 185 Victims Bill of Rights. Providing that certain legal violations relating to victims of crime are not grounds for appeal in a criminal case.

SB 202 Transferring teachers from the KPERS 3 cash balance plan to the KPERS 2 plan and defining teachers for purposes of KPERS.