Republicans hold a long-standing supermajority in both houses of the state legislature, despite a short-lived dominance by the Populist Party.

[1] In several of the provisions of the act, the law allowed the settlers of the newly created territory to determine, by vote, whether Kansas, once statehood was achieved, would be entered as either a free or a slave state.

[2] The act created a rush of both abolitionist Northern and pro-slavery Southern immigrants to the territory, hoping that strength through numbers would place Kansas in their camp.

Animosities between the newly arrived sides quickly turned into open violence and guerrilla warfare, giving name to this period known as Bleeding Kansas.

[5][6] After meeting for one week in Pawnee at the direction of Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder, the thirty-eight pro-slavery legislators reconvened at the Shawnee Manual Labor School between July 16 and August 30, 1855,[6] and began crafting over a thousand pages of laws aimed at making Kansas a slave state.

While the Lecompton Constitution was debated, new elections for the territorial legislature in 1857 gave the Free-Staters a majority government, caused in part by a boycott by pro-slavery groups.

With this new mandate, the legislature convened to write the Leavenworth Constitution, a radically progressive document for the Victorian era in its wording of rights for women and African-Americans.

A compromise of sorts, it outlawed slavery in the territory, while removing progressive sections on Native Americans, women, and blacks.

[8] The election of state officers under the Wyandotte Constitution took place in December 1859, but because of the delay in approving Kansas's statehood, they did not take their positions until February 1861.

[8] Robinson refused to permit the canvassing of votes for the offices in the 1861 election and his position was upheld by the Kansas Supreme Court.

[12] The state legislature was a leader in child labor reform, enacting a law in 1905 to restrict children under 14 from working in factories, meatpacking houses, or mines.

[13] Kansas was a center of the progressive movement, with support from the middle classes, editors such as William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette, and the prohibitionists.

[14] With the help of progressive state legislators, women gained the right to vote through a constitutional amendment approved by Kansans on November 5, 1912.

[17] When a bill is introduced its title is read, it is printed and distributed to members of the house of origin, and it is referred to a standing committee.

The offices of the Chief Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate are responsible for the operations of the respective chambers under the direction of elected leadership.