According to LawAtlas, "preemption (pronounced pre-emption) is a legal doctrine that allows upper levels of government to restrict or even prevent a lower-level government from self-regulating." To put that into laymen's terms, preemption means the state passes laws that prevent cities from making laws of their own.

The Kansas Legislature has consistently used preemption to interfere with municipalities' abilities to provide services and regulations that fit the needs of their residents. There is no one stop shop that shows all the various preemption statutes the state has on the books. This is an attempt to catalog those statutes as well as any new preemption bills that are proposed. 

There are four categories of preemption statutes, which can be found using the navigation bar at the left side of the screen. Those categories are Housing, Weapons Regulation, Labor, and Other. There is also a page for proposed preemption bills. The difference between a statute and a bill is that statutes are laws that have already been passed, whereas bills are laws that have been proposed but have not yet been passed by the legislature.

Under each of the statute categories, you will see the specific statute numbers. Each statute will include a clickable hyperlink that will allow you to navigate to the Kansas Legislature's source site. Similarly, the proposed preemption bills will show you the specific bill numbers. Each bill will include a clickable hyperlink that will allow you to navigate to the Kansas Legislature's source site.