TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas legislators approved a plan Tuesday aimed at luring the Kansas City Chiefs away from Missouri by helping to finance a new stadium for the Super Bowl champions.
The votes were 84-38 in the House and xx-xx in the Senate. Kelly has not said whether she will sign the bill. But her chief of staff told lawmakers Monday that she had seen nothing in the version that passed that would make her veto it. But top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature promised that the stadium proposal wouldn't be debated until the Legislature approved a plan that would cut income and property taxes by a total of $1.23 billion over the next three years. Many lawmakers argued that voters would be angry if the state helped finance new stadiums without cutting taxes.
Legislators made no changes in the plan before passing it, 34-4 in the Senate and 121-2 in the House. Kelly pledged to sign the measure into law. House Commerce Committee Chair Sean Tarwater, a Kansas City-area Republican, said the Chiefs are likely to spend between $500 million and $700 million in private funds on a new stadium.
Free-market conservatives have long opposed state and local subsidies for specific businesses or projects. And economists who’ve studied pro sports teams have concluded in dozens of studies over decades that subsidizing their stadiums isn’t worth the cost.