Kansas’ governor has killed proposed limits on foreign land ownership
TOPEKA, Kan. — Proposed restrictions in Kansas on foreign ownership of land died Friday when the state’s Democratic governor vetoed a bill that top Republican lawmakers said would protect military bases from Chinese espionage.
The top Republican leader of the Kansas House accused Governor Laura Kelly of “apathy” in the face of serious national security threats from China and other countries declared “adversaries of concern” by the US government, including Cuba, Iraq, North Korea and Venezuela. The bill would have banned more than 10% ownership by foreigners from those countries of nonresidential property within 100 miles of any military installation — or most of Kansas.
A report from Kansas State University last fall found that Chinese ownership accounted for one acre of private farmland in Kansas and that all foreign individuals and companies owned 2.4% of the state’s 49 million acres of private farmland. The bill would have required the university to prepare annual reports on all foreign real estate holdings, including non-agricultural business property.
Kelly said in her veto message that while Kansas needs stronger protections against foreign adversaries, the bill was so “overbroad” that it could disrupt “legitimate investments and business relationships.”
“I am unwilling to sign a bill that has the potential to harm the future prosperity and economic development of the state,” Kelly said in her veto message.
Kansas exported $14.1 billion worth of products in 2023, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration. China was the fourth largest trading partner, with exports worth $848 million, after Mexico, Canada and Japan.
But Kansas already restricts corporate ownership of farmland. According to the National Agricultural Law Center, more than two dozen other states restrict foreign land ownership.
In early 2023, a Chinese spy balloon hovered over U.S. airspace for several days before it was shot down, including over northeastern Kansas, home to Fort Leavenworth, home to the U.S. Army’s college for training commanders. That intensified interest in restrictions on foreign land ownership in Kansas, although concerns already existed over the construction of a national biosafety laboratory near Kansas State University.
Kansas House Majority Leader Chris Croft, a Republican and retired military officer from Kansas City who was among the bill’s most vocal supporters, said Kelly’s veto leaves his military bases and other critical infrastructure “wide open to hostile foreign governments. ”
“The assets of this state are too important to sit on our hands and wait until it is too late,” Croft said in a statement after the veto.
Some conservative Republicans, including Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, pushed for even stricter restrictions. Kobach supported a plan to ban all foreign ownership of more than 3 hectares of land, with a new state administration able to make exceptions.
“Despite the governor’s apathy, we will continue to work to protect Kansas and its citizens from those foreign bad actors seeking to exploit land loopholes,” said House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita.
A few Senate Republicans opposed the restrictions, and the bill fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The bill would have given affected foreign individuals and companies two years to divest their properties in Kansas.
Critics suggested that support for the bill could be attributed to xenophobia. They suggested the main effect would be to force immigrants – including those fleeing repressive regimes – to sell their shops and restaurants.
“To the extent that this bill affects everyone, it affects ordinary people, those who are trying to achieve the American dream,” Democratic state Rep. Melissa Oropeza of Kansas City, Kansas, said ahead of one vote on the bill.