Kansas 2025-2026 Regular Session

Kansas House Bill HB2749

Introduced

2/6/26

Refer

2/6/26

Caption

Amending the crime of unlawful sexual relations to include persons in a position of trust or authority when such position is used to carry out the offense.

Summary

HB 2749 amends Kansas’s unlawful sexual relations statute to expand the offense to cover additional abuse-of-authority situations. Under current law, the crime applies to certain sexual conduct involving people in custodial, supervisory, or institutional relationships, such as correctional staff, jail employees, teachers, court services officers, community corrections officers, sureties, and law enforcement officers in specified settings. The bill adds a new category for a person in a position of trust or authority who uses that role to obtain access to a child, cause the child to submit, or maintain secrecy, compliance, or control in connection with the sexual conduct. The bill also defines “person in a position of trust or authority” broadly to include clergy and other religious leaders, youth group or ministry leaders, coaches and athletic instructors, counselors, advisors, mentors, and others who exercise supervision, guidance, counseling, mentorship, or spiritual influence over a child. The offense remains a person felony, with the same severity level framework applied to the newly added conduct as to other covered forms of unlawful sexual relations.

Impact

HB 2749 would amend K.S.A. 21-5512 and repeal the existing version of that statute, thereby expanding the scope of unlawful sexual relations in Kansas criminal law. It would create criminal liability for sexual conduct where an adult in a trust or authority role exploits that position to facilitate the offense, and it would make that conduct punishable as a severity level 5 person felony under the statute’s penalty structure. The bill would affect adults in institutional, supervisory, educational, religious, mentoring, and similar roles, as well as the children or vulnerable persons under their influence.

Sentiment

Based on the bill caption and the absence of recorded committee testimony or votes in the provided materials, the overall sentiment appears to be protective and enforcement-oriented. The measure is framed as a response to abuse of authority and appears intended to close a gap in existing law by explicitly covering trusted adults who exploit their positions. No contrary sentiment is documented in the available record.

Contention

The main point of potential contention is the breadth of the new “position of trust or authority” definition. Because it includes clergy, coaches, mentors, counselors, and other informal or spiritual leaders, some may view the language as necessary to capture real-world grooming and coercion, while others may be concerned about how broadly the statute could be applied or interpreted. Another possible issue is the bill’s focus on conduct involving persons 16 years of age or older, which may prompt discussion about how the statute interacts with other sex offense laws and whether the new provision overlaps with existing offenses.

Latest KS HB2749 Activity

View All Events: KS 2025-2026 Regular Session HB2749

Companion Bills

No companion bills found.

Previously Filed As

KS SB7

Authorizing federally licensed firearm dealers, in addition to county sheriffs, to receive applications for concealed carry licenses and forward such applications to the attorney general, prohibiting sheriffs from assessing any fee related to application services and allowing dealers to assess a fee related to application services not to exceed $20.

KS HB2001

Authorizing the secretary of commerce to enter into agreements with major professional sports franchises to establish STAR bond projects for a major professional sports complex, providing for additional revenue sources, expanding the powers and discretion of the secretary and making other changes to the STAR bonds financing act to facilitate such projects, limiting the secretary’s authority to approve such projects to one year unless extended by the legislative coordinating council, authorizing the Kansas development finance authority to issue STAR bonds for such projects, transferring funds under certain circumstances from the state gaming revenues fund to the attracting professional sports to Kansas fund for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, and, if approved by the legislative coordinating council, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026.

KS SCR1604

Proposing to amend section 1 of article 11 of the constitution of the state of Kansas to limit property tax valuation increases for real property and personal property mobile homes.

KS SCR1602

Approving the creation of a port authority in Wyandotte County Kansas.

KS HB2003

Establishing the veterans' valor property tax relief act providing for an income tax credit or refund for eligible individuals, modifying the definition of household income and increasing the appraised value threshold for eligibility of seniors and disabled veterans related to increased property tax claims and citing the section as the homeowners' property tax freeze program, providing property tax exemptions for certain personal property including watercraft, marine equipment, off-road vehicles, motorized bicycles and certain trailers, excluding internal revenue code section 1031 exchange transactions as indicators of fair market value, providing for certain exclusions from the prohibition of paying taxes under protest after a valuation notice appeal and providing four prior years' values on the annual valuation notice.

KS SB5

Authorizing counties to impose an earnings tax.

KS HB2004

Authorizing counties to propose an earnings tax for ballot question.

KS SB1

Modifying income tax rates for individuals, exempting all social security benefits from Kansas income tax, increasing the Kansas standard deduction and the Kansas personal exemption, increasing the income tax credit amount for household and dependent care expenses, decreasing the privilege tax normal tax, excluding internal revenue code section 1031 exchange transactions as indicators of fair market value for property tax valuation purposes, increasing the extent of property tax exemption for residential property from the statewide school levy, providing for certain transfers to the state school district finance fund and abolishing the local ad valorem tax reduction fund and the county and city revenue sharing fund.

KS SB6

Providing a sales tax exemption for sales of electricity to residential premises by municipally owned or operated utilities.

KS SB2

Eliminating the income limit to qualify for the subtraction modification exempting social security benefits, increasing the income tax credit amount for household and dependent care expenses, establishing the veterans' valor property tax relief act providing for an income tax credit or refund for eligible individuals, citing the increased property tax homestead refund claim section as the homeowners' property tax freeze program, decreasing the normal privilege tax rate, increasing the extent of property tax exemption for residential property from the statewide school levy, decreasing the rate of ad valorem tax imposed by a school district; providing for certain transfers to the state school district finance fund, reducing the state rate of tax on sales of food and food ingredients and modifying the percent credited to the state highway fund from revenue collected.

Similar Bills

KS HB2762

Modifying the crime of unlawful sexual relations to describe who is a person in a position of authority for a school.

KS HB2479

Authorizing electronic monitoring with victim notification as a condition of release prior to trial for certain offenders charged with a domestic violence offense, domestic battery, stalking or violation of a protective order, modifying the culpable mental state required to commit the crime of breach of privacy and increasing the criminal penalties for certain violations of such crime, modifying the elements of the crime of blackmail related to threatened dissemination of any image, video or other recording of another identifiable person who is nude or engaged in sexual activity, describing who is a person in a position of authority for a school for the crime of unlawful sexual relations and increasing the penalties for the crimes of endangering a child and aggravated endangering a child if the child is less than six years of age.