TOPEKA, Kan. _ The Kansas House succeeded Wednesday morning in overriding Gov. Sam Brownback's veto of a tax plan that he's dubbed the largest tax increase in Kansas history.
The House narrowly won a veto-proof majority, with 85 votes to 40.
That came after two Republican lawmakers decided at the last minute to change their votes before the roll call closed.
The bill, passed by the Kansas Legislature last week, would raise income tax rates and end a tax exemption for roughly 330,000 business owners.
Brownback, a Republican, said he strongly opposed the income tax increases in the bill, but also said he wasn't willing to do away with a business tax exemption, called by some the LLC loophole, that keeps those business owners off the tax rolls.
"I think we ought to be going to fewer brackets, not more," Brownback said.
During the House debate on the bill, Republicans clashed over whether the tax bill that was vetoed had gone too far.
Rep. Chuck Weber, a Wichita Republican, said the plan was "too much, too soon."
"I think we can do better, I really do," Weber said.
The vote for the tax bill was one of the first major votes for new lawmakers like Rep. Tom Cox, a Shawnee Republican, who ran on changing Brownback's tax policy.
He told lawmakers Wednesday morning that he understood that his vote for the bill may have hurt his chances of re-election in 2018.
"I did not enjoy this vote," he said, before pledging to campaign for lawmakers who vote for the bill.
That business tax exemption became a major issue in 2016 legislative campaigns, where moderate candidates ousted more conservative counterparts from office by advocating for that portion of the tax system to come to an end.
It's still unclear if the Senate will follow the House and try to override the governor's veto of the bill.
Sen. Randall Hardy, a Salina Republican who voted for the tax bill, said he would still support the proposal despite the governor's veto.
"I half expected him to veto the bill," Hardy said. "I'm just hopeful that the House and Senate rise to the occasion and override the veto because I think that is where the best option is to deal with the financial mess we're in"
The bill passed with bipartisan majorities in both chambers, yet did not have a veto proof majority when it came down to the final vote.
The governor announced he would veto the bill at a large dinner held Tuesday night by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, an organization that regularly lobbies the Legislature.
The crowd cheered when he announced that he had decided to veto the bill.
