‘A blight on the American fabric.’ KS House OKs bill to cut racist language in housing docs
Local governments, homeowners and HOAs could more easily remove unlawful racist language that has persisted in housing documents for decades under a bill passed unanimously Thursday by the Kansas House.
The bill, approved 121-0, now advances to the Senate, where its future is uncertain.
Rep. Patrick Penn, R-Wichita and sponsor of the bill, told lawmakers that restrictive covenants were the precursor to the racist practice of redlining.
“It’s a blight on the American fabric,” he said. “It’s a blight on the state of Kansas.
“It’s something that we have not had an opportunity to address, and that’s what we look to do comprehensively with this bill.”
The bill states that “in honor and in most respectful observance of Black History Month in Kansas, this august body, representing the will of the People of Kansas, hereby acts, in accordance with the 1968 Fair Housing Act, to comprehensively address and provide for release from the dark past of racially discriminatory ‘restrictive covenants’ in the State of Kansas.”
The measure would make any restrictive covenant on a deed, plat, declaration or other property document in violation of the Kansas Acts Against Discrimination void and unenforceable and allow property owners to release such covenants from their property by recording a “certificate of release” with the Register of Deeds.
It also says that if a homeowners association is no longer active, a city or county can eliminate a racially restrictive covenant by redacting it from the plat description or HOA governing document. Under current law, that language — though unenforceable — can only be removed by a homeowners association, not a city or county.
Sen. Mike Thompson, chair of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, said he did not know if he would take up the bill this year, citing a concern for time.
“I don’t know if it’s a priority, to be honest. I’d like to hear more about it,” the Republican from Shawnee said.
As he went over the details of his bill, Penn read from a document provided by the Register of Deeds in Sedgwick County that gave examples of restrictive covenants.
It said that “no person of any race other than the white race shall occupy any lot, tract, building site, building, in occupancy except by domestic servants.” Another stated that “no person or any race other than the white race shall use or occupy any building or any lot except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant.”
Racially restrictive covenants were routinely recorded in plats and deeds in the first half of the 20th century and placed in many homes association documents not only in the Kansas City area, but nationwide. The language was ruled unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 and later deemed illegal by the Fair Housing Act. But because of the way the documents were recorded, the restrictions were nearly impossible to eliminate.
A 2005 investigation by The Star found that more than 1,200 documents involving thousands of homes in the Kansas City area still contained language banning Black people, Jews and members of other ethnic groups. After The Star’s report, Missouri and Kansas passed laws requiring HOAs to delete the restrictions without having to get approval from the homeowners.
But cities like Roeland Park have faced a challenge in removing the restrictions, officials said, because the city no longer has any active HOAs. They sought help from lawmakers to get the law changed, and in January, Rep. Rui Xu, D-Westwood, and Sen. Ethan Corson, D-Fairway, introduced bills to address those concerns. Xu’s bill hasn’t had a hearing scheduled, and Corson’s bill was set to have a hearing earlier this month in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, but it was canceled.
Penn’s bill mirrors in part those two Democratic proposals. But when introduced, Penn’s proposal also contained a section that opponents said would negate ordinances passed in recent years by local governments across the state that prohibit discrimination and retaliation based upon sexual orientation and gender identity. If the bill passed, they said, businesses across the state would again be free to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.
The House Local Government Committee removed the language last week after Penn requested an amendment to take it out.
About 20 municipalities in Kansas have passed non-discrimination ordinances, including Lawrence, Wichita, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, and all northeast Johnson County cities. Roeland Park passed an ordinance in 2015, the first city in Johnson County to do so.
Several legislators spoke on the House floor Thursday in favor of Penn’s bill.
“My district is quite close to the Kansas City metro area with a prominent developer who was notorious for putting these on,” Xu said. “I have Black constituents living with these restrictive covenants on the books, I have Jewish constituents with these restrictive covenants on the books.
“These racial restrictive covenants are a painful vestige of an unacceptable past,” he said, a reminder of a time “when we thought one’s race determined one’s ability or one’s place in the world. Getting these off the books is an unquestionably good thing, and I urge you all to support this bill.”
Xu added, however, that racism isn’t something that can be easily isolated and excised.
“Instead, it is pervasive and it is enduring, and we all must be vigilant on it. You can still see the effects of this on my district today…My district is still among the least diverse in the state, one not particularly famous for being diverse in the first place. We are still wrestling with the effects of policies from decades and centuries ago, and will continue doing the work to unlearn bad lessons from the past.”
Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, said the bill makes it clear that people have the right to live where they want.
“We also have a responsibility to take pride in our homes and everything else,” she said. “And most of us do that as well.
“I think all of us should feel that we can move where we want to, especially if we can afford it... But it’s kind of our right. It’s the American way.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 1:51 PM.
