TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A top Republican legislators complaint has launched an investigation into whether the commission that screens Kansas Supreme Court applicants violated the states open meetings law in picking three finalists for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to consider in filling a vacancy.
The complaint from Senate President Susan Wagle is likely to intensify efforts by fellow conservatives to give legislators the power to block a governors appointments to the states highest court, something they cannot do now. Republicans have had a renewed interest in such a measure since a Supreme Court decision in April protecting abortion rights.
The commission named the finalists for Kelly in mid-October, and they include a Topeka-area trial judge opposed by Kansans for Life, the states most influential anti-abortion group. The lawyer-led nominating commission voted on candidates in a public meeting but used paper ballots so that how each member voted wasnt disclosed during the meeting.
Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican, filed a complaint Tuesday with Attorney General Derek Schmidt, another Republican. She urged him to declare that the commission violated the Open Meetings Act and its actions are therefore void. Schmidt turned the investigation over to the district attorney in her home county, Sedgwick County.
Not only do Kansans deserve to know how each commissioner voted, its the law, Wagle said in a statement Wednesday. This secret vote clearly violated the law and integrity of the system.
Commission Chairman Mikel Stout, a Wichita attorney, said the panel is making records of how individual members voted available to anyone seeking them.
We did preserve all of that information, he said. Its all available.
The Associated Press obtained copies of the ballots Wednesday through the clerk of the states appellate courts in Topeka, along with a summary of the commissions full meeting. The ballots list each members preferred list of candidates in each round of voting.
The Supreme Court finalists are Deputy Kansas Attorney General Dennis Depew, Assistant State Solicitor General Steven Obermeier and Shawnee County District Judge Evelyn Wilson, who is chief judge for a district that includes Topeka, the state capital. Kansans for Life opposes Wilson because of her husbands past political contributions to Kelly and other abortion rights supporters who ran for office.
Schmidt declined to investigate Wagles complaint because Depew and Obermeier work for his office. And he avoided sending the case to the Shawnee County district attorney because Wilson, a finalist, is a judge there.
Kelly faces a Dec. 17 deadline to make the appointment.
Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley called Wagles complaint a ploy to build support for changing the selection system. He said if the commission did something wrong, the remedy should be to fine it, not void its actions.
But he questioned whether theres a problem because the ballots are available for people to see.
Retirements will give Kelly two appointments to the seven-member high court in the next few months, and whoever she chooses will go on the court with no oversight from the GOP-controlled Legislature. Her two Republican predecessors had only one appointment between them in the eight years before she took office in January.
The nine-member commission has long interviewed Supreme Court candidates publicly but its deliberations on potential finalists were closed to the public until a 2016 law.
