In selecting their next attorney general, Kansas voters have a choice between a political newcomer whose record of public office — if decidedly not public service — is blank, and a political retread whose sell-by date has long since passed.
Former Secretary of State Kris Kobach convinced his party four years ago to let him carry the Republican banner against longtime legislator and Democrat Laura Kelly for Kansas governor. He lost. Two years later, he tried to win the GOP primary for U.S. Senate — and lost again.
Now, he’s back, sending trepidation throughout his party. Members of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce warned they fear he’d be unable to adequately represent the state’s businesses if elected. Campaign insiders have promised he’s a more down-to-earth campaigner this year, less prone to the wild statements that characterized his previous failed bids. And yet, some redecorating has done little to improve his two galling liabilities in the race: his previous record as secretary of state, and his current campaign, which is so free of substance and so heavy with appeals to divisive social issues that it’s hard to imagine a less attractive candidate for the state’s top law enforcement office.
Actually, it’s not too hard. A suitable role model is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or current Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is running against Kelly to become governor. Thankfully, Kobach is not indicted, as Paxton is, but he promises to take the same scorched-earth, politics-first approach as Paxton and Schmidt have.
Kobach found zero proof of organized voter fraud
Perhaps Kobach’s most memorable legacy after two terms as secretary of state was his prosecution of 12 cases of voter fraud. His office, responsible for the integrity of elections, saw convictions in nine of the 12. “You have to be an attorney to understand that voter fraud exists,” he has said. “Those on the left who say there is no election fraud are simply ignoring reality.”
His condescension aside, what Kobach fails to understand — despite his time as a student at Harvard, Yale and Oxford — is that his critics haven’t said voter fraud does not exist, period. In a nation of more than 300 million residents, there are going to be individual examples of people voting in ways they shouldn’t. But there has been no evidence of widespread, organized voter fraud of a scale anywhere near large enough to influence the outcome of elections. This has been confirmed over and over again, by courts, by secretaries of states from both parties and by the utter failure of entities such as Donald Trump’s short-lived commission on voter integrity.
Kobach should know all about that, since he was the commission’s vice chair, and it folded without finding evidence of fraud.
Most of the convictions in the cases Kobach pursued were of individuals who apparently double-voted by mistake. The reality is that Kansas’ elections in 2020, and every other year in recent history, were perfectly legitimate and entirely reliable. The only galling aspect of the election has been that Kobach, a former secretary of state, has done so much to undermine confidence in their results. By aligning himself with Trump in sowing endless doubt about the integrity of our elections, and in the 2020 presidential results in particular, Kobach has chosen to lend his support to the Big Lie — and that’s disqualifying for the office of attorney general, or should be.
The other black mark against Kobach? Last month was awfully late to decide to resign from the board of “We Build the Wall,” the nonprofit campaign set up by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon to raise money to aid in building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The state of New York indicted Bannon and the organization in early September, prompting Kobach’s resignation. But why in the world would he have agreed to be on its board in the first place? Bannon and others involved were indicted in 2020 on charges of fraud, and of misdirecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to their own pockets. Several pleaded guilty. Trump saved Bannon from a trial with a timely pardon then.
All of these are strong reasons to vote against Kobach for attorney general. But are they enough to vote for his opponent, attorney Chris Mann, who has no prior service as an elected official?
We strongly believe the answer to that question is yes. A blank resume for elected office normally gives us pause before recommending a candidate for a position as important as attorney general. But in Mann’s case, it’s made considerably easier by his significant track record in public service.
Mann: Injured as police officer before becoming lawyer
Mann says he knew since boyhood he’d become a police officer, and became one by the time he was 21. That career ended, however, after he was struck by a drunk driver during a routine traffic stop. He went to law school and became a prosecutor in Wyandotte County and later for the Kansas Securities Commission. After opening his own law practice, his primary focus was on seeking justice for victims of drunk driving, and eventually on providing legal services to the poor.
These experiences would serve him well as attorney general. But in our conversation with Mann, he stressed that should he be elected, his primary focus for the office would be on the bread-and-butter services that the AG provides for ordinary Kansas residents. For all the headlines about phantom voter fraud and the 2020 election, the bulk of the work performed by the hundreds of lawyers in the Kansas attorney general’s office is far more mundane. Child support, open records requests and consumer protection — those are the services that most Kansans rely on from their attorney general.
