Extremist Kris Kobach could be attorney general
Kansas’ Secretary of State has had a controversial run, and his hard-line stances will not sit well.
Kobach was the architect of one of the toughest immigration laws in the country, which he drafted when he was a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Arizona’s controversial 2010 SB-1070 law requires law enforcement officers to demand to see the papers of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. It has been denounced for encouraging racial profiling.
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Kobach has been criticized for his legal work for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that says it is working to “reduce the harmful impact of uncontrolled immigration.” In 2014, his Democratic opponent, Jean Schodorf, called him an extremist and accused him of having ties to white nationalist groups, which he called “an outrageous accusation.”
…At Kobach’s urging, the state adopted a requirement that voters must provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when they register to vote.
Supporters say the policy prevents noncitizens from voting, but opponents say it makes it more difficult for citizens to become registered. The requirement blocked about 20,000 potential voters from casting ballots in 2014, when Gov. Sam Brownback narrowly won re-election.
The law has faced multiple challenges in federal and state courts. Kobach represented the state in those cases and suffered a series of defeats this year when judges ruled that he could not require proof of citizenship from people who use the federal form or who registered at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Kansas state Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, an attorney, said the possibility of Kobach “as the chief law enforcement officer of the entire (country) sends chills up my spine.”
“You talk about his efforts at suppressing the vote across our state, and he would be in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the United States government … that’s a scary prospect,” said Ward, one of Kobach’s strongest critics in the Kansas Legislature.
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