Politics

President Barack Obama will appear on the November election ballot in Kansas. On Monday, the State Objections Board formally ended a review of a complaint filed by a Manhattan man.

Joe Montgomery had argued Obama wasn't eligible to run for president. Montgomery withdrew his challenge last week because of what he called intimidation. After reviewing documents from the state of Hawaii, Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he now has no doubts about the president's citizenship, but he says the board had to investigate the claim.

During a speech at the University of Kansas Monday, Governor Sam Brownback touted a tax-cutting bill he signed into law earlier this year. 

The plan will cut personal income tax rates and eliminate income taxes for nearly 200,000 businesses.  Brownback said that could help attract people and jobs to the state. 

The president of a tea party group in Wichita yesterday questioned whether a former Democratic legislator who’s running again for the Kansas House lives at the address he lists as his home, a concern the ex-lawmaker dismissed as “crazy.”

Craig Gabel, president of Kansans for Liberty, said interviews with neighbors and other information gathered by the group suggest that no one lives at the address listed by former Representative Tom Sawyer when he filed for office in June.

During a confirmation hearing, a group of state senators raised their concerns about the level of support for funding the Kansas public defender system.

Questions were raised yesterday during hearings to confirm appointments by Gov. Sam Brownback to various state agency positions. Among them were Paul Eugene Beck and Kevin Mark Smith, who were named to the Board of Indigent Defense.

Senator Tim Owens, an Overland Park Republican, asked the pair if they would be willing to press Brownback for funding to keep the public defenders' office functioning.