Kansas Attorney General

Kansas' Republican attorney general plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state to require new voters to provide papers documenting their citizenship when registering.

Kansas legislators convened Thursday for a single-day session on the coronavirus pandemic with Republican majorities determined to curb Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s power and the state’s GOP attorney general suggesting she’s been on “legally suspect” ground for three weeks.

State and local orders still in place for checking the spread of the novel coronavirus in Kansas are facing legal challenges from the state’s attorney general and business owners.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is proposing to strip the secretary of state's office of its power to prosecute election fraud cases.

The proposal from Schmidt comes less than four years after fellow Republican and Secretary of State Kris Kobach persuaded legislators to grant him prosecutorial power. Kobach became the first secretary of state in the nation to have such power in July 2015.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government will host seminars on Kansas open government laws across the state this month.

“As our office investigates complaints of violations of open government laws, most often we find the violations were inadvertent and can be avoided through better education,” Schmidt said in a news release.

One session is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 23, at Wichita State University. It will run from 9 a.m. until noon at the Marcus Welcome Center, 1845 Fairmount.

The Kansas Attorney General’s office said that applications for concealed carry licenses continue to decline.

About 4,900 new license applications were submitted to the state Concealed Carry Licensing Unit in the 2018 fiscal year. That’s the lowest total since the licensing program began in 2006.

The Personal and Family Protection Act, enacted in 2015, allows eligible individuals over age 21 in Kansas to carry a concealed weapon without a license.

The attorney general’s office announced that a new task force will focus on preventing youth suicide in Kansas.

A recent report from the State Child Death Review Board found that average suicide rates for Kansan minors more than doubled between 2005 and 2015.

Anecdotal evidence from prosecutors across the state indicates opioid abuse is growing in Kansas, Attorney General Derek Schmidt said, but he urged lawmakers not to forget the state’s ongoing methamphetamine problem.

Schmidt on Thursday answered questions about the issue from a panel of lawmakers in Topeka.