Our special guest today on the Kansas reflector podcast is Attorney General Kris Kobach. He requires no introduction. Mr. Attorney General, welcome.
Great to be with you.
Yeah, thanks for taking time. So if you got to use the idea of wearing the spurs of the Kansas Attorney General, the top law enforcement officer in the state
I have, and I'm really enjoying the job. In fact, one of the things that a former Attorney General, actually a former attorney general of Nebraska, told me is that this will be the best job of your life. And he told me that shortly after I was elected, and it looks like it really might be I'm enjoying it.
I know you endured a difficult campaign for governor, but I just really kind of curious if, if you think maybe being AG is a better fit.
I do think it's a better fit. It. You know, if you think about for me, as an attorney, I you know, I really enjoy constitutional cases, I used to be a constitutional law professor, I enjoy the the meaty issues that I care about. And you know, I think, obviously being governor is a huge honor and a very important position. But I think I am more excited, you know, getting out of bed in the morning to do some of the things and litigate some of these issues that the Attorney General gets to do than say, some of the minutiae that the governor has to do every day. So it interests me and I enjoy the job. Some would
suggest being governor is kind of a thankless position. It's a difficult job for sure. Oh, absolute. All these are all the state government, Congress, whatever. So let's get to your agenda you asked for I think about a million dollars to hire some prosecutors, what's the status of the staffing issue? Did you get your money? Yes. So
the legislature came through with the money and we are starting hiring. And we've hired several attorneys already. I went to the legislature and, you know, basically said, Hey, we've got an emergency here, guys, we you know, we normally when we're fully staffed, we have 10 prosecutors. And of course, we have many more attorneys than that, but specifically in the Criminal Division, and we were down to three. And it had been gradual attrition, and it wasn't, you know, Derek Smith's fault or anything like that, it was just kind of the economics of being an attorney. And you know, over time, the Kansas Attorney General's office was paying prosecutors, less than the surrounding states Attorney General's Offices, and less than the larger counties in campus, Kansas. So we were losing prosecutors to, you know, county attorney offices around the state who could pay them a whole lot more than $20,000 more. And so we pointed out that, look, we in the attorney hiring world is very competitive. And we have a shortage. And we'd needed to be able to just bump up our salaries so that we can offer people something comparable to what Missouri offers them or offer them something comparable to what Johnson County offers them. And the legislature thankfully gave us that little boost in funding. So they give you what you asked
for. Yeah, they did. So where are you at in terms of these prosecutors? Because do we have heard in three? Oh, yeah, doing three times
already. We've already hired one. And I think we've got one or two more in the pipeline. So and it made a difference, being able to offer that little bit more. You know how it is, I mean, you've got your choosing between two jobs and one job pays you $20,000 More, you're probably going to lean toward the
journalism, nobody gets paid. So you recently lauded the legislature passing a bill eliminating the $100 fee that Kansans would pay to get a concealed carry permit. Kansas don't need a permit training or to have it's there's no prerequisite for carrying concealed but some people want want that permit. Maybe it's the reciprocal element of other states. So So is this a good idea?
Yeah, it was my idea. And I, we wrote the bill and proposed the bill, it wasn't really much of a drafting challenge, because you're just eliminating a fee. But yeah, that was one of the five legislative priorities I announced at the beginning of the legislative session. And the reason I wanted to do this is there are two reasons One is principal and one is practical. The principal reason is I don't think you should have to pay the state a fee to exercise a constitutional right, we shouldn't have to pay a fee to exercise our First Amendment rights right here right now. We shouldn't have to pay a fee to go to church on Sunday. And I don't think you should have to pay a fee to
exercise concealed carry a constitutional right, the right to bear arms is
yeah, you know, I believe it is because the way people bear arms in the 21st century, is concealed now, to you know, 200 years ago, 150 years ago might have been different, but the the general acceptable way to bear arms is concealed these days. Okay. So I think to meaningfully bear arms as opposed to keeping arms you would allow people to conceal carry. And the practical reason is that, you know, we got we moved to constitutional carry a few years ago, which means that you don't need a permit if you're over 21 to conceal carry in Kansas. But that resulted in some people not surprisingly, going ahead and concealed carrying without ever taking the course without ever getting the permit. And so by removing the fee, we may make it more attractive for people to get the training and get the permit that $100 is a significant disincentive. And I and that's one of the reasons why several Democrats jumped on board and voted for this bill, for that exact reason that they wanted to encourage more people to get the permit and take the class. And I think that's what we're gonna see. Well, the proof will be in the pudding a year from now we can see if the number of people requesting seeking permits has gone up on an annual basis. But I think it will, I think it's almost certain to do so
legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly has veto of a bill requiring girls and women to participate in sports based on their gender of birth. Why would Republicans such as yourself bring the big hand of government into this equation? And do you think this this legislative this, this law now faces a constitutional challenge?
Well, the big hand of government was already here, the Kansas schools are local entities of government. So the schools define who gets to compete in the track meet and who gets to compete in whatever sport. And so there were already rules enforced by the government, if you want to call it that way. But you know, every sport has rules, right? That's why that's how we make sports fair if you didn't have any rules of basketball, and you said, Okay, here's the ball go, it would be a very unfair game. And so these rules define the elements of fairness. And the reason I feel so strongly about this is it I think the trans athlete participating in girls sports, threatens the fairness of the sport. And I don't think that's something that is very difficult to prove at all. Look at what Lea Thomas did, and women's collegiate swimming, where Thomas just blew apart all these records won the national championship. And you can see it on a more local, you see it happening on a more local level, you know, imagining, especially sports like track. I'm the father of five daughters, my girls are involved in girls sports, I have become a huge fan of girl sports. And I know to take the example of my second daughter who's doing really well in cross country and in track in the mile. She just earlier this week, got second place at a tournament in a track meet in the mile event. And I'm so incredibly proud of her. But if a biological male had been competing, it is very likely that that person would have taken first and my daughter would have gotten third place and that second place, and I think it would be unfair to every girl to allow someone who has a physical advantage to come in and and win those tournaments when those track meets. And even more importantly, when those scholarships, which is remember what
other states have done this kind of thing. But what about a constitutional challenge on this?
You know, we've heard some rumblings that I believe the ACLU has told some reporters that they're thinking about or maybe planning on bringing a constitutional challenge. If they want to, my answer is go ahead and bring it I think it wouldn't be the first time you've run into the ACLU would not be the first time and I think I feel very confident that this law will survive a constitutional challenge. Your
legislative agenda include a recommendation for a new criminal sentencing enhancement for distribution of drugs, causing a death. I think this is really related to fentanyl or all the street drugs and the fake farms. Yeah, counterfeit pharmaceuticals have fentanyl in it. So you get is that in the works in the statehouse?
Yes. And we're that's part of a larger crime bill that is on the governor's desk right now. That was another one of my priorities that I noticed was increasing the penalties for for dealing fentanyl. And I think it's likely that you'll sign it we'll see. Time will tell. I haven't heard any opposition from the governor's office on these criminal issues. So I haven't either.
There's another piece that maybe goes along with that you are interested in having some more ag authority in related relation to these kind of criminal gangs that will go into big retail stores and just fill a shopping cart with TVs and roll out because the store managers don't want to crazy violent episode. It's it's better for people to just let them have the TVs. But the idea was that you would have some prosecutorial authority to step in what about
Yeah, so organized retail crime is if you if you Google it, or look at the numbers, statistically, it has just exploded in America in terms of the amount of of activity in the in the millions of dollar, hundreds of millions of dollars that are being stolen every year, from these big box stores. You know, they'll go into a Home Depot, and they'll fill their shopping cart with all the most expensive items. And then they push right out and that they're called push outs. It's a new term, because and then they unloaded into the van and the goods into the van, they move down to the next door. And these typically are done, you know, across county lines, even across state lines. So you're talking about, you know, five 610 stores being hit in a day. And it's not easy for a single county prosecutor to take that big case and do the massive amount of it because you're talking about investigations in multiple counties for multiple stores. It's a national problem. The scale is just immense in Get this, both Kansas and Missouri are both in the top 10 states of dollars being stolen through organized retail crime. So it's a problem here. And the bill simply allows the Attorney General's Office original prosecutorial authority, we handle appeals for just about every criminal case in the state.
And traditionally, if there's a criminal case, you might be invited in by the county attorney, we were invited in, in this sense, if it's multiple counties, then you would just we would just say, Okay, we'll be by original
jury. Exactly, we would say, Okay, we'll go ahead and prosecute this, the counties still have the authority. But in generally, in a big multi county case like that, it's unlikely that one county is going to step forward and say, Okay, well, we'll carry the
load. And here's a question about ESG, which is the when you have organizations that focus on environmental, social, or corporate governance issues, in terms of making recommendations about investment strategies, so there's Kansas, maybe you're interested in a law that would require state investments in Kansas to think about capers and pension fund investments, right to make those investments solely the based on the fiduciary idea of making the most money, right. So how does that blend with GOP calls for ban on investments in Russia and China, which is completely politically oriented? Right? Do you know what I mean? Yep, no, I
hear you're saying it? Well, first of all, I should say, because there's people
that want to ban investments in China, but at the same time, we shouldn't be involved in political having a political agenda on corporate investment.
Well, the a couple of things. One is I should note that ESG, passing an ESG. Bill was one of my five legislative priorities that we announced at the beginning of the session, as well. And I'm hopeful that the governor will sign this. We'll see soon enough. The, to answer your question. I think there's a difference. I mean, the ESG movement right now is you have these large firms that are scoring companies based on you know, are they environmentally clean enough? Are they do they have the right social, are they woken up to they have the right social positions on all of these issues that have nothing to do with whatever industry that company is in. And they're they're forcing companies to take the objective is to force companies to take positions on political issues. And they're, they're using the massive influence of large investment houses and state pension funds, which you're talking about billions and billions of dollars, to try to push these corporations in an ideological direction. That I think is objectionable, because for a number of reasons, but most importantly, because you're, you're taking pension, or you're taking Kansas employees dollars, and you're not trying to get the maximum return on them. Now, the it's a little different with the investing in China or, you know, investing in Russia, you're taking there a country that is the enemy of the United States or adversary of the United States, or however you want to define it. And you're you're, you're assisting them against the national interests of the United States. So I, I see that you're right. There's a similarity, there's a political element to the investment decision. But I think, you know, Russia and China is a very different thing where you're talking about the national security United States, where presumably we all agree on that whether we're Republican Democrat, right or left versus, you know, do you want to use pensioners investment dollars to push a an agenda? So I think the way I would answer your question is, look, if there were some ESG in reverse, where Kansans were saying we want capers money to be or Kansas legislators, we're saying we want capers money to be invested in oil companies above other companies and gun companies above other companies. And we don't want any investment in green energy. We don't want to investment in Tesla or anything like that. I would be equally I would equally object to that. You would I would, because we shouldn't use the middle of the people in the capital. That would not might be some people disagree with Yeah, but I just think that when you're investing that Kansas workers money to fund their pensions, so they can retire and not have to be moved kicked out of their home because they can't afford the taxes or whatever. Yeah, we shouldn't just get the maximum return link
is just the public money, your the state is holding public retirement money, the state is making con signing contracts and spending public money. So that's the linkage. That is
the linkage and that it should just be for the maximum return on investment without concern for ideological factors either way,
so I know you're about you're in charge of Kansas, open records act Kansas Open Meetings Act, you know, concerns and violations of that I think your office takes a look at those. I would have to say my personal opinion is that there's been some soft peddling of those kinds of violations in the past. We got all the city and county people good hard working folks who are in county government. Can you imagine that three county commissioners meeting at the coffee shop and in talking about things that's problematic? So I'm looking to you to see what your views are about the AGs office taking in a strong position on enforcing our current laws,
I am a firm believer in the open records act and the Open Meetings Act. And I say that as somebody who's my first wade into politics 24 years ago, was as an Overland Park City Councilman, and I know the temptation that exists for city governments to say, You know what, let's not talk about this in public, it would be much easier for all of the council members to just, you know, talk about this in private and, and that's not how our system is supposed to work. They're, the people have a right to see the meetings to be present in the meetings and see the decisions being made, and to make their case to the council members. So I believe in it. Now, the one thing I should mention is that the way Kansas law defines the Attorney General's roles, we kind of have two roles, we, we police the area. So if there is an objection to what some county is doing, or what some city is doing, the complaint may come to the Attorney General's office, and we may be asked to weigh in. But on the other hand, if the state if a state agency is sued for an open records, or an open meeting violation, we also have to serve as the state's attorney, so we may have to defend them, even though perhaps we would have advised them to do something different. And so we so people shouldn't be confused that oh, look, Kobach is defending the state agency against an open records act violation, we have to where this kind
of a dual role just Yeah, we could create another separate agency, I guess, Inspector General or something. One of the elements of this that has troubled me is that we'll say the typical capital journal makes a request of a certain agency, and the agency is really not wild about turning over those documents, it kind of kind of embarrassing. So they say, yeah, we can give those to you. It's $4,800. I've seen it for the last 1015 years, different agencies, different organizations, and they're charging these exorbitant fees, which they don't have to charge anything. There's nothing in the law that says they have to charge a penny, but they charge these high fees to deter access to public records. Yeah. And that's if they're doing it to deter access, then how do you prove that? I mean, they're gonna claim Oh, that's just our staffing costs.
Yeah. And it's, I mean, it certainly can be abused, because there's no question there are costs, right? If you take someone, if you're talking about, you know, 1000s of pages, you're gonna take someone and you're gonna make him or her spend a lot of time in front of the copier machine for several days, probably sifting through documents. So there is a cost. But on the other hand, if they're if some agency, we're talking hypothetically, here, some agency says, yeah, that's gonna cost you $10,000. And, you know, and they just sort of pull these numbers out of thin air. That's the other thing is the agency has to give an accurate estimate, the agency has to figure, okay, this is really how much it's going to cost for us to do this. And I, and I do not doubt that there are probably some times when agencies will say, you know, they'll pull a number out of thin air, and that number Sure, doesn't seem realistic.
So we've had some more mass shootings. I know, you're a big fan of the Second Amendment. But I just don't know what the answer is, you know, we don't allow bazookas. We don't allow people to have RPGs in the neighborhood to celebrate July 4, because they're too dangerous. They're too lethal. They're, it's It's war. It's a war weapon. So what about these and I and I'm just using this label of a gun, because I can't think of another ar 15. So I know, there's a lot of different weapons out there. But these AR fifteens are sort of a gun of choice of people who want to go in and shoot five of their former employee, you know, there were they used to work colleagues, and then take potshots at the cops until the gun them down. You know, it's sort of like suicide by cop, but you take money. So how can we how how do you suggest as a big advocate of the Second Amendment that we get at this major problem? So I would
say first of all, that the the AR platform rifle? I mean, I think a lot of people look at that. And they say, Oh, that looks like a military rifle. Well, yeah, it does. And so does the deer rifle, your grandpa's deer rifle look like the military rifle of the Second World War? It's just the standard rifle platform. What makes it a what would make it a military rifle is if it were fully automatic. Those are illegal. And that's not the gun that millions of Americans now own. So I think people should there's no question that there's a huge problem this country with mass shootings, but I think by focusing on that rifle, they're, they're focusing on the wrong thing. And secondly, I would say the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Crime Statistics has been compiling. They did a major report on this very issue. And they looked at the percentage I think they defined a mass shooting as either four or five victims and four plus Yeah, I think that's what it was. And they looked at all the the shootings over a huge span of years, I can't remember maybe 10 or 20 years, and they said that the AR platform rifle was only used in it was in the teens, like, you know, between 10 and 20%. By far the more like The firearm was your standard semi automatic handgun. And so I think just by focusing on that rifle, which has become kind of an ideological cause celeb, right, yeah, I
didn't mean to, it's just because I'm not very familiar with the terminology. I just think there's a lot of mass shootings that Oh, yes, certainly. Got to figure it out. Yeah. Somebody has to figure this out, instead of just throwing up your hands because the Constitution says anybody has the right to bear arms. Does that mean they have the right to go slaughter a bunch of their employees? Absolutely, clearly,
of course, it is illegal to murder. No, I
know. But that doesn't make the dead people feel no, no. But I
think, you know, one thing I believe it, and I, you know, it may sound like a slogan, but it is a, it is a fact. And that is in every one of these cases, the thing that stops the bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, whether it's the police arriving, or whether it's, you know, an armed citizen who has a concealed carry permit or isn't a concealed carry state constitutional carry state, some, some good guy has to stop this crazed killer who's got a firearm, at the end of the day, you know, pleading with him is probably not going to work, it's going to have to be you meeting force with force. And so I do think that, to the extent that people who are willing to defend others are able to carry in these locations, that that's, that's good for all of us. Because, you know, I if I'm in a situation where there's a guy who walks into this, whatever it is shot, bank, whatever, and starts shooting people, I hope there's somebody, there's some good guy somewhere who's got a gun, because even if he doesn't, you know, does isn't such an amazing aim that he's able to immediately stop the attacker, it forces the attacker to turn his attention to the person that's threatening him and it saves innocent lives. So I believe that that allowing good guys with guns to have opportunities to defend themselves and others is has to be part of the equation.
All right. So August 2020, as you well know, majority Kansans reject a proposed amendment, the Kansas Constitution. It was based on a Kansas Supreme Court decision declare that they found language in the bill of rights that said there was a bodily autonomy, and that included the women's right to end a pregnancy. I presume you voted for the amendment? I did. Yeah. My question is, why would the House and Senate members and other politically active people try to thwart the will of the people, which is to say, we think abortion should be legal and regulated to really come back in 2023, less than a year later and push a huge host of of anti abortion legislation? Why is that? Well, I
would say a couple of things. One is the the the amendment that was on the ballot in 2022. You know, I think probably everybody would agree, people who voted for it and voted against it would say it was kind of a word salad. It was this long, wordy, legislative sounding amendment that talked about all kinds of things got into exceptions got into funding, government funding
was a train wreck written by anti abortion legislators,
I think it was not well written. And as a result, I think it's very difficult for us looking at it after the fact to say, This is what the voters meant, because you could look, I know from a fact explaining it to people went, you know, at the time when it was, you know, during that voting period, what was in it, there were all kinds of people who had no clue people, I think of his, you know, pretty well informed people who were trying to figure out what the amendment meant.
So should we trust the voters to understand complicated issues?
Well, you I think we absolutely should, I mean, that our system, not 14 out of 50 states require the voters to ratify any constitutional amendment to their state. I think the only standard state that doesn't is Delaware. And I think that's a good thing. Because when you're changing the constitution, you're changing the Basic Law, the foundational law of we the people of Kansas. So I think we need to inform voters and I think the best way to inform voters is to start with simple language and that amendment. So to your question, I don't think we can draw conclusions and say the voters of Kansas meant this, like some people who are very much, you know, on the far extreme of the pro choice side will say, Oh, that the people of Kansas are overwhelmingly in favor of abortion with no restrictions at all, or, or with very few restrictions. And I don't think you can draw that conclusion, because they, the anti campaign had made a concerted and effective effort to say, well, this is going to result in the banning of abortions in Kansas, and so many voters may have voted no saying well, I don't want a complete ban. I want reasonable restrictions, but not a complete ban. So you know, bottom line, I think that the the bill that did pass, which was the born alive Protection Act, which simply says that if an abortion does not succeed in killing the unborn and the the the baby is born, that the doctors and the people there have a duty to keep that baby alive once once delivered or tried to. Right so I think that's a reasonable law. I I, I also think that that law stands a very good chance even with the Supreme Court's Kansas Supreme Court's 2019 precedent of surviving any challenge.
Yeah. Okay, let's skip to there was a recent Kansas Court of Appeals opinion, looking at another constitutional right. It was about verifying signatures on advanced ballots. And then there was another Kansas law that limits the number of advanced ballots a person could collect from, say, homebound people and then drive over to the election office and dump. So there was a suggestion that that this was these two bills, these two laws were problematic. I think you disagree. I completely disagree. Maybe I can just kind of explain what the
I was I was involved in, in advocate when I was secretary of state and advocating for signature requirements. And subsequently, there's a second tranche of legislation where the signature requirements added on the on the back end, so when I was secretary state, we put the signature on the front end where you request the absentee ballot. And then subsequently, I helped the legislators draft an addition that says when the ballot comes back to the county election office, you have to verify part
of that it's the issue of you have lame and looking at signatures and deciding whether or not they match or not, right.
And that's not rocket science. I mean, you know, to be to be sure it but the point is the court the struck down those two requirements, as well as the 10 ballot maximum in the number of nouns you can deliver, I think their legal reasoning was really poor. They were arguing that the that having the the county verify your signature to ensure that your ballot is not being stolen or being used by somebody else, that that somehow impairs your right to vote no, on the contrary, protects your right to vote. And before I became Secretary of State, so I'm talking back in 2008. In that period, the Wyandotte County had had a huge problem with large numbers of advanced ballots being falsely requested by someone who either was trying to intercept them at the mailbox, or whatever, because they knew about this, because people said, my advanced ballot was delivered to me, I didn't request it. And so there were clearly schemes underway to try to get either to intercept their ballots or to maybe just illegally gin up voting in particular neighborhoods, who knew. But the point is, that is a very real threat and and just ensuring that it's you. And by the way, the Kansas laws very, very permissive, the Kansas loss requires the county to contact you if the signatures don't match. And they have to try at least three times to say, Hey, by the way, Tim, it looks like your signature doesn't match, would you like to come down and sign again. So you know, maybe you scribble it too quickly, or something you want to try again, so we get a match. So the law is really, really protective of the voter. And they don't just throw it out. If the signature doesn't match, they have to take these extra efforts to make to give you a chance to make sure your signature is correct. And then the other law, another one that I strongly support is the 10 ballot limit on on collecting ballots harvesting is that you know, it prevents people from you know, collecting to underbelly makes
it sound nefarious when you say harvesting, like growing balances. So
the idea is that you're going door to door, and you're either paying people for their ballots, or you are you know, and
do you think you've ever, ever thought that's true that people pay people to fill out about?
I think it's no question. It's true doesn't probably happen in Kansas as much as it happens in places where to
your right jersey, no doubt,
there's there, there is little doubt I'm I've talked to election officials when I was secretary of state from from those places, and they say, oh, yeah, this happens all the time. And anyway, the 10 ballot maximum is designed to stop these large scale schemes where people would, you know, try to harvest, bring 200 ballots in and then dump them in the middle of night in some Dropbox. And so the the argument made by the opponents was a really silly one, but unfortunately, the court bought it and their argument was that infringes the ballot collectors freedom of speech, the guy going door to door, saying, Hey, can I deliver your ballot for you? It infringes his freedom of speech by limiting Him to 10. And the things that doesn't, it might make his speech a little bit less effective when he's already gotten his 10. And he goes to the 11th door and continues to say, hey, I want you to vote. I can't deliver it for you. Because the idea that the idea that that's a free speech violation is is a bit of a stretch, and I think on appeal, we're gonna win.
Yeah, I was just going to ask about going up to the Kansas Yeah, for the they're talking about this as a foundation contract, foundational, constitutional, right, if this is voting, and so forth, so that makes maybe your hurdle.
The lower court's decision is, I would say one of the most radical decisions on this topic in the country. And this is one area where I'm familiar with what, you know, various states and various federal courts have decided and there's no precedent similar to So let's hang you have a free speech right to deliver more than 10 ballots. Or and this is the first case in the country, I believe that said that you your your right to vote has been infringed because the county is trying to protect your right to vote by making sure it's your signature.
Oh, the courts and politics are full of irony. So there's another thing that I've noticed that we know with some of your predecessors to is that pretty common for attorney general Derek Schmidt did it when he was in office, sign amicus briefs on cases from other states and national cases and all sorts of topics, you know, some of them are 1015 20 states are already on the brief. And that you sign on to that. I'm just not sure the just the logistics of that are doing in your office does require a lot of time for somebody one of your staff attorneys to do that, or is it cost very much money? Because it seems like it's already be taken care of by these other 23 states? And like, what difference would it make whether Kansas is involved? Or is there a political constituency out there that expects you to put your name on on those cases? And they go, Yeah, okay. And they Pat, you on the back saying, Yeah, you're you're you're holding up the good Kansas standard.
I don't know that there's a sizable constituency that's actually watching what amicus briefs there might be some, you know, there might be a handful of hardcore Politico's who are watching every move in there. You know, yes. There are some people who say, Hey, I read in such in such very obscure online journal that Kansas joined this amicus brief. That has happened, but I don't think very many people notice. Your first question was does it take a lot of office resources? No, it doesn't know writing an amicus brief if Kansas were the author of the brief, yeah, that would that would take days, maybe weeks of an attorney's hours to write a good brief. But reading somewhere and other states brief and determining that it's late sound legal reasoning is strong is good. You know, that probably takes an hour or two of total time in the office. And you know, once the attorneys in our office who have reviewed it, have, they would then send out an email to the relevant people in the office saying, Okay, we think this is sound for X y&z reasons, we think we recommend that we go ahead and join or we recommend that we don't go ahead and join. So it doesn't consume a lot of resources now
also soon seem pretty partisan, too. Well, it's interesting, the
state attorneys general have become an office that is used in the national law fair game is legal warfare game on a whole host of federal government actions, right. So when Trump was president, blue state attorneys general joined together and sued the Trump administration on a huge number of things. And that's why you shouldn't be surprised to see with Biden as president, if there is a an example of where Biden has done something that the law does, or his administration has done something that the law doesn't permit him to do. You know, red states might join together. And so in a perfect example is one where Kansas is we just literally yesterday filed a lawsuit along with Oklahoma and Texas over the Lesser Prairie Chicken listing as an endangered or do you hate the prairie chicken, I do not hate the chicken I actually love going after purchasing because the greater prairie chicken is huntable. And they're okay. In lesser is the lesser rare with smaller numbers. Yeah. And the but the thing is about this, it's not about the prairie chicken, the prairie chicken is just a sort of pretext for the bigger issue, which is going after oil and going after beef, because the listing if it goes through, and we're challenging it, of course, so we're hoping it won't ultimately go into effect and change your behavior on the ground, is the listing will basically make it impossible to drill new oil wells in western Kansas and in the panhandle of Texas and Oklahoma. And every rancher in Kansas, this only applies to the Kansas regions will have to file a grazing management plan every year with a federally designated agency saying, you know, I'm going to graze this number of cattle on this pasture and then at this time, I'm going to move them to that pasture. And they won't you won't be allowed to deviate from that plan unless you say Mother Mae eye to the federal government. This is a huge violation of property rights that you'd have to get the federal government's approval before you simply graze your cattle on your own land. And so we're suing and the other thing people need to know about this is prairie chicken numbers have been fluctuating for centuries. And the number one driver of their population ebbs and flows is rain. There were so in the 20, in the first decade of the 21st century in the 2000s. There were prairie chicken numbers were in the 30 1000s 40,000 numbers, lesser prairie chickens. Then the drought of 2011 came they dropped to about I think the number was 13,000. Fish and Wildlife under the Obama administration so we have to list this and that was fought out in court ended the day the listing never went into effect because it was fought in court. But the rain came in 2014 and Pro Chicken numbers rebounded to higher than where they were. Now we're back into another drought per chicken numbers are not as low as they were. They're in the mid 20 1000s. I think it's about 25,000. And I am experienced as any guide, as soon as the rains come back, the prairie chicken or chicken numbers will rebound. So this fluctuation in population due to rainfall is being used, I believe, as a pretext to go after oil production and to go after B production which are both politically disfavored by this administration.
Wow. Okay, well, I'm gonna have to leave it there. We'll have to find out what happens to those little lesser prairie chickens.
But we'll know soon enough.
I want to thank you, Mr. Attorney General, for taking the time to talk about through some of these issues. I hope you come back and talk to us. These are all interesting topics. And I think that has wide application for a lot of people around the state just to have you explained some of the details of it and what you're thinking is,
I appreciate the questions and appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for coming my way.
