Kris Kobach, the Republican candidate for attorney general of Kansas, told Breitbart News that, if elected as the state’s chief legal officer, he would file lawsuits against the Biden administration, end fees for concealed carry permits, and prosecute cases of election fraud.
“On day one, I would set up a special litigation unit to bring some of these lawsuits against the Biden administration,” Kobach said on Thursday’s edition of the Breitbart News Daily podcast with host Alex Marlow. “Texas is the model state. Texas is the one state that’s kind of carrying the rest of the country on its shoulders when it comes to bringing lawsuits against Joe Biden and his administration. They brought more than 20 lawsuits altogether.”
He continued, “Number two, one thing I intend to do is is to make concealed carry permits free. South Dakota did this in March, and I think Kansas and the other states should follow suit. You think about it. We don’t pay a fee to the state to exercise our First Amendment rights to have this discussion on radio. We don’t pay a fee to the state to go to church. Why should we pay a fee to the state to exercise our Second Amendment freedoms? You can still do the training, but not have to pay to exercise that freedom.”
“Another thing is prosecuting election fraud,” Kobach added. “When I was Secretary of State in Kansas, we had a bill that gave both the attorney general and the secretary of state the authority to prosecute election fraud at the state level. It’s the only state in the country that has this, and as attorney general, I would resume the use of that authority. … In the other 49 states, you only have that authority at the county level, and many county prosecutors either are politically unwilling, or because of their lack of experience in the area, unwilling to venture into that area of prosecution.”
Kobach described Kansas’s proposed constitutional amendment regarding abortion, which was defeated by statewide vote on Thursday, as a necessary correction to a previous decision by the state’s supreme court.
“The vote was on an amendment to simply say that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state constitution, and the legislature retains the ability to impose regulations on abortion,” Kobach explained. “The reason that was necessary was because in 2019 our very activist Kansas Supreme Court issued an erroneous decision, creating out of thin air an abortion right in our constitution, which is 170-years-old, that is even more extensive than the Roe v. Wade federal abortion right was, and the constitutional amendment of the people of Kansas in their legislature was necessary to correct that error.”
He continued, “Why did the result happen? It was about a 59-percent ‘no’ to 41-percent ‘yes.’ I believe the reason was the Vote No campaign. The pro-abortion side did a very skilled and effective job of confusing the issue. They were putting signs up that said, ‘Stop The Mandate.’ There was no mandate in this, but they were they were trying to play on the emotional response of the conservatives, and it worked. I know conservatives who were confused about what the amendment did. ‘Stop The Ban,’ as if there was a ban on abortion in the amendment. Of course, that was false, as well. One thing that’s true across the world is when there’s a referendum on some initiative or change, if you can confuse the voters, they will reflexively vote ‘no,’ and that’s exactly what happened here. So I don’t think the left should take this as some huge sign that America wants expansive abortion rights or that America is angry over the demise of Roe versus Wade.”
Kobach said former President Donald Trump’s successful nominations of justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and judges in other federal courts created opportunities for conservative litigators — particularly attorneys general — to contest the legality of many Biden administration policies.
“It’s not just the Supreme Court, which has handed down some truly amazing landmark decisions, but it’s the lower courts, as well,” Kobach stated of recent years. “President Trump’s greatest gift to the country, in my opinion, was the Supreme Court and lower federal judges that he appointed, and given the fact that we have a Biden administration that is actively undermining — or even breaking — the law on the case of immigration, ordering ICE agents and border patrol agents to break the law, we have a situation where the best resort we have — the one that is most effective — is to go to court and seek injunctions to stop the Biden administration.”
He went on, “That’s why I think these attorney general races are so critically important right now. Texas has brought more than 20 [lawsuits against the Biden administration], but there’s only so many lawsuits that one state can bring, and that’s why I’m hoping that if I’m elected as Kansas attorney general, Kansas can come, bring some reinforcements, not just for our two states, but for the entire country.”
“It is an exciting time to be an attorney, and as someone who used to teach constitutional law as a law professor, it’s an exciting time to be in front of the federal courts, and hopefully in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, because we have a court that’s willing to address these tough issues like Roe versus Wade, which was on our books for so long and so wrong,” he remarked.
He concluded, “Similarly, this awesome decision in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association case … really restores the Second Amendment to its status as not just any written right in the Constitution, but one of the most important rights in the Constitution. It’s a truly encouraging thing that we have a federal judiciary where we can vindicate our constitutional freedoms.”