News & Commentary

Rashane Hamby, director of policy and research at the ACLU of Kansas, said Kansas’ current forfeiture law has placed an undue burden on claimants and has disproportionately impacted those who don’t have the resources to hire attorneys.

“Democracy is not a partisan matter. It’s the very foundation that ensures each Kansas voter can have a voice in the laws and policies affecting their lives,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of ACLU of Kansas.

The bill’s narrow definition of “elective abortion,” which would exclude considerations of mental health for the pregnant woman, exemplified attempts to curtail women’s autonomy, reproductive freedoms and civil liberties, said Rashane Hamby, director of policy and research at ACLU of Kansas.

Kansas should also allow executions by hypoxia, Kobach says. The controversial execution method deprives a person of oxygen and was used in the United States for the first time last month. Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, called the proposed legislation extreme.

Kobach is now urging school districts to tell parents if students are trans or nonbinary.

The ACLU of Kansas has released a response regarding the Kansas Attorney General’s letter to six Kansas Public School districts allegedly not disclosing a student’s pronouns shared in school to the student’s parents.

A little more than a year ago, ACLU Kansas and other voting-rights groups filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that its at-large election system unlawfully dilutes the votes of Latinos – depriving them of proper representation.

“The thing that’s consistent about all of those is that they’re all attacks on democracy, all attacks on voting rights,” Kubic said. “Precisely the sort of attacks that have already been rejected by Kansans, rejected by courts and rejected by common sense.”

The ACLU of Kansas suggested the law may be unconstitutional and Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, campaign manager for New Frontiers, a southwest Kansas civic engagement group, said the proposed state council would create a new burden and potential discrimination for immigrant families.