News & Commentary

The ACLU of Kansas, representing five transgender Kansans who want to get or keep a driver’s license that matches their gender identity, has intervened in this lawsuit. “Mr. Kobach’s actions demonstrate a flagrant attempt to do an end-run around our state constitution,” said Sharon Brett.

“Ms. Dreiling has for months been disappointingly dismissive of the need for an accessible polling location as repeatedly stated by many of the Hays voters she serves,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas.

From cash bail, to eliminating juvenile fines and fees to legalized medical marijuana, Kansans want change in our criminal justice system. Kansas voters are increasingly uninspired by legislators’ unwillingness to answer the call for better policy, year after year.

Last month, the ACLU of Kansas sent a letter to local election officials urging them to allow transgender people to vote, regardless of the gender marker on their driver's licenses and other forms of ID.

Two college students and a nationwide voter rights organization have called on a Kansas county clerk to help add a polling location to the Fort Hays State University campus to increase voter turnout, however, that plea continues to be overlooked.

The candidate event was hosted by the League of Women Voters of Topeka-Shawnee County, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, Historic Old Town Neighborhood Improvement Association Topeka, Kansas, LULAC, ACLU Kansas, YWCA, United Way and the NAACP.

Sharon Brett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas said Wright’s story is representative of hundreds, if not thousands, of incarcerated people who were sentenced under “highly punitive and draconian” laws that have since changed.

“We’ve definitely had concerns about First Amendment rights,” Tseng said, “in terms of not only political content, but also religious content that prisoners haven’t been able to get. There doesn’t appear to be any real reason for the prisons to censor these materials.”

A federal court in Wichita has granted class-action status to 5,245 people on the Wichita Police Department’s gang list in a suit filed by the ACLU and the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice in 2021, seeks to strike down a state law and city policy.