News & Commentary

Constant testing did nothing to reduce COVID transmission, but it was very effective at reducing everything else. From a few weeks into the pandemic through the end of 2022, each time one of us tested positive, staff would pack us off to the quarantine unit. We’d be locked in there with a bunch of other people who’d also tested positive, until we tested negative. No TV. No radio. No books. We had the option of making one 20-minute phone call each day, during the same 20-minute window when we had the option of taking a shower. 

The cost of defending election laws enacted in 2021 has now surpassed $1 million as the litigation winds its way through the federal and state court system.

In wake of the attorney general’s effort to undo the consent order, Kansas ACLU executive director Micah Kubic said Kobach ought to rethink the “sheer indecency of this attempt to weaponize his office’s authority to attack transgender Kansans just trying to live their lives.”

“This is a huge win — for our clients and for anyone else who travels on Kansas highways. We are gratified that the Court saw the ongoing harms of KHP’s unconstitutional practices and stepped in to stop the department’s widespread misconduct,” said Sharon Brett, Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas.

When a mundane traffic stop was nearing its end, a state trooper would turn to leave. But after a couple of paces toward the squad car, the trooper would whirl around and go back to the window of the pulled-over driver, hoping to strike up a conversation and find enough reason to scour the car.

Kansas trooper Brandon McMillan pulled Bosire over for driving seven miles per hour over the speed limit, according to court documents. What happened next is an example of a policing practice known as the Kansas “two step,” a tactic that a judge ruled unconstitutional this week.

The Kansas Highway Patrol has been ordered to stop its infamous “two-step” technique by a federal judge, in what the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas calls a “huge win” for all motorists using state highways.

“When we’re trying to make this about something very simple like statutory interpretation, what we’re doing is ignoring the reality that transgender Kansans are going to face every single day in this state,” Sharon Brett, the ACLU of Kansas' legal director, said after the hearing.

"I think it's important to remember that these lawsuits impact people," said Sharon Brett, the ACLU's legal director. "They have impact on people's health and safety and livelihood and dignity and privacy. And those rights could be asserted in the state court and should be asserted[...]"