News & Commentary

“The only way they can do that is by tapping into local police forces,” said Micah Kubic, the executive director of the ACLU of Kansas.

Micah Kubic, the executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said he expected the court to soon consider several controversial policies, including on LGBTQ+, labor and voting rights.

For weeks, reports of ICE activity in Olathe seemed to arrive almost daily, with residents documenting detentions at apartment complexes, businesses, gas stations and intersections and community volunteers tracking federal agents across the city. But since the July 11 detention of a U.S. citizen in Olathe, few new public reports have surfaced in the city, according to local ICE watch groups. Here’s what we know:

Micah Kubic, executive director of ACLU of Kansas, worries that influence from billionaire donors would become rampant under a system where judges must campaign for votes from the public. “I would far prefer a Kansas Supreme Court that is fair and impartial, where the things that I believe in lose, as they often have, to one that is bought and paid for by billionaire political donors,” Kubic said.

Micah Kubic, executive director of ACLU of Kansas, said, "This is a blatant attack by the legislators on our justices, and it’s part of a decades-long pattern of politicians attempting to punish the judicial branch for issuing decisions on education and reproductive freedom that they disagree with. ... Partisan elections quickly become fights between out-of-state, big money interests. These elections become less about the voters and constituents of the state and more an opportunity for out-of-state big money interests to wage war against one another. And now, lawmakers would like our state’s highest court to be smack in the middle of that war."

The ACLU of Kansas found the eight closed locations accounted for 19% of all early votes cast in the 2024 general election.

The Kansas American Civil Liberties Union stressed in a social media post last week that bystanders would only be able to record interactions by law enforcement outside of the 25-foot buffer zone.

Micah Kubic, the President for the Kansas United for Impartial Courts, and Elizabeth Patton, the regional director for the Americans for Prosperity Kansas, shared what you’re really voting for when you see or hear something that’s telling you to vote no or vote yes.

But opponents like the ACLU of Kansas say it infringes on First Amendment rights.