Kansas spent more than $34,000 on Senate-race litigation

The state of Kansas spent more than $34,000 on Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s failed effort to force Kansas Democrats to field a candidate in the race for U.S. Senate.

Kobach called that amount very reasonable.

The state paid Wichita-based Hinkle Law Firm to defend Kobach against a suit brought by Democrat Chad Taylor after Kobach ruled that Taylor would remain on the November ballot against his will. Kobach said Taylor had failed to properly comply with a statute by not explicitly declaring himself incapable to serve if elected.

The Kansas Supreme Court rejected Kobach’s argument and ruled that Taylor’s name be struck from the ballot.

Taylor’s absence has been a boon to independent Greg Orman in the tight race for a U.S. Senate seat. Taylor accused Kobach of trying to keep him on the ballot as a way to help Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts.

The state also retained Hinkle when it tried to intervene in a suit to force the Democratic Party to name a replacement candidate. The suit failed and Kobach’s motion to intervene in the case was thrown out by a Shawnee County District Court judge.

The state spent $34,627.57 on the two cases, according to records The Eagle obtained from the Attorney General’s Office through an open records request.

The state was billed at a rate of $295 an hour for the services of Bradley Schlozman, a lawyer who previously worked in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division while George W. Bush was president. It also reimbursed the firm almost $600 for travel expenses.

Schlozman worked about 115 hours on the two cases in September.

“For complex litigation and the amount of hours that were spent in a very short amount of time, the price tag for the legal assistance we have here is very reasonable,” said Kobach, who is an attorney. “In litigation terms, that’s actually not a huge amount of money. That’s pretty much par for the course.”

The Kansas Democratic Party criticized Kobach over the cost to taxpayers.

“Kris Kobach turned the Secretary of State’s office into his own personal, political pulpit the moment he was elected,” said Jason Perkey, executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party. “If he would have had accepted Chad Taylor’s letter, taxpayers absolutely would not be facing $35,000 in legal fees,” Perkey added.

Perkey, who was a named defendant in the second case, said the party had about $4,600 in legal fees.

Kobach has continued to say he was in the right in his determination that Taylor should have remained on the ballot even though Taylor submitted a letter to withdraw from the race.

He said every lawyer in the secretary of state and attorney general’s offices agreed with his interpretation.

“What the Democrats are asking me to do is ignore what the law says and just hope the Supreme Court goes along with it or hope that you can get away with it. That’s not who I am. I follow the law to a T,” Kobach said.

He said the Supreme Court gave a “strange and unexpected reading to the law.”

“I think definitely the Supreme Court erred, and if I had to do it all over again, I would do it the same way in hopes that the Supreme Court would correctly interpret that law,” Kobach said.

This story was originally published October 27, 2014 at 4:30 PM with the headline "Kansas spent more than $34,000 on Senate-race litigation."