Sedgwick County accepts Tabitha Lehman firing, promised role in choosing replacement
Sedgwick County commissioners decided Friday not to fight Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s firing of Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman, after Schwab promised the county a role in choosing her successor.
Commissioners complimented Lehman for conducting a nearly flawless election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, while also undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
But they opted not to propose legislation to scale back Schwab’s authority to pick the top election official in the state’s four most populous counties.
Commissioners took no action after a special meeting Friday morning. In commission comments, only one, Jim Howell, advocated for challenging Schwab in the Legislature.
The rest said they were satisfied with a process Schwab has created to choose election commissioners when vacancies occur, whether through resignation, retirement or when — as in Lehman’s case — Schwab decides not to renew the appointment.
Lehman was appointed by Schwab’s predecessor, former Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Schwab informed her earlier this month that he won’t reappoint her to another four-year term when her current term expires in July.
The stated reason for her dismissal is that she used a remote connection to access the voter database to prepare for the 2020 elections when Schwab had forbidden her to do that.
At the time, Lehman was under doctor’s orders not to risk catching COVID by going to the office because she was being treated for cancer. She says she was assured by information technology professionals that the Virtual Private Network connection provided by the county was as secure as working at her desk in the Historic Courthouse.
Commissioners complimented Lehman’s handling of the election, but declined to revive lobbying for a bill they supported about three years ago that would have shifted control over appointing election commissioners from the secretary to the county commission.
Commission Chairman Pete Meitzner said he’s been assured by Schwab that replacing Lehman will follow the same procedures used to replace the Johnson and Wyandotte county election commissioners.
That process creates a five-member committee to interview and screen applicants. The committee has three members from the secretary’s office — the chief deputy, the elections director and the human resources director — and two from the county — the county commission chairperson and the human resources director.
Schwab doesn’t directly participate and has agreed to accept the committee’s choice, except if there’s a tie and he has to pick from two nominees.
The nominees cannot have a history of political activism, Meitzner said.
County Commissioner David Dennis said Schwab committed to putting the selection panel process into state regulations.
Commissioner Lacey Cruse said Lehman had conducted a “safe and fair election in the most transparent way possible.”
But she urged the others to “look past this moment that we’re in right now” and consider “all of the future ramifications” that changing the appointment process would make.
Sarah Lopez, the newest commissioner who was seated earlier this month, also complimented Lehman’s handling of the election and said she had no doubt that the commission would reappoint her given the chance.
“I’m not happy that we’re up here having this conversation,” she said.
But she said she didn’t want to take action because of the chance that a future commission might not be as responsible as the current one.
“Looking forward to what this commission could look like and the way their decisions could go . . . I think that sets it up to be more of a partisan scene,” she said.
Howell, whose wife is Lehman’s sister, was the only one who supported legislative action to remove the secretary of state’s unilateral authority over appointing election commissioners — either by putting it in the hands of county commissions or putting the decision to voters. In 101 of the state’s 105 counties, where the population is under 130,000, the elections are run by the elected county clerk.
Howell said he and Lehman aren’t particularly close and have clashed in the past over election policy. But he doesn’t think she was treated fairly since her only choices were to risk her life by working in the office, let a less-experienced person run a particularly difficult election and put that at risk, or work at home in violation of Schwab’s policy.
“He didn’t have to take what I call the nuclear option,” Howell said. “He could have made a choice to reprimand her or to correct her, or maybe to provide the right equipment that he promised already.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 2:38 PM.
