After GOP convention, Kris Kobach talks Trump, Kansas voter registration law

Kris Kobach hasn’t seen Donald Trump change much.

There may be fewer insults, and he may be more presidential, Kobach said, but the real estate mogul is sticking to the same rhetoric and ideas that led him to become the GOP’s nominee for president.

Fresh off a stint in Cleveland where Kobach helped shape the Republican Party’s platform, the Kansas Secretary of State said he’s pleased with Trump and the views the party endorsed last week.

Asked what his future political ambitions were given his influence in Kansas and his recent work on the GOP’s national platform, Kobach said he wasn’t looking to the future. Yet. He’s been mentioned as a candidate for higher office, including as a candidate for governor, in the past. Gov. Sam Brownback is term limited and the office will be up for election in 2018.

“I’m not making any decisions,” Kobach said. “End of the year, I’ll turn to that.”

The Secretary of State’s comments came early Monday before a meeting of the state election board. The board, which included Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and a member of the attorney general’s office, met to decide whether a 75-year-old woman would be able to vote in Kansas. She had no birth certificate, no drivers license, no passport. Without those documents, she couldn’t prove she was a citizen. And because of that, she couldn’t vote.

The trio unanimously agreed to approve Jo French’s voter registration application. Even though French didn’t have a birth certificate, there was enough proof from other records, Kobach said, to prove the woman was a U.S. citizen.

After the meeting, Kobach said the board’s approval can work as a safety net and shows that the proof of citizenship law that went into effect in 2013 is working. The board has only convened four times since then to decide whether an individual can register to vote, Kobach said. Under Kansas law, the board can convene to discuss a Kansas voter’s application.

Their decision came as Kobach faces a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. The nonprofit has opposed the Kobach-endorsed voting law that requires new Kansans to show proof of citizenship in order to vote. Their latest court challenge came after Kobach’s office announced this month that it would throw out thousands of possible votes in state races. Many of those voters registered under the federal motor voter law, and didn’t meet the Kansas proof of citizenship requirement when they registered. The state’s solution was to still count those votes, but only in federal races. Any votes in state and local races wouldn’t be official unless the voter proved they were a U.S. citizen before election day.

A hearing in the case, Brown v. Kobach, is scheduled for Friday. The state’s primary is Aug. 2.

Doug Bonney, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, criticized Kobach’s claim that only four people had appealed to the board since the citizenship rule became law.

“That’s because nobody knows about it,” Bonney said. “They’ve done nothing to publicize it, as far as I know.”

The Republican Party’s national platform favors proof of citizenship laws, Kobach said, similar to the law being challenged in Kansas.

Of the overall Republican platform, Kobach said it’s the most conservative since the 1950s. He emphasized the need for an actual physical wall with Mexico, “not a virtual wall made of censors in the ground and drones flying overhead.” The Republican Party still believes it should be up to the states to define marriage, Kobach said, and hopes they would follow the traditional definition that the union is between a man and a woman. The platform was also emphatic, Kobach said, about protecting the right to own guns.

Some Trump critics have questioned whether the nominee is as conservative as past Republican presidential candidates. On Monday, Kobach dismissed that idea, citing Trump’s conservative stances on immigration (building a physical wall) and foreign policy (defeating ISIS). By this point in past elections, Kobach said, voters have seen candidates like John McCain or Mitt Romney taking more liberal or moderate stances. Trump’s done the opposite, Kobach said. He hasn’t changed on any of his specifics, Kobach said, and is standing by this year’s historically conservative platform.

“For conservatives like me, I think there’s a lot to be happy about,” Kobach said.

This story was originally published July 25, 2016 at 2:17 PM with the headline "After GOP convention, Kris Kobach talks Trump, Kansas voter registration law."