Mysterious website tied to top Republican pushes major court change

12h

Attorney Josh Ney has been a prominent supporter of changing the selection process for Kansas Supreme Court justices. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

William Allen White changed his mind very publicly. Once an ardent anti-populist — the equivalent of a conservative today — he eventually embraced the progressive cause — more or less a modern political liberal.

What White didn’t do was obscure his identity or opinions. He proudly credited himself as editor and publisher of The Emporia Gazette. His name was emblazoned on dozens of books and on the Gazette masthead besides.

That’s why I find it peculiar to find White misquoted by an anonymous website that long surfaced as the first result of Google searches about the Kansas judicial selection amendment. The “Kansas Information Network” includes no names or email addresses. It offers scant content beyond a lengthy page about potentially voting for state Supreme Court justices.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the group behind that website was incorporated in 2025 by Josh Ney, a high-profile lawyer who has represented Republican lawmakers and spoken publicly in support of the amendment. He also incorporated the similarly named “Kansas Information Network Action,” which promoted the other group’s website via Google.

You might know Ney as the “N” of KN Law Group. The “K” was once Ryan Kriegshauser, recently appointed by President Donald Trump as the U.S. attorney for Kansas. Ney served as the state’s securities commissioner under Gov. Sam Brownback and has made his presence felt during the Statehouse session.

All Kansans have the right to speak out on issues of public importance. That’s a good thing.

But with the amendment vote set for Aug. 4 and fundamental rights for Kansans at stake, the anonymity and curious approach of the website leave a sour taste. Republican officials have taken the bait, with Rep. Adam Smith, R-Weskan, citing it as authoritative on Facebook. His post was then reshared by the Cowley County Republican Party.

Ney has been a outspoken advocate of changing the Kansas Supreme Court selection process, as he told the Rotary Club of Wichita on Monday.

“For the for the past 17 years, I’ve been asked to testify at various times as we’ve debated this, whether it’s nominating commission reform, federal model for the court of appeals and ultimately transparency issues with the current system,” he said.

The website doesn’t mention Ney’s role as incorporator, or his continued advocacy. It doesn’t say who created the content or paid for the associated advertising.

What’s in a name?

Let’s sort through this all piece by piece. The title caught my eye first.

“Kansas Information Network” contains three nouns, all of which also appear in the name of an actual state agency: the “Information Network of Kansas.” That group aims “to enable digital access to Kansas state and local government information and services for public use and benefit.”

Kansas Public Radio once hosted its own “Kansas Information Network,” although the project appears not to have published any stories since late 2017.

Neither the state agency nor the public radio project have any connection to the new, amendment-focused, website. Nevertheless, the bland, utilitarian design of its website conveys bored authority. Kansans learning about the amendment debate might confuse the new site for a long-running, authoritative resource.

But there’s more

On its “About” page, the website includes the following misquotation from William Alan White: “The facts are fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself.”

The source of this quote is a memoir by legendary journalist George Seldes titled “Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs.” In it, he quotes the Emporia newspaperman as saying: ‘That’s it, that is our formula: ‘The facts fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself.”

You’ll notice that the Kansas Information Network adds an “are” to the quote, presumably for ease of reading. That still makes the quote incorrect. You can also read White’s words each and every day in the Kansas Reflector’s email newsletter. We use the correct version as our motto.

Let’s place quibbles about verbiage aside. The citation of a legendary Kansas journalist and political progressive lends implicit assurances of the website’s handedness. White’s name looms even larger given the surrounding pages’ anonymity.

Perhaps most humorously, the Kansas Information Network includes a page of “Helpful Resources.” It includes the names, numbers and websites of Kansas public officials — with the notable exception of judicial selection amendment supporter and state Attorney General Kris Kobach. Finally, it includes a link the KTWU public TV show “Sunflower Journeys.”

That struck a nerve with me because the producer and host of the show for 27 seasons, Dave Kendall, has written columns for Kansas Reflector. Kendall no longer works for KTWU or the program, but he was surprised and amused to see it mentioned in such a context.

“To me personally, it’s just another laugher and SMH (shaking my head) moment,” he wrote me via email. That being said, he wrote later, “it would be unfortunate for those who see SJ on this list as some sort of stamp of approval.”

I reached out to Ney multiple times for comment on the site and his connection to it. I emailed twice, sent a text message, and left a voicemail. He didn’t respond.

Advocacy for change

Ney’s connections with both organizations has been previously reported.

The Sunflower State Journal’s Brad Cooper wrote about Kansas Information Network Action — and its $264,000 ad buy backing the amendment — on June 15. He noted that Ney had incorporated it.

Former state Rep. Jason Probst, D-Hutchinson, wrote about the website and Ney on a Substack blog entry titled “When Truth isn’t good enough to win…” from July 12. Want to know how the Kansas Information Network misleads? Read this piece. Probst details how a supposedly unbiased information source can manipulate voters.

Ney himself spoke out about the amendment in an interview with KAKE-TV posted June 22 He added his name to an open letter released July 14 from Kansas attorneys supporting the measure. The day before, he commented for a piece by my pal Joel Mathis in the Kansas Leadership Center’s Journal.

He submitted testimony in favor when the amendment was being debated in 2025. All the way back in 2009, he wrote an article titled “Does the Kansas Supreme Court Selection Process Violate the One Person, One Vote Doctrine?” published in the Washburn Law Review.

Most recently, he spoke at the Wichita Rotary event. Over the course of an hour, he offered about as good of a case for changing the Kansas Supreme Court nomination process as I’ve heard.

“In Kansas and in any constitutional republic, do we need an exception to democracy?” he asked the audience. “I think the burden of proof ultimately needs to be on the person who is asking the people to cede their inherent authority to someone else. Another way of asking that is: Are Kansans in 2026 capable of picking their own government?”

With all of this being said, I don’t know why the Kansas Information Network needed to be anonymous.

I might not agree with Ney’s conclusions, but that’s the way our nation’s marketplace of ideas works. His experience with the Kansas legal system makes him a more persuasive messenger than a random website. Nothing prevents the Kansas Information Network from trumpeting Ney’s experience or reprinting that law review piece.

As a longtime tiller in the fields of professional opinion, I don’t understand how someone both wants to passionately express their opinions on one hand and help incorporate a secretive group supporting such opinions on the other.

Perhaps amendment advocates prefer obfuscation.

The misleading rhetoric around the vote suggests as much. Why come out of the shadows when you can instead rely on the goodwill generated by Kansas icons such as William Allen White and durable programs such as “Sunflower Journeys”?

Political operatives can list good reasons to vote for the amendment and good reasons to vote against it. But Kansans should show consistency and moral clarity in identifying themselves in making their cases to the public. It might also help if they refrain from telling total fibs about what passage would mean.

As Ney ended his speech to the Rotary on Monday afternoon, he recommended the audience check Ballotpedia’s summary of the amendment as a worthwhile, unbiased source. For some reason, he didn’t mention the Kansas Information Network.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

From Your Site Articles