The Kansas City Star

Schools, birth certificates: Kris Kobach’s expanding fight against trans rights in Kansas

When Kris Kobach became Kansas secretary of state 13 years ago, he immediately proposed new election requirements, including showing a photo ID to vote and mandating new voter applicants provide documentsproving their citizenship. Among the earliest and fiercest critics of the measure were transgender Kansans. They warned that confusion or suspicion arising from mismatches between their official documents and outward presentation — and the difficulty of changing official records — risked disenfranchisement. A federal judge laterstruck down the proof-of-citizenship rule and Kansas agreed to all...

Auditor alleges top Missouri election official Jay Ashcroft broke law in withholding info

Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick on Monday accused Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft of violating state law by refusing to turn over the cyber security reviews of the state’s local election authorities. Fitzpatrick released a scathing audit report on Ashcroft’s office that was highly critical of his fellow Republican’s decision last year to leave a national system designed to improve the accuracy of voting rolls called the Electronic Information Registration Information Center, or ERIC. Fitzpatrick’s audit, which raises questions about Ashcroft’s handling of the Missouri Secretary of ...

Hawley talks a big game on worker rights amid union strike. Do his votes match up?

On a sunny day last month, Sen. Josh Hawley showed up on the sidewalk of a busy road in Wentzville, trailed by journalists and staff, and stood with striking United Auto Workers. Hawley was one of a handful of Republicans who visited a picket line shortly after workers at three of the country’s top automobile manufacturers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which makes Chryslers – voted to strike as they pushed for higher wages and better benefits. He talked to workers who said they had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and said they wanted to be able to spend more time with their fa...

Raided Kansas newspaper is known for aggressively covering small town’s many disputes

Sharon Kelsey had come to the Marion County Record on Monday afternoon to place resurrection lilies next to a red newspaper box outside the weekly paper in the small central-Kansas town. Kelsey, a subscriber whose paper gets passed between her sons, was “very upset” about a Friday police search of the Record’s newsroom, which was quickly criticized as the story spread across the U.S. Police also searched the home of the paper’s co-owners, Eric Meyer and his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer. She died the next day. “I feel like things in this country aren’t going right,” said Kelsey, a longtime Ma...

Kansas Highway Patrol did not write offense report after arresting state GOP leader

TOPEKA, Kansas — Police did not complete an offense report during or after the arrest of Kansas Senate Majority Leader Gene Suellentrop on suspicion of DUI, fleeing police, and driving the wrong way on an interstate, the Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) said Thursday. Following Suellentrop's arrest last week, the KHP denied the majority of The Kansas City Star's requests for records on the arrest and investigation. The one document that KHP general counsel Luther Ganieney said would be public is the front page of the Kansas Standard Offense Report (KSOR), which details the suspected offense, the na...

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'Unqualified — politically, intellectually, morally': Hometown paper crushes GOP senate candidate Eric Greitens

The disgraced and depraved former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens said on Monday that he is running for his fellow Republican Roy Blunt’s U.S. Senate seat. He made the announcement on Fox News, which tells you something about his contempt for Missourians. He clearly hopes voters have short memories. Somehow, he believes they will excuse a scandal so repulsive that Republicans and Democrats worked together to force him from the governor’s office. But Missourians should neither forget nor forgive. Eric Greitens is unqualified — politically, intellectually, morally — to ever again serve in any public...