Coming up on IGI, Kansas has a new attorney general and there's a lot of issues for him to address.

Kris Kobach joins us.

Stay with us.

This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphries Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU Hello and welcome to IGI.

I'm your host, Washburn University professor of Political Science, Bob Beatty Kris Kobach is a well-known name in Kansas politics and government.

He was secretary of state from 2011 to 2019 and won the Republican nomination for governor in 2018.

Over then, Jeff Colyer by 345 votes out of 316,000 cast.

The closest primary result involving a sitting governor in American history.

He ended up losing the 2018 general election to Governor Laura Kelly, but he did win the 2022 attorney general race, defeating Democrat Chris Man by 1.6%.

So a comparative blowout after that 2018 primary.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, thanks so much for joining us.

I really appreciate.

Great to be with you.

So, you know, everyone knows thats watching.

I'm a political nerd and we're going to get into your job as attorney general.

A lot of important things you want to talk about, but I can't let you come without revisiting.

Quickly, the most recent election, I read a column and you can let us know if you disagree or agree with a columnist says you ran a less, quote, controversial campaign and that might have helped.

Do you agree with that?

Columnists or was it a different type of campaign?

I would say I sort of agree with the columnist.

We ran a different type of campaign.

I don't know if I would agree with the characterization.

Less controversial, but yeah, we had a great, I think, strategy.

My team was really well disciplined and did a great job.

I think there's another difference, and that's the office itself.

You know, if you think about it, for most political offices, there really aren't any qualifications.

There's no qualification to be a governor.

There's no qualification to be a senator.

But the attorney general is the one office in politics where there is a qualification.

You need to be an attorney and preferably you need to be a good one.

And so I think the qualifications of the office figured into the advertising, figured into voters minds, and that may have been a difference maker, too.

And you've run for actually different offices.

So really different experiences.

What have you learned that you think might have helped you in this in this winning campaign?

You know, previous, one.

I think if you don't learn from your defeats, then you're you're not thinking enough.

You're not, you know, making use of the experience you've been given.

So certainly seeing what worked and what didn't work and didn't work in prior campaigns had an effect this time around.

Now, you won by 1.6%.

Now, if you run for reelection, as I don't want you to have to give away any trade secrets, but this is an interesting statistic.

In 2006, Paul Morrison was a Democrat and he ran for attorney general and he spent around $2 million and he was able to win.

He ran against a Republican.

And Chris Mann, the Democrat this time around, spent less than that and so many, many years later.

So were you a bit surprised looking at the other side through you, sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop?

And I would argue maybe it never did in that sense that it what you might have expected at least the spending to be as high as 2006.

So to answer to that question, one is that the one of the big differences was that the Democrats were defending a governor's seat.

And so they I think some of the money that might have gone into the attorney general's race went into the governor's race.

Just just my theory.

And I think the other factor that's worth noting is in this race, Chris Mann and I and if you include the various PACs that, you know, spent money on our behalf, spent about the same amount of money it was in the general election, was about $1,000,000 spent on each side.

So in terms of money spent, it was a pretty fair race in terms of, you know, one side didn't have a huge advantage for you.

You're pretty well known.

And I guess what I'm arguing is that I think probably some more money might have been well spent for the other side to get Chris Mann, who was unknown at least to get his name out there.

I guess I was surprised.

Yeah, that's actually a very good point.

Name ID is a big factor in every race and obviously I. I was blessed to have some good name I.D.

coming into this one.

So, yeah, perhaps they could have spent that money.

So political analyst Chris Kobach, I actually tell people you're darn good political analysts when you're not, you know, and when you're not analyzing your own race, you can be.

But yeah.

Why do you think Derek Schmidt lost the governor's race?

You've run for governor before.

Just sort of looking at it.

It was clear.

Yeah, it wasn't razor thin.

So a couple of things.

One is the disparity in money as opposed to the ag race where it was roughly even dollar spent.

I think Derek Schmidt got outspent in the neighborhood of 3 to 1 and we will saw that in the advertising.

And that does have an effect.

A huge disparity in funds can tilt a race, especially in in the governor's race.

You know, that was a similar disparity that I faced in 2018.

So I think the the money spent probably, you know, did what it was intended to do.

And there was a fair amount of split ticket voting.

One interesting statistic is that the legislature, as you know, is very heavily Republican.

So almost 70% of House and Senate seats.

But in terms of the Schmidt Kelly race, actually 49.7% of all legislative districts went to Kelly, 50.3 went to Schmidt.

So almost evenly divided.

So I guess we still it's a more polarized America, but we still saw some split ticket voting.

I would say.

Now, this is just my own theory.

I would say that the legislature is probably a closer reflection of the gut political instincts of the voters, because there's so many issues that they're voting on.

And I would say that and there's less money spent true.

In that.

And so therefore, the the the money kind of pulled a lot of Republican voters obviously, out of their Republican comfortable lane.

And they voted for a Democrat in the governor's race.

I think that's an example of where spending a ton of money can help.

It can kind of push people, nudge them if they're not heavily committed to their party.

Yeah, it certainly happened.

Okay, let's move on to the attorney general and a lot of viewers, despite paying attention to the campaign, because I know we talked about this in debates, some of the things are not exactly 100% clear about the duties of an attorney general.

You mentioned the attorney general needs to be a lawyer, but it's a big office.

And there's some things going on where some people might even say what the attorney general.

So what are how would you describe when you have to tell people what are the main duties or what is it that you do?

I would say the top duties that consume most of the office's resources and my time are criminal prosecutions.

The Attorney General's Office assists the county attorneys throughout the state, in all cases involving homicide and in most cases involving a sex crime involving a child.

So the there is a heavy prosecutorial authority.

We also do our prosecution appeals in the state of Kansas.

So do you mind if I just stop you right there?

So you're saying if it's a relatively small county and they have a homicide or some horrific crime, they'll pick up the phone and call your office.

And they basically say, hey, you're going to can you help us?

Can you say yes?

And typically what happens, either the attorney general's office takes over entirely and does it from start to finish, or we sit side by side with the county attorney.

Second, big duty is defending Kansas statutes.

So any time in a civil case or in a criminal case where the constitutionality of a Kansas law is challenged, the attorneys attorney general's office will step in and defend Kansas law.

Or even have the opportunity to intervene if the case is in the Court of Appeals and doesn't involve the state of Kansas.

The third big one is consumer protection and the Kansas attorney general has a huge fraud unit and consumer protection unit.

So if somebody feels like you've been defrauded by, you know, a false claim or false advertisement that made you you know, buy some product or some service, those often end up in the attorney general's office.

And the public should know that the attorney general is a great backstop.

Call our office if you feel like you've been defrauded.

And then another really big responsibility and I'm leaving some things out.

I think the last one, though, is the one that I don't think a lot of people know that.

I don't think a lot of a fair number of people don't know, hey, I've been defrauded or that company or whatever, let's call the attorney general.

Yeah.

And I've seen the PSA that come out.

Yeah, but that probably is something we have to just keep reminding people.

Yeah.

And the fraudsters get more and more creative and they especially prey on the elderly.

You know, I don't know how many times my mom, who's in her eighties, has said, Hey, Chris, should I, you know, does this sound real to you?

No, no, Mom.

No, it's it's a fraud.

You know, there's all kinds of games out there that people are trying to play to defraud Kansans of their money.

So by all means, contact the attorney general's office.

Go to our Web site.

ag.ks.gov and go to the consumer protection page.

Another big area that we have that's really emerged in the last few decades is state attorneys general are now because of changes in the rules of standing and who can go to federal court and has jurisdiction to invoke the power of the court.

The attorneys general are the ones who holds an administration in Washington accountable to federal law and to the Constitution.

And that has I ran on saying, hey, that's something I take very seriously.

It's something I know how to do.

I've sued presidential administrations as a private attorney, and that's something we're already doing right now.

So those are four of the big ones.

But there are others as well.

And we've seen and we'll get more into that about specifically what you what you're looking for.

But we've seen it over the past number of years in numerous administrations.

Yeah.

From attorney generals across the United States.

That's exactly right.

In various forms.

So what about Medicare fraud?

I mean, I remember I think it was Derek Schmidt, the former attorney general, talking about we're talking, I think, tens of millions or am I off?

No, you're not a lot of money.

That's shockingly high and thinking, my goodness, the AG must be busy again.

It's sad.

Like you said, yes fraudsters that people are doing this and yet it's really important.

Yeah it's regularly over $10 million a year of fraud, Medicare fraud or Medicaid, Medicare fraud that the attorney general's office finds and successfully prosecutes.

That's one of the divisions I didn't mention.

That broadly falls under the Fraud and Consumer Protection Unit.

We have a separate office that just focuses on and Medicaid, Medicare fraud, and that office is partially funded with federal dollars because the federal government has an interest in ensuring that that fraud doesn't occur.

And so that's why it's such a well-staffed office and why it is able to go after so many fraudulent cases.

Is that division dependent on people reporting or is it actively sort of looking into those preemptively?

Both.

When people report, they will investigate those reports and then when they have leads that there might be some, you know, company out there that is encouraging fraud or involved in fraud.

We'll go after them ourselve There, of course, there've been a lot of headlines and discussions about the Department of Labor and unemployment fraud.

We mostly hear about the governor and her administration dealing with that.

Is that something the attorney general can help with?

And because that, Yes.

that is crazy in the last couple of years nationwide.

Yes, absolutely.

The attorney general's office can help with that.

And we do get involved in those cases.

That was, what, 100 million?

I didn't memorize that number before I came here.

But yeah, I think it is certainly over 100 million.

And apparently someone did it to me about a year ago.

I was told that my unemployment benefits or something, I was like, I didn't apply for one.

So it happened to a lot.

And you mentioned this and you know, it's awful depressing.

Well, you know, we get into things maybe that aren't so depressing, but child sex crimes.

Yes.

So those you mentioned homicide.

So those are, of course, some of the worst kind of crimes.

Right.

And even imagine.

Right.

So that's something that that the Kansas attorney general wants to to try to deal with and possibly stop preemptively.

Right.

And there's a unit in the Absolutely And then, of course, when these horrific crimes do occur, we want to make sure they're prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

And there the counties know that if it's a crime like that, that the attorney general's office should be brought in.

And they do report these crimes to us and offer us the opportunity to come in and help.

And, you know, just stepping back.

So after your description of all of this, you walk into your office and how, you know, how do you prioritize or is every single one of those important I mean, it really is.

Every single one is important.

And that's one of the reasons why there's never a dull moment in this office.

I mean, you know, in a typical day, I'll have, you know, four things are five things or six meetings on my schedule, whatever.

But I'll end up dealing with a dozen things because so much just comes through the door, unforeseen things coming in, decisions that have to be made.

One thing that the former attorney general of Nebraska told me when he found out I won the election is he said, Chris, this is going to be the greatest job of your life.

You're going to love it.

It's exciting.

And he's right.

It's a really exciting job.

I mean, there are some things that are very grave and and sad things like these these kinds of cases where we have to prosecute, but there's so much good we can do as well.

And especially when we, you know, win a case for, you know, stopping some fraudulent scheme to, you know, take advantage of Kansans and other cases we've won.

It's good.

Yeah.

And I certainly would never tell you how to do your job.

But I think if Kansans think that their attorney general is fighting crime and especially these types of crimes, I think that's that's they're going to be at least somewhat regardless of political party happy that that's what what that attorney general's doing considering.

Well, and let me give you an example of one of our new priorities and not really a new priority but a priority that I'm trying to refocus more of our resources on and that's a new kind of crime that's hitting Kansas.

It's called organized retail crime.

And this is is probably many viewers have noticed it at the Lowe's or the Home Depot.

There's nobody stopping anyone at the door anymore.

And this is a policy that's emerged over the last few years for the big box stores.

They allow criminals to just push their carts through and nobody tries and they don't stop them because they don't want to have an altercation, a shootout, a fight at the door.

And so the criminals know this.

And a new type of crime has emerged called push outs.

They load the cart with as many expensive items as they can and they push right out the door and loaded into a van and drive to the next one.

And the criminal gang can hit several stores in one day.

In some cases, you know, steal over $1,000,000 worth of items in a single day.

And they typically go very quickly from store to store.

And we are seeking authority from the legislature this year to allow us to be the primary prosecuting entity when there's a criminal, a series of crimes that occurs in multiple counties, which is how this organized retail crime goes, because we really want to target this and and really stop it.

It's one thing that people may not recognize or might be surprised about.

I was surprised to learn.

Kansas and Missouri are both in the top ten states suffering from organized being victimized by organized crime, organized retail crime.

Not Texas, not you know, not Florida, not these giant states.

But there's a ton of it right here in the Midwest.

And so we're going to do all we can to stop.

Do you think that is because they think they can get away with it?

I mean, right now, it just hasn't sort of been.

Well, they can get away with it in all 50 states.

It's it's really interesting.

So we're going after that type of crime very aggressively, too.

Now, I looked up the 2021 crime statistics.

Obviously, they don't reflect 2022, but crime is... total crimes are the lowest sinc 2014.

So that's some good news.

Violent crimes are up right now, unfortunately, rape, for example.

But there are types of retail crimes up, but robberies are down.

So other than, you know, this retail initiative are there other anti-crime.

Yes.

Initiatives?

There's one other big anti-crime initiative we have and that's on fentanyl.

Okay.

Fentanyl.

The fentanyl is it's extraordinary.

The numbers.

I mean, I think most viewers have heard that fentanyl is now the number one cause of death in Americans aged 18 to 45.

What they may not know is that the chart, the graph is going like this.

The final numbers aren't, you know, plateauing off right now.

They are still going up like crazy.

If you look at the region, the DEA region that Kansas is part of, the fentanyl numbers have almost increased tenfold from 2016 through 2022 to almost a ten times increase in the number of fentanyl arrests.

And the fentanyl deaths just keep growing.

We're Kansas is already over 800 fentanyl deaths.

This is a you know, you think about the past drug plagues, whatever, you know, drug waves that this country has seen.

This is unlike anything we've seen in terms of its deadliness and its size.

And it's not it's going to keep growing.

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

And so we are committing a lot of resources and we're seeking enhanced sentences for fentanyl related crimes.

So in terms of supply and demand, in this case, do you want to target, you know, actually who's doing this, the actual criminals that are putting the fentanyl in, possibly other drugs that are distributed?

So we are we're targeting we're targeting the dealers and then the people who bring it into Kansas.

And, you know, it's interesting, the supply and demand of this drug is is interesting because many of the buyers are not wanting to buy fentanyl.

They're thinking they're buying something else, which ends up being laced with fentanyl.

And so it's a it's a strange, you know, market that's out there, the black market for this one.

I don't want to get into the drug deal.

But you know what?

Why are the dealers putting the fentanyl in?

You know, already maybe a legal drug for someone?

What's the purpose of that?

To increase the potency of the drug?

They're even lacing marijuana with fentanyl now.

It's deadly.

It's horrible.

And we're going to do everything we can to stop it.

Now, there's talk in the legislature about legalizing the test strips so people can identify this.

What what's your view on that?

You know, the the interesting thing about that, there's there's two sides to that debate.

One one side would say, let's let's get the testers out there.

So the people taking various drugs will know if there's fentanyl in it.

The other side says, well, wait a minute, then you're making it easier for people to to take the various drugs.

I'm following the lead of law enforcement on this one.

So KBI has been looking at the statistics on this and the trends on this.

And I'll be I'll be following their lead.

If we think it'll help us in law enforcement, then.

Absolutely.

But in terms of saving lives, the best thing out there really is Narcan, which is this truly life saving drug process where, you know, you give someone a Narcan injection and it can bring them back from virtual death where they are about to go and back to health.

So that's been distributed.

Every single law enforcement agency in the state of Kansas has it hospitals have it, even some schools have it.

Now, it's it's essential that everybody, you know, whoever could possibly come into contact with fentanyl, that there be Narcan somewhere nearby to save their life.

You will be watching that, obviously.

And hopefully it's not as bad as you're saying it is.

I hope you're actually I hope I'm I'm hoping I'm exaggerating the problem, because we've been through opioids back in the day, you know, cocaine and yeah, it's just been it's been horrible for many, many it has many, many lives.

I mean, we're actually going to circle back to that a little bit.

But I wanted to ask you about obviously Kansas had the vote on the abortion amendment.

And, you know, it's a perennial issue, looks to be now obviously more in the states.

But you have been involved in the last few weeks, especially with something involving telehealth and an abortion, if you don't mind briefly explaining what happened there.

So what's happened is the Biden Food and Drug Administration has basically come out with a new statement of policy, you know, saying that they will allow pharmacies to start sending abortion pills through the mail in so many words.

The problem with that is that federal law states very clearly that you can't send abortion pills.

And isn't that a law dating back a long time?

It does go back certainly several decades.

Yeah, I think so.

Fairly, yeah.

It's been on the books quite a while.

And so the, you know, we we argue that, well, that's illegal under federal law and many states have similar laws that would prohibit it.

Kansas has one that's currently in the courts right now.

A law that requires a doctor to be present when an abortion pill is consumed.

And so we recently wrote a letter to Walgreens and said, hey, here's what the laws are.

We advise that because Walgreens and CVS are seeking federal certification from the FDA to start mailing and distributing these.

And we told Walgreens, hey, we don't think you legally can do that.

And to their credit, Walgreens responded very quickly and says said, we have no intention.

Its federal law but you know here's the law.

Right and explained that we have every intention of enforcing it.

The federal law allows for both federal enforcement by the DOJ, as well as private and state enforcement through what's called a RICO action.

So we said, you know, we take this law seriously.

We hope you do, too.

And Walgreens, to their credit, said, yeah, we will we will abide by it.

So for you know, for that in that situation that the US Congress has to actually get rid of that law.

It's a federal law, right?

If they want to.

Yeah.

The state could pass, you know, if they yes.

They could pass a law saying we don't want this to happen.

Yes, that's right.

And this is one of those areas in the Constitution, the federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

This is interstate shipments of these pills.

And so both the federal government and the state have the ability to act here.

Okay.

So again, I never went to law school, so bear with me.

So that brought me around to thinking about marijuana.

Okay.

And, you know, folks, I just don't sit around thinking about marijuana, but I mean, in the policy sense and so I read about the abortion pill and in that federal law.

And then I'm but I'm also thinking marijuana is illegal on the federal level, correct?

Yes, it still is.

And is it also true that over 30, 30 some odd states have legalized it?

So if the state Kansas legislature legalized, for example, medical marijuana, would you then say that's a federal law?

We can't do that?

That's what I thought.

Interestingly, I think in that instance, the state laws have been around as long as, if not longer than the federal laws in most every state.

And typically, although, of course, you do have the DEA on the federal level, typically, you know, prosecution of drug crimes is often done at the state level.

It certainly as much as at the federal level.

And so, you know, I think we my my obligation is to enforce state law when counties ask or when I'm given direct authority to be the primary prosecutor.

And we will enforce the law, whatever it is.

The state law.

The state law.

So, yeah, no.

So so state attorneys general do not have authority to prosecute federal laws unless, like the abortion law says that it allows for RICO action.

So if the state legislature legalizes medical marijuana, you're like, that's the state law.

That's what I will defend.

Yeah.

And one point there.

there one thing we see, though, is when states do legalize medical marijuana in the hope that it will be just use used as a for a medical treatment, it's very difficult to police that boundary line.

And in almost every state you end up with, you know, medical use that everybody knows is not really medical use.

Kansas seems to be sort of the last one of the last holdout and maybe that maybe that argument's gone.

Well, I'm Oklahoma.

Missouri.

Well, I sort of surrounded I think the argument is proven in other states that do have maybe proven.

Yeah.

Whether it's how effective it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah.

And ultimately it's the state legislatures decision.

You know, I'm not in favor of legalization, but we'll see what happens in the in the Capitol building.

All right.

We have a few minutes left.

And I know I've talked to you previously and you said you wanted to talk a bit about some possible areas where you might challenge the Biden administration, maybe give us a couple or a few of those.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've done our thinking about our well, there are several that we've already started.

Several other states have been the lead states.

So we have joined with Texas and a bunch of other states in suing the Biden administration over their distortion of asylum law.

They're basically creating it more specifically immigration parole law, I should say, where they're taking a very narrow federal law area offederal law, and they're trying to create an amnesty for 360,000 people a year.

one where Kansas will be taking the lead.

We've already sent a letter to the EPA is on the listing of the prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species.

And, you know, most people at home are probably thinking prairie chicken.

Who cares?

I've never seen one.

But it's not about the chicken.

It's about the huge territories, basically the southwest corner of the state, just massive amounts of land that are considered possible habitat and basically, as a practical matter, they're going to be no new oil wells drilled in that area.

Very few additional structures out in the country, built.

And even more oppressive.

The federal listing is likely to mean that every rancher will have to get his grazing plan approved by an agent of the federal government, an entity designated by the federal government.

And if he doesn't abide by that plan, you know, to say, mother, may I to the federal government's agent, then he could be liable for huge amounts of money.

So it'll it'll restrict property rights.

It will restrict fossil fuel extraction, and it violates federal law in multiple respects.

So Kansas will be leading a multi-state lawsuit in that regard, and that's the main one you're concentrating right now.

That's the one that you have the liberty to do others in the future.

Yes, that's the one where we are going to the lead state doing most of the work on it.

I think a lot of people would say, you know, can't you figure out a middle ground or to work with the federal?

I'm not saying you can, but people would say, can't the federal government work well in almost every one of these cases the feds just slapped down the Biden administration said, okay, here's our new rule.

And it's you know, it's not like they came to the states and said, hey, could we work on something in the middle?

And, in fact, on the issue of the prairie chicken, the states involved, which are primarily Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, have been our Parks and Wildlife Agency through Republican and Democrat administrations, has been doing all kinds of things to help the species.

But the feds apparently don't care.

And they're just coming on in and they're going to say the federal government knows best and we're going to fight back.

Well, I appreciate you coming in and taking your time.

I know you have a very busy schedule.

And actually we discovered a lot of priorities.

And in your job.

So that's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues at ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org For IGI I'm Bob Beatty.

Thanks for watching.

This program is brought to you with support from The Lewis H. Humphreys Charitabl and from the friends of KTWU.