Republican incumbent Attorney General Kris Kobach touted his record while Democrat challenger Chris Mann accused Kobach of using the office to advance his own political agenda at a debate Tuesday.
Moderator Nick Haines asked the candidates a range of questions, giving them a chance to spell out their positions on high-profile issues.
On executions
After the state of Tennessee failed to effectively execute Christa Pike last week Haines of Kansas City PBS asked the candidates about the death penalty.
Kobach said the state should execute people, and do so more effectively. Mann said it’s up to the Legislature whether Kansas should have a death penalty.
Kansas hasn’t executed anyone since 1965, but has nine men on death row. Some have been there for more than 20 years.
Kobach is in favor of the state keeping the death penalty, but says it needs to be more effective.
“Because when you delay 20 or 30 years in actually carrying out the execution, then you deny justice for the family,” Kobach said.
Pike’s botched execution happened via lethal injection. Kobach has been advocating for hypoxia, which would cause death by inhalation of pure nitrogen, as an option.
Mann said it’s not his job to decide if the state should execute people — that it’s the Legislature's decision.
“The rule of law in Kansas right now is the death penalty. If a case like that comes across my desk, I’ll prosecute it,” Mann said.
However, Mann said the death penalty is expensive, and doesn’t do much to deter violent crime.
On the Kansas Supreme Court and abortion
After Kansans rejected an attempt to restrict abortion access in 2022, Kobach said that if Kansas Supreme Court justices were to be elected, rather than picked by the governor under the current merit system, anti-abortion justices could be “slowly and quietly” placed on the state’s supreme court.
Kansans rejected the 2026 amendment to elect state supreme court justices by a wider margin than they rejected the 2022 attempt to restrict abortion.
But Kobach stands by his opinion that the way the state’s highest court is crafted needs to change. Since the current system was set in place in 1958, 77% of cases heard by the Kansas Supreme Court sent to the U.S. Supreme Court have been overturned. That’s a higher percentage than most other states.
Mann said Kobach wants to replace the Supreme Court justices because they don’t agree with him. The majority of justices on the state supreme court were appointed by a Democratic governor.
In the debate, Kobach said it’s his job to uphold Kansas statutes, though he said that the right to abortion found in the Hodes case — which was the state Supreme Court decision that upheld abortion access — ”is not written in the constitution.”
Mann said Kobach uses the attorney general’s office to push anti-abortion policies.
On noncitizens in Kansas
When Kobach was the Kansas secretary of state, he spent his time in office advocating for tighter voting laws to prevent noncitizens from voting.
In November, Kansans will decide if they want to amend the state constitution from essentially reading that “every” citizen can vote to “only” citizens can vote. Proponents of the amendment say the goal is to ensure that only citizens vote in Kansas elections.
Mann said he’s voting against the amendment since Kansas law already reads that “every” citizen can vote.
Kobach said that noncitizens vote in Kansas “very frequently.”
He also defended the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Southwest Kansas last week, and said they were removing people who had “committed violent crimes.” The Kansas News Service reported that’s not the experience of people on the ground.
General agreements — Marijuana, Flock and KORA
Both candidates said that it’s up to the Legislature to decide if Kansas should legalize marijuana.
Kobach said the fact that Kansas is one of few states that hasn’t legalized even medical marijuana is a good thing, because it’s shown that legalization can be a “disaster.” Mann, meanwhile, advocated for legislators to listen to the Kansans who want some form of legalization.
Both candidates also believe there should be penalties for abuse of access to Flock cameras.
Kobach said in cases where law enforcement officers unfairly use Flock camera access to stalk people, they should lose their job, face fines and potential jail time.
The candidates also agreed that there should be hefty fines for a state agency violating the Kansas Open Records Act, or KORA.
“(The open records act) is keeping our government open, keeping our citizens informed and affect the choices that are made,” Kobach said.
While each candidate poked at the other during the debate, the barbs were far less sharp compared to other statewide debates.
When Haines asked the candidates to point out a positive quality in the other, Kobach said he respects Mann’s law enforcement experience and Mann said he thinks Kobach is a talented debater.
Mann was a police officer until he was struck by a drunk driver, and Kobach attended Harvard, Oxford and Yale.
Grace Hills reports on politics for the Kansas News Service.
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