Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, seen during a June 17, 2024, news conference at the Statehouse in Topeka, says only he can represent the state in federal litigation. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on Thursday asked a federal court to remove Gov. Laura Kelly from a multi-state lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s refusal to release grant money to states.
Kelly joined 22 states and the District of Columbia in the lawsuit last month. Kobach, a Republican, said the Democratic governor doesn’t have the authority under Kansas law to represent the state in federal litigation.
“The governor is purporting to represent the state of Kansas and claiming that Kansas demands and wants the federal government to continue spending this money that these federal agencies have deemed to be unnecessary and wasteful,” Kobach told legislative leaders at a meeting Thursday at the Statehouse.
The states sued the Office of Management and Budget over decisions by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, to terminate billions of dollars in federal funding that had been allocated by Congress. The lawsuit argues those cuts have had a devastating impact on state efforts to combat violent crime, educate students, safeguard public health, protect clean drinking water, conduct medical and scientific research, provide meals for students in school, and ensure access to unemployment benefits.
When the governor joined the lawsuit, her office said the Trump administration had terminated “millions of dollars used to purchase goods from Kansas farmers, to mitigate natural disasters and to enhance childhood education.” Her office didn’t immediately respond to a Kansas Reflector inquiry on Thursday.
Kobach appeared before the Legislative Coordinating Council, which consists of five Republicans and two Democrats, to ask for a statement of support in dropping Kansas from the litigation. He said he filed an amicus brief Thursday to inform the Massachusetts federal court of his assertion that state law allows only the attorney general to represent the state in federal litigation.
“Otherwise the court might assume that a governor walking into a federal court might have the authority to represent the state in court, but under Kansas law, that is not the case,” Kobach said.
The council on a party-line vote approved a motion made by House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who is running for state insurance commissioner, that declares the governor is violating Kansas law and should be dropped from the case.
“Even if the attorney general were representing Kansas, doing so would not be in the state’s interest,” Hawkins said.
Kobach also said Kelly had asked him to join the lawsuit and that he refused because he believes it is destined to fail. He pointed to the Trump administration’s insistence that a federal regulation allows agencies to terminate a grant if it no longer effectuates agency priorities.
“We don’t believe that any state has the ability to compel the federal agency to spend the money, and so, purely on legal grounds, we rejected the governor’s request,” Kobach said.
He said the states could get a favorable ruling at the district court level in Massachusetts, where the case was filed, but that their legal claims “are not winners.”
“We’ve all heard in the news there are district judges on every position on the political spectrum, and judicial, ideological, jurisprudential spectrum,” Kobach said. “When this case goes up on appeal, the states seeking the grants are going to lose.”
In the lawsuit, the states argue that the Trump administration is attempting to redefine a regulation that has never before been used to justify an agency withholding grant money “when the agency simply changes its mind.”
The regulation “provides no support for a broad power to terminate grants on a whim based on newly identified agency priorities,” the lawsuit said.
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