NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach talked to Hutch Post at the Kansas State Fair. He's proud of the work his team has done to combat federal overreach.
"We've had a number of victories against the Biden administration," Kobach said. "I'm really pleased with our team, one of which was the Title IX case, where the Biden administration is trying to use its regulatory authority, which it doesn't have in this instance, to force colleges and high schools to allow biological males to use women's restrooms, locker rooms, showers, and a whole host of other things. And we won that case in Kansas District Court. The U.S. Department of Justice is moving on up to the Court of Appeals, and we hope to win there as well. We had another victory in a case where the Biden administration is trying to give the right to unionize to legal alien farm workers, farm workers who have H-2A visas, and we beat them in District Court on that issue as well. And then of course the student loans question, where the Biden administration is trying to forgive student loans without proper authority, we beat them in that case as well, so we're racking up some victories for the Constitution and for the people of Kansas."
The expansion of administrative action without attempts to get legislation through Congress has been a relatively recent phenomenon.
"One change occurred about 20 years ago, 15 years ago, that has really changed the role of State Attorney General, and that is that the various U.S. courts of appeals, the various circuits have opened up standing, meaning they've allowed states to come in as plaintiffs, where maybe 30 years ago they would not have allowed the state to sue," Kobach said. "That's been the biggest change. Then you have the other big change, which is the Biden administration, and before that the Obama administration, just pushing the envelope of what they try to do. You know, previously they would try to move something through Congress. Now they don't even bother. They just go straight to a regulatory agency and push a regulation that is unconstitutional and probably contrary to statute, in the case of, such as the Title IX one or the attempt to forgive student loans. That's another big change. You've got an overreaching administration, which we didn't see 20 years ago, and you've got rules of standing that allow the states to come in and challenge it."
Kobach's office is also working on another administrative strategy, called 'sue and settle', when an administration gets a friend to sue them and then settles with that friend to bypass the administrative law process.
"Kansas is right now leading an effort to stop this sue and settle arrangement where an administration has a friendly lawsuit, and then they settle it, and they achieve what they wanted by not even issuing a regulation. They just have a settlement and a lawsuit," Kobach said. "The case is called East Bay Sanctuary, and it's in the Ninth Circuit out of California. And that's exactly what happened there. The plaintiffs got a friendly settlement or in a friendly negotiation with the U.S. Department of Justice, and the state of Kansas, along with a couple of other states, were jumping in and saying, no, no, no, you don't. We want to intervene in this case and represent the people of the United States. That case is about the plaintiffs trying to basically wipe away a good immigration regulation that would make it harder for these illegal aliens to falsely claim asylum, and it would make it harder for them to come in anywhere they want along the border, and then if they get caught, say, oh, I'm here for asylum. And so anyway, it's a great regulation. We're there to defend it, and we're trying to intervene, and we're asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow us to intervene to stop this sue and settle scheme, and we should have an answer from the U.S. Supreme Court soon."
For more information on the actions taken by the Kansas Attorney General's Office, go to https://ag.ks.gov/.