Sunday, February 07, 2016
Is Brian Newby a Kobach operative in DC? Newby photo. Kobach photo.
Chris Kobach is the controversial Kansas Secretary of State, noted for such hijinks as requiring Kansas voters to prove citizenship, and seeking prosecutorial powers to charge people with voting for Democrats, or whatever.
He may aspire to higher office; I remember when Senator Roy Blunt used to be Missouri's Secretary of State, and when Congressman Todd Rokita was as assistant Secretary of State in Indiana.
(an earlier draft of this entry called him Leroy Blunt, but that might be his father, a former state representative. Blunt's son Matt has been both Secretary of State and Governor. What a dynasty.)
Brian Newby worked for Kobach as the Johnson County election commissioner before becoming exec director of the EAC, electoral something commission, in DC. Newby is a UMKC grad like me, not sure what year. Johnson County is the Kansas half of the Kansas City metro area; about half the population of Kansas lives there.
Kansas City Missouri, back in the days of Harry Truman and the Pendergrast machine, had two political parties, the rabbits and the goats. These were nicknames for two factions within the Democratic party. The GOP was much smaller and had little influence, until the late 40s.
Johnson County is similar; there are two factions, both GOP. One very conservative, the other mainstream. Think of the Reagan and Ford factions of the GOP.
See http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-political-war-against-the-kansas-supreme-court
Kobach I'm guessing is part of the conservative group. Newby I know less about.
Here in Indiana, county elections are handled by the elected County Clerk, not appointed by the Secretary of State. They are of opposite parties at the moment, a Democratic clerk and and a GOP SecState. In Denver the Election Commissioner is elected,and for awhile we had Doug Anderson, a Libertarian, in that office. I don't know how common it is for the state to appoint county eklection authorities. All of this goes to whether Kobach has some kind of undue influence on Newby.
There's a controversy going on right now about Newby making changes in a federal form, or its instructions, to make it harder for people to register to vote in Kansas, undercutting the goals of HAVA. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/federal-agency-helps-red-states-make-voter-registration-harder
Part of the controversy is a tension between the executive branch of the EAC, Newby and his staff if any, and the legislative branch, the EAC commissioners.
The EAC is nominally bipartisan. Newby worked for both parties in his 10 years as Johnson County's
election Commissioner. I am unclear about whether the EAC features the same kind of partisan impasse as the FEC. I do know the EAC was inactive for a few years during which the GOP refused to name anyone to it, then this got resolved.
That's the backstory. My real concern, in this post, is my distrust for "non-partisan" election authorities. I don't know enough about the insider baseball of the EAC to do more than speculate,
but it seems like maybe they hired a guy they thought was nonpartisan, who turns out to be a partisan operative. What makes this story unusual is that here he turns out to be, maybe, a conservative republican. Usually in these cases the "nonpartisan" official is a liberal Democrat. So I want to see how this gets covered and discussed when the shoe is on the other foot.
I may have the facts, and their nuances, wrong, as I say I'm speculating here.
I'm not against the idea of election authorities being genuinely nonpartisan and above the fray.
My concern is that this can lead to a wolf in sheep's clothing.
It's pretty common in certain circles, such as newspapers and law schools, to be nominally nonpartisan but in practice 90% liberal Democrats. I worry that nominally nonpartisan election authorities would end up being skewed in a similar way.
The EAC controversy may shed some light on how this kind of thing can play out.
Chris Kobach is the controversial Kansas Secretary of State, noted for such hijinks as requiring Kansas voters to prove citizenship, and seeking prosecutorial powers to charge people with voting for Democrats, or whatever.
He may aspire to higher office; I remember when Senator Roy Blunt used to be Missouri's Secretary of State, and when Congressman Todd Rokita was as assistant Secretary of State in Indiana.
(an earlier draft of this entry called him Leroy Blunt, but that might be his father, a former state representative. Blunt's son Matt has been both Secretary of State and Governor. What a dynasty.)
Brian Newby worked for Kobach as the Johnson County election commissioner before becoming exec director of the EAC, electoral something commission, in DC. Newby is a UMKC grad like me, not sure what year. Johnson County is the Kansas half of the Kansas City metro area; about half the population of Kansas lives there.
Kansas City Missouri, back in the days of Harry Truman and the Pendergrast machine, had two political parties, the rabbits and the goats. These were nicknames for two factions within the Democratic party. The GOP was much smaller and had little influence, until the late 40s.
Johnson County is similar; there are two factions, both GOP. One very conservative, the other mainstream. Think of the Reagan and Ford factions of the GOP.
See http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-political-war-against-the-kansas-supreme-court
Kobach I'm guessing is part of the conservative group. Newby I know less about.
Here in Indiana, county elections are handled by the elected County Clerk, not appointed by the Secretary of State. They are of opposite parties at the moment, a Democratic clerk and and a GOP SecState. In Denver the Election Commissioner is elected,and for awhile we had Doug Anderson, a Libertarian, in that office. I don't know how common it is for the state to appoint county eklection authorities. All of this goes to whether Kobach has some kind of undue influence on Newby.
There's a controversy going on right now about Newby making changes in a federal form, or its instructions, to make it harder for people to register to vote in Kansas, undercutting the goals of HAVA. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/federal-agency-helps-red-states-make-voter-registration-harder
Part of the controversy is a tension between the executive branch of the EAC, Newby and his staff if any, and the legislative branch, the EAC commissioners.
The EAC is nominally bipartisan. Newby worked for both parties in his 10 years as Johnson County's
election Commissioner. I am unclear about whether the EAC features the same kind of partisan impasse as the FEC. I do know the EAC was inactive for a few years during which the GOP refused to name anyone to it, then this got resolved.
That's the backstory. My real concern, in this post, is my distrust for "non-partisan" election authorities. I don't know enough about the insider baseball of the EAC to do more than speculate,
but it seems like maybe they hired a guy they thought was nonpartisan, who turns out to be a partisan operative. What makes this story unusual is that here he turns out to be, maybe, a conservative republican. Usually in these cases the "nonpartisan" official is a liberal Democrat. So I want to see how this gets covered and discussed when the shoe is on the other foot.
I may have the facts, and their nuances, wrong, as I say I'm speculating here.
I'm not against the idea of election authorities being genuinely nonpartisan and above the fray.
My concern is that this can lead to a wolf in sheep's clothing.
It's pretty common in certain circles, such as newspapers and law schools, to be nominally nonpartisan but in practice 90% liberal Democrats. I worry that nominally nonpartisan election authorities would end up being skewed in a similar way.
The EAC controversy may shed some light on how this kind of thing can play out.
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