News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas is calling on Johnson County’s Interim Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt to reverse a decision to eliminate eight advance voting sites ahead of the Aug. 4 primary.

With the ACLU, two Lawrence transgender men filed a lawsuit challenging both provisions of the new law, including the requirement for transgender people to use the bathroom of their sex assigned at birth in government buildings. Miller’s lawsuit only focuses on the part that invalidated driver’s licenses.

A Kansas coalition made up of about 70 organizations launched a grassroots canvassing campaign against a constitutional amendment. Kansas United for Impartial Courts rounded up volunteer door-knockers in Lenexa and Wichita to encourage people to vote Aug. 5 against selecting Kansas Supreme Court justices by general election.

If they do have an arrest warrant, ICE officers can enter the home of the person on the warrant if they think that person is in the home. But removal/deportation warrants don’t allow officers to enter the home without permission, according to the ACLU.

“This is an enormous relief to our clients and families across the state of Kansas,” said Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Kansas’ LGBT & HIV Rights Project.

Civil liberties advocates, including the ACLU of Kansas, describe the law as targeting transgender people by forcing them into facilities that do not match their lived gender and by exposing them to new civil and criminal penalties.

In the lawsuit, filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and law firm Ballard Spahr, two transgender teenagers and their parents argue that the state’s ban violates the Kansas Constitution. They say denying gender-affirming treatments would cause their children permanent harm. The case has yet to go to trial on its merits.

Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Rights Project, said the decision was “an enormous relief.” The ACLU and ACLU of Kansas represent the two teens and their parents, along with lawyers from the Philadelphia-based law firm Ballard Spahr.

In four Midwestern states, immigrants routinely won habeas corpus cases in federal courts. But the legal landscape is changing.