News & Commentary

“We believe that democracy is strongest and most effective when more people can participate,” said Micah Kubic, the executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas. “When we get rid of barriers to participation by any group we believe that democracy is at its strongest, and that your ability to participate should not be based on your ability to surmount those barriers on your own.”

Treating the map like a ball of Silly Putty meant to be stretched and pulled apart was an obvious and “deliberate attempt to silence the political voices of Democratic and minority Kansans,” Sharon Brett, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas, said amidst a failed 2022 lawsuit challenging the new maps.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas wants Kansans to know that felons who have served their time are eligible to vote in the Sunflower State. Anyone who says otherwise is peddling misinformation, said Micah Kubic, ACLU of Kansas executive director.

Last week, the Roeland Park City Council unanimously approved a resolution — backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas — supporting the expansion of language access for voting materials in Kansas.

For more than 160 years, mail-in voting has been a fixture of American democracy — especially in Kansas.

The study by the ACLU of Kansas found a majority of the Wichita-area inmates were booked for nonviolent crimes and the bail policy unfairly affects low-income people who cannot afford release.

A June 2025 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas is shining a light on the bail system in Sedgwick County.

However, private prison companies such as CoreCivic and The GeoGroup have announced contracts to operate detention centers in places including Leavenworth, Kansas, where the shuttered Midwest Regional Reception Center could be part of growing ICE’s migrant detention holdings, according to public records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Monica Bennett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, told the Kansas News Service that immigrants are being used as scapegoats for rising government spending on health services.