Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to meet with Trump
Chicago — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is scheduled to meet this weekend with President-elect Donald Trump, according to a spokeswoman for the Republican.
Kobach is on his way to New Jersey for a meeting on Sunday, Kobach spokeswoman Desiree Taliaferro told The Associated Press. She said she couldn't confirm details of the planned meeting. Taliaferro told The Associated Press. She said she couldn't confirm details of the planned meeting. Kobach was an adviser to the Trump campaign on immigration issues.
Kobach has been Kansas' top elections official for six years and has championed tough voter identification laws. But even before he was first elected in 2010, he had built a national reputation among conservatives as the attorney for politicians and police to consult if they wanted local or state laws to crack down in illegal immigration.
He helped draft Arizona's tough "show your papers law," empowering police to question anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally. He also helped to draft a tough Alabama immigration law, as well as local ordinances in cities such as Hazelton, Pennsylvania; Farmers Branch, Texas; and Fremont, Nebraska.
Kobach was the most prominent Republican elected official in Kansas to endorse Donald Trump early as the GOP presidential nominee. He said he advised Trump on immigration issues, repeatedly defended Trump's pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and argued the country could force Mexico to pay for it by blocking money sent to family members by Mexicans living in the U.S.
In Kansas, he was the architect of state laws that require all voters to show photo ID at the polls and new voters to present papers documenting their U.S. citizenship. Also, last year, the Republican-dominated Legislature granted his office the authority to prosecute election fraud cases, making him the secretary of state in the nation with that power.
When he formally launched his campaign for re-election in 2014, Kobach publicly declared himself "a guardian of state sovereignty."
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback would name Kobach's replacement if Kobach joins the Trump administration.
John Hanna,
Associated Press
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Copyright The Gayly - 11/19/2016 @ 2:54 p.m. CDT.