TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A powerful Kansas business group said Friday that it has received subpoenas from the state ethics commission for information about campaign finance activities as Republican lawmakers moved to oust the commission’s top staffer.
A spokesperson for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, long influential among Republicans in the GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature, said in a statement that the Governmental Ethics Commission has launched “an extreme fishing expedition aimed at silencing political speech.”
The chamber declined to comment on the exact details of the subpoenas.
That statement came after GOP senators negotiating with House members over an elections bill proposed setting new qualifications for the ethics commission’s executive director. The change would remove current Executive Director Mark Skoglund from the job.