In some races who shouldn’t be elected is every bit as important as who deserves the office.
Kansans most assuredly should not elect Kris Kobach secretary of state.
Chris Biggs, on the other hand, is doing a good job in the office and should be retained.
Kobach has been running a fear campaign, trying to persuade voters that voter fraud is running rampant in Kansas and that illegal aliens are sneaking in to vote. He would put an end to all that, he promises.
Baloney! is the polite response to those baseless rantings. There have been very few voter fraud cases over the state in the past decade. Something under 10 a year, in all 105 counties. Most of those were “innocent” crimes; a husband trying to get a ballot for his wife, that sort of thing.
There have been no reported instances of illegals voting. Why would any undocumented person run the risk of exposure, arrest and deportation in order to cast a ballot? Where is the temptation? What could be the reward?
Truth is, Kobach wants to spend full time fighting illegal immigration and has convinced himself that being the Kan-sas secretary of state would give him a platform from which to pursue his crusade.
But the office has not the remotest connection to immigration, illegal or otherwise. It is a record keeping bureau for the state, the state’s corporations and for counties and cities. The secretary is CEO of that office. His primary job is to see that the records are kept well, the services are readily accessible and that costs are kept low. The office also manages the state’s elections, which is a once-every-two-years assignment.
A secretary of state should be great on details, should be a stay-at-home executive good at hiring and managing a competent staff. The office doesn’t set policy, it takes care of business.
What kind of manager is Chris Kobach? He was chairman of the Kansas State Republican Party a couple of years ago. He left the office in a fiscal and organizational mess. As a manager, he was a disaster. One of the reasons the office fell to pieces under his tenure was that he spent too much time in Arizona — you guessed it — fighting illegal immigration.
Kobach’s own record shows clearly why he should be defeated on Nov. 2.
Biggs was appointed secretary of state when Ron Thornburg resigned to take a job in the private sector. Biggs was state securities commissioner at the time, another job that requires me-ticulous attention to de-tail. He understands his new assignment and has done it well.
The office has been called the least partisan of all of the state’s elected positions. Biggs has served as a manager, not as a partisan. His ambition is to continue to do the job well, not to use it to finance his adventures in other directions.
He should be elected on Nov. 2.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
