WTOP News by John Hanna 6/2/2020
Kansas’ Republican attorney general plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state to require new voters to provide papers documenting their citizenship when registering.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Tuesday that he will appeal a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in April that said the state could not enforce a proof-of-citizenship law. An appeals-court panel said the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal legal protection as well as a federal voter registration law.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly decried Schmidt’s decision, saying he was supporting voter suppression and suggested that he is ignoring nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death after being detained by police in Minnesota.
If the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case, it could have broader implications because Alabama, Arizona and Georgia have proof-of-citizenship laws on their books, and Republican officials in other states have wanted to enact them. Critics of such laws believe they’re designed to suppress the vote, particularly among groups that tend to vote Democratic.
More:
https://wtop.com/national/2020/06/kansas-to-ask-supreme-court-to-save-voter-citizenship-law/
