Roberts warns of potential Kobach nomination for DHS

One of the GOP senators from Kris Kobach’s home state said Tuesday that the Senate would not be able to confirm the Kansas Republican if President Donald Trump tapped him for a cabinet post.

Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for an array of immigration-related positions after President Donald Trump pulled his nominee for the director of Immigration Customs Enforcement and announced the departure of his secretary of Homeland Security.

But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, doesn’t believe the Republican-controlled Senate could confirm his fellow Kansan, who has gained national notoriety for championing stronger restrictions on immigration.

“Don’t go there. We can’t confirm him,” Roberts whispered to The Kansas City Star when asked about Kobach Tuesday on his way into a Senate vote.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article229015409.html

In 2011, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) compared him to Harold Hill, the central character of the "Music Man," writing: "Like Hill…Kobach comes to town with big ideas and a can-do attitude but leaves behind a trail of tears — huge legal bills and unworkable laws coupled with social turmoil."

As of September 2017, Kobach was listed as "Of counsel" by IRLI, the legal arm of FAIR, which is described as a "hate group,"

In August 2018, ProPublica and The Kansas City Star reported that none of the towns where Kobach helped to enact anti-immigration ordinances over a 13-year period still had those ordinances on the books. The ordinances were costly to defend in court, with some localities going bankrupt. At the same time, Kobach personally profited, earning more than $800,000 on legal work for the localities over a 13-year period, paid both by the localities and an anti-immigration advocacy group

In 2015, Kobach received from the legislature and the governor the right to prosecute cases of voter fraud, after claiming for four years that Kansas had a massive problem of voter fraud that the local and state prosecutors were not adequately addressing. At that time, he "said he had identified more than 100 possible cases of double voting." Testifying during hearings on the bill, questioned by Rep. John Carmichael, Kobach was unable to cite a single other state that gives its Secretary of State such authority. By February 7, 2017, Kobach had filed nine cases and obtained six convictions. All were regarding cases of double voting; none would have been prevented by voter ID laws. One case was dropped. The other two were still pending. All six convictions involved older citizens, including four white Republican men and one woman, who were unaware that they had done anything wrong.