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September 126h. Len’s Political Note #752 Chris Mann Kansas Attorney General
2026 General Election
Chris Mann
Today’s piece is intended to persuade you to support Chris Mann’s candidacy for Kansas’s Attorney General. Electing state-level Democrats including Democratic attorneys general is enormously important in this perilous time for the United States of Americ. The particular context of Kansas is particularly important as Democrats restore their place in the Midwest. As a consequence, this piece has a long, slow wind up that addresses national issues and the context in Kansas before I make my pitch about Chris Mann
Donald Trump began this presidency by attempting to destroy any possible source of opposition. He has confronted and intimidated corporate leaders, universities, law firms, and a variety of political institutions. Republicans have been supine, Democrats, without a majority in the House or Senate, have found themselves unable to thwart Trump.
Ezra Klein accepts Chuck Schumer’s Senate providing Trump with enough Democrats to assure 60 votes last March to prevent a government shut-down. Now, we and the US Senate have a looming continuing resolution which must get 60 votes to keep the government open.
Klein says, it is time for a confrontation. In March, courts were serving as a bulwark; now the Supreme Court supports Trump. In March passing a budget promised some limitations on Trump; now Trump has successfully ignored limitations and has the government and the agencies he wants operating. In March, there appeared to be a danger of a recession for which Democrats would be blamed; Trump now owns responsibility for the economy regardless of what Democratic leaders do.
What should Schumer and the Democratic Senators demand in order to achieve that continuing resolution?
- Prohibition of Trump taking over the voting in some or all states for the November, 2026 election. He is hinting at such an act after declaring an emergency. How, though, is it possible to enforce a law or a promise made by Trump in 2025 when he may choose to act in 2026. Perhaps one of the prices of getting to 60 votes would be creation of a tribunal composed of all past presidents, past vice presidents, past House Speakers, past House Minority leaders, past Senate majority and minority leaders, and retired Supreme Court Justices who must approve any future Presidential actions based on a declaration of an emergency. I welcome suggestions for a better way of creating a check on the President. The Supreme Court won’t do it.
- Apply that same tribunal to Trump’s previous and future emergency actions with the authority to set required actions to be taken to correct emergencies found not to have existed or to no longer exist.
- THERE ARE MORE STEPS DEMOCRATIC SENATORS COULD TAKE IF THEY HAVE THE COURAGE.
- Create and appoint an independent counsel to investigate the president’s corruption, both his personal gain and that of his family
- Create and appoint an independent counsel to investigate governmental corruption and the use of the government for personal and political vengeance.
- Restore Guardrails – Name Inspector Generals for every agency and restore fired agency leaders
- Prohibit the use of the National Guard in any state without the governor’s request and prohibit the use of the National Guard in Washington, DC beyond 30 days without the mayor’s request. (I know that is the law now, but repetition does help people learn>)
- Revise the continuing resolution to
- set requirements for ICE — prohibiting the use of masks and the arrest of undocumented aliens not convicted of a felony; prohibit actions based on physical appearance, dress, and language use.
- Provide resources for Ukraine to continue its defense against the Russian invasion and support its use of offensive weapons as needed,
- Moderate the tax cuts, restore of IRS staffing, provide sufficient resources and language to sustain Medicaid indefinitely, staff social security support vaccinations, support veterans’ services, support PBS, the post office, SNAP and school lunches, funding for public school programs and ensure cost reductions of insulin and other medications for which negotiated reductions had been achieved, fand unds for public schools.
- Other steps to be considered: stop selling public lands, restore Chapter 12 bankruptcy protection for farmers, require release of the Epstein files, end preclude tariffs not voted by Congress (though this last may have been addressed through emergency reviews) and set some requirements for Israel if the US is to continue providing that country with weapons.
While Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senators wrest all of the above from the Republican House, Senate, and the President, we should support every viable Democratic race for Governor, Senator, and Member of the House.
Support every Democratic candidate for Attorney General that you can. (Secretary of State, too, but that is for another piece). Twenty-three Attorneys General belong to DAGA. Many of the lawsuits blocking or delaying Trump have been filed jointly by twenty or more Attorneys General. Every Attorney General who joins a suit shares resources and demonstrates to the courts the widespread opposition.
Today, consider Chris Mann of Kansas.
Chris Mann came very close to becoming the 24th Democratic Attorney General. In 2022, he lost his race for Attorney General, 51-49, by a total of 15,892 votes. He is back for another try in 2026.
Not so long ago, Chris Mann’s state was Bob Dole’s Kansas — rock-ribbed Republican. Fueled by Koch Brothers money, Sam Brownback was elected to Congress, defeating a former Democratic governor, no less, and two years later ran in a special election for the Senate to replace the retiring Bob Dole’s temporary replacement.
Rock-headed rather than rock-ribbed, Sam Brownback got elected Governor and tried an experiment. He would implement Republican and Koch Brothers orthodoxy. Drastically cut income taxes, put money in the hands of “the people,” and see if that money stimulates the economy. The tax cuts he achieved were not an economic stimulus and did not create prosperity. The tax cuts created something else – huge government deficits. The legislature cut education spending and transportation spending to make ends meet.
Brownback held to a few other Republican orthodoxies. He rejected Affordable Care Act funds to create a public health insurance exchange. He supported and signed a bill to prohibit abortion providers from receiving any tax reductions, prohibited discussion of abortion in in public schools, and announced that it was his understanding of biology that human life began with fertilization.
Despite the disastrous impact of the Kansas Experiment, it was not easy for Kansans to kick the habit of voting for Republicans. In 2014, Brownback won reelection, but not by much — 49.8 to 46.1. The lesson Brownback learned from this close election was to keep on going. By June, 2017 the Kansas legislature repealed Brownback’s experiment; that is, they repealed the tax cuts and overrode Brownback’s veto. Then President Donald Trump found a new job for Brownback – Ambassador At Large for International Religious Freedom. Brownback was succeeded by his Lt. Governor, John Colyer, one of the 2026 Republican candidates for Governor in 2026.
In 2018, Democrat Laura Kelly was elected governor, defeating Brownback supporter, and radical opponent of immigrants to the United States, Kris Kobach by a 48-43 margin. She won again in 2022, defeating Derek Schmidt, then the state attorney general by a narrower 49.5 – 47.3 margin. Kelly vetoed tax cuts in 2019 and was still vetoing tax cuts in 2024. Once a recreational therapist in New York’s Rockland Psychiatric Center, she reformed Kansas’s Osawatomie State Hospital, created a combined Department of Human Services, successfully pressed the legislature to accept Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act, and restored funding and quality to the Kansas schools. She supported, on the other hand, the prohibition of a community ID card intended to help undocumented immigrants and others.
In 2019, after Laura Kelly had been elected governor, the state supreme court ruled that the state constitution protected women’s right to an abortion. In 2022, scheduled to coincide with the state primary vote rather than the general election, the people of Kansas rejected an anti-abortion constitutional amendment by a 59-41 margin,
The Kansas’s Attorney General position was open in 2022 because Attorney General Derek Schmidt had opted to run for governor. After losing to Laura Kelly 2024, Schmidt was elected to Congress, Kansas’s 2ndcongressional district.
Chris Mann was the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, running against Kris Kobach, who Laura Kelly had previously defeated for Governor. In a reversal of the complaint that Democrats are Ivy League elitists while Republicans represent the working man, Kobach was clearly an elitist. He had a BA from Harvard, a JD from Yale, and a PhD from Oxford University, a Marshall Scholarship funded his studies in the United Kingdom. Kobach was profoundly influenced by his Harvard advisor Samuel P Huntington, a political theorist who believed that the world faced wars that were a clash of civilizations, that the great clash would be between Islamic countries and the West. He also believed that migrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries were a threat to the American identity.
In 2002, Chris Mann, on the other hand, was finishing his BA at the University of Kansas and working a cop in Lawrence. In his early twenties, he ran marathons in his spare time. Traffic stops were a regular part of his work. On January 11, 2022, he stopped a car with a missing tail light. A speeding, drunken driver slammed into the back of his parked patrol car hurtling it directly into Chris Mann.
Until that accident, which left Chris Mann badly injured, his sole ambition was police work. His father was a cop and he was doing what his father did. The accident severely injured his muscles and his nerves. It was a couple of years before he could stand up for any length of time. When he returned to police work, he simply could not do the job. HIs legs would give out; he’d collapse while trying. He took disability retirement and tried real estate. Next, he tried being a private investigator.
Finally, Chris Mann’s tried law school. As he had loved police work, he came to love the law. Preparing to testify and testifying at the trial related to his injury, he had become convinced that a commitment to the law was right for him. He went to Washburn School of Law in Topeka and after graduation, got the job he was aiming fort. In Wyandotte County (Kansas City, Kansas), he was hired as a prosecutor. He prosecuted drunken drivers and became part of a movement. He volunteered for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, lobbied in Kansas and Washington for programs to reduce drunk driving, and helped create the Kansas DUI ignition lock law.
Chris Mann became a figure in Kansas and nationally. In 2014, he became a prosecutor for the Kansas Securities Commission. In 2015 he became the Chair of the National Board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In 2017, he became a member of Kansas’s Sentencing Commission. In 2016, encouraged by his surgeon wife, Chris Mann opened his own legal practice. He focused on representing families with complaints against drunk drivers and also spent time representing the underserved.
In 2022, Chris Mann lost his close race to Kris Kobach. In August, 2025, Kobach illustrated why the Attorney General makes a difference. In June, 23 states and DC filed a law suit to compel the President of the United States to release funds already voted by Congress for grants to combat violent crime, educate students, safeguard public health, protect clean drinking water, conduct medical and scientific research, provide meals for students in school, and ensure access to unemployment benefits.
Kris Kobach went to federal court to remove Kansas from that group of states. He had two arguments: Governor Laura Kelly did not have the authority to commit Kansas to that suit. And the states would lose the law suit because “The federal agencies have deemed [the funding] unnecessary and wasteful.” To Kris Kobach, that Congress had already appropriated the funds was irrelevant.
Chris Mann as Kansas’s Attorney General, would make a difference for Kansas and for the nation. Support his effort to replace Kris Kobach. DONATE to Chris Mann’s campaign.
Other Attorney General Campaigns
Arizona: Incumbent Democrat Kris Mayes defeated an extreme right wing Republican candidate for Attorney General in 2022 by 270 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast. She will face either Rodney Glassman, currently being investigated for illegal campaign contributions, he would have the census not count undocumented aliens (inconsistent with the constitution) or State Senate President Warren Peterson who has been particularly active in opposing medical services for trans people, in limiting opportunities to vote, and in submitting 70 proposals for state-wide referenda. Kris Mayes has been part of 25 different law suits attempting to stop or moderate the impact of the Trump administration. DONATE. Support the Kris Mayes campaign. See Len’s Political Note #714
Florida. Challenger Democratic State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez is working to make Florida competitive again. His most likely opponent is the appointed incumbent Republican James Uthmeier, who is largely responsible for the so-called Alligator Alcatraz – an irresponsible creation on many levels. Jose Javier Rodriguez describes his goals as providing relief from rising and extremely high insurance rates and fees for small businesses and homeowners, cracking down on fraud and corruption, and holding large and powerful corporations accountable when they do harm to Florida families. DONATE to Jose Javier Rodriguez’ campaign. Make Florida competitive.
Iowa. State Rep Nate Willems is a local guy who went to Washington (Georgetown University) for his BA and came home to the University of Iowa for his law degree. He has been a labor lawyer and active politically since his graduation and is challenging the incumbent who was used as a potential primary threat by the Trump administration to keep Joni Ernst in line for her cabinet votes. In the end Brenna Bird could not pull the trigger to run either for the now open Senate or governorship. Instead, she faces the up and coming Nate Willems. DONATE to Nate Willems’ campaign.
Other competitive Attorney General races have more than one Democrat running and no clear front runner, at least not yet.
Nevada has two Democrats running – State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Canizzaro and State Treasurer Zach Conine
Georgia has two Democrats running – State Rep Tanya Miller and former State House Minority Leader Bob Trammell
Texas has two Democrats running – Former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski and State Senator Nathan Johnson.
Colorado has five Democrats running, Michigan has three, and Rhode Island has a bunch.
Ohio We can hope that County Prosecutor Elliot Kolkovich runs for Attorney General. The only Democrat who has announced is Eliot Forhan who had a troubled time in his only term as a State Rep. You might urge Elliot Kolkovich to run.
