Professional background: Kris Kobach was elected 45th Kansas Attorney General in 2022. AG Kobach previously served as the 31st Secretary of State of Kansas from 2011 to 2019. In 2001, AG Kobach received a White House Fellowship from President George W. Bush, and he went on to serve in the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft as Counsel to the Attorney General. Early in his career, AG Kobach clerked for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and shortly thereafter became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.
Key priorities since becoming AG:
- Increasing penalties related to fentanyl trafficking and deaths, including new sentencing enhancements.
- Cracking down on organized theft rings by the creation of a task force focused on organized retail crime.
- Ensuring that state investment decisions are based on maximizing earnings and returns to Kansas taxpayers, not on environmental, sustainable and governance (ESG) goals.
During his campaign, AG Kobach announced his Five Point Plan for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.
Education: AG Kobach earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in politics from Brasenose College of Oxford University. He earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995, and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Personal: AG Kobach, his wife, Heather, and their five daughters live on their farm near Lecompton, north of Lawrence, Kansas.