Dozens of Kansas lawmakers launched an effort Tuesday to direct the state’s attorney general to release information from an investigation into a police raid last year on a weekly newspaper, but it wasn’t clear that their measure would get a hearing in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Thirty-five Democrats and 10 Republicans in the Kansas House introduced a resolution condemning the Aug. 11 raid of the Marion County Record’s offices, the home of its publisher and the home of a city council member in Marion in central Kansas. The resolution would direct Attorney General Kris Kobach to provide a report on whether the investigation found that people’s civil rights were violated.
The raid put Marion, a town of about 1,900 residents about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, at the center of a national debate over press freedom. It also focused an intense spotlight on the police chief who led the raid because the paper had been looking into his past.
