(Updated to reflect more details of the ACLU’s political activities in Kansas as well as details about ongoing cases; edits throughout.)
Micah Kubic is leaving his position as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas after building the organization into an influential player in Kansas politics.
Kubic, who led the legal battle to overturn the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for prospective voters, has accepted the executive director’s position at the ACLU of Florida.
His last day in the Overland Park office is Dec. 14. Legal Director Lauren Bonds will serve as the interim executive director until the board of directors hire Kubic’s successor sometime next year.
During the last four years leading the ACLU, Kubic expanded the organization from a three-person operation to a 15-person team with offices in Wichita and Overland Park.
Last legislative session, ACLU wielded its political muscle at the state Capitol, spending about $13,000 lobbying for legislation that would end the citizenship requirement for prospective voters as well as remove Kansas from the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. By comparison, the ACLU had only spent about $4,000 on lobbying from 2011 through 2017.
“Kansas is on the front lines of every single civil liberties battle raging in America today,” Kubic said in a statement.
“Over the last several years, the civil liberties movement in Kansas has picked up victory after victory and stopped some of the most devastating attacks on our freedoms from spreading.”
Kubic’s time with the ACLU was marked by the group’s legal battles with outgoing Secretary of State Kris Kobach over the citizenship requirement approved by the Legislature in 2011.
Last summer, a federal judge struck down the law requiring Kansans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
During the proceedings, the judge held Kobach in contempt of court and ordered him to enroll in a remedial law class.
The ACLU even entered the governor’s race, running more than $200,000 in television ads against Kobach in the closing days of the general election campaign.
As Kubic leaves Kansas, the ACLU also has ongoing cases against Kobach’s Crosscheck program and against the Shawnee Mission School District, accusing the school system of violating students’ free-speech rights during protests about gun violence.
The ACLU still has a pending case against Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox over her decision to relocate Dodge City’s lone polling place outside of town.
It also has a case at the state Supreme Court against Montgomery County Attorney Larry Markle for not following the state’s law for offering diversion and, instead, pursuing inordinately tough prosecutions against individuals who don’t pose a serious risk to the community.
