The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking $51,000 in legal fees from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for being held in contempt of court.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ordered Kobach to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees when she found him in contempt of court during his defense of the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirements for would-be voters.
The ACLU on Monday filed an application seeking $51,646 in attorneys’ fees and expenses stemming from the contempt order.
The fees would compensate the civil liberties group for the 133.5 hours its lawyers spent working on the contempt motion and related correspondence plus another 19.4 hours for paralegals, according to the motion.
“This is not surprising given the complexity of this type of case,” the ACLU wrote in its court filing. “However, the number of hours was exacerbated by the defendant’s repeated refusals to cooperate on, and instead choosing to litigate, the relatively simple matters underlying the contempt motion.”
Robinson found that Kobach – a Republican gubernatorial candidate – failed to comply with court orders requiring him to notify voters affected by a preliminary decision that blocked the citizenship requirements for anyone registering to vote at a motor-vehicle office.
Kobach had been ordered to register all otherwise eligible motor-voter registration applicants who had their registrations held up because they didn’t provide their proof of citizenship.
Kobach is appealing the contempt order “The position of the office is that the fees were erroneously awarded and therefore the disposition of this issue will not be known until the appeal is completed,” Kobach’s spokesman Moriah Day said in an email.
Three of the plaintiff’s attorneys are seeking fees totaling $450 an hour. Three other lawyers would be compensated at $350 an hour while another one would be paid $250 an hour. The paralegals earn $110 an hour.
“In sum, defendant displayed a willful defiance of this court’s authority, and has
unnecessarily multiplied proceedings,” the ACLU wrote. “He should be assessed for of the total attorney time for which plaintiffs seek fees.”
There was an effort in the Legislature this year to force Kobach to pay his own legal fees in the contempt case with language the House added to the state budget.
But the Legislature backed off that proposal after Kobach sent a letter to the Senate president saying the budget proviso was illegal and would require the state to spend extensive time and lots of money in a “futile” attempt defending the provision.
