The newest GOP candidate for Kansas attorney general said Wednesday that he agreed with incumbent Derek Schmidt’s decision to support a lawsuit seeking to throw out the results of the presidential election.
Tony Mattivi, a retired career federal prosecutor, said he supported Schmidt signing onto a legal brief with 16 other states supporting a lawsuit brought by Texas against four battleground states over the results of the election.
Schmidt, who is now running for governor next year, was highly criticized for signing onto the brief, which Democrats said was an “embarrassment to the state.”
“I think America deserves to have confidence in the electoral process,” Mattivi said in an interview as he launched his campaign for attorney general.
“I don’t believe it is a political issue,” Mattivi said. “If something happens that causes us to not have confidence in the outcome of an election – no matter what it is – I think we should let the system work.
“To me that is what that lawsuit was about,” Mattivi said.
Mattivi is joining a Republican primary that already includes state Sen. Kellie Warren and former Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Billing himself as “pro-Second Amendment” and “pro-life,” Mattivi said the he thought the state Supreme Court wrongly found that the state constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
“I profoundly disagree with the idea that abortion is constitutionally protected,” Mattivi said, adding the he supports the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot next year that would reverse that decision.
The court “found a right in the constitution that I don’t believe exists,” he said.
“There is no candidate that would fight harder for unborn Kansans than I would.”
Mattivi also said he backed Schmidt’s constitutional challenge to the Afforabable Care Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld.
“I think there were a lot of issues with that. I think it was appropriate to take those to the court and let the court decide. It’s about checks and balances.”
The court kept the health care law intact, ruling that the states didn’t have legal standing to challenge the law because they hadn’t suffered harm.
Schmidt had criticized the court for not reaching the constitutional question in the case.
Nine years ago, the court ruled that the law was constitutional because the ACA’s requirement for individuals to be insured levied a tax on anyone who didn’t comply.
Congress later eliminated the penalty while leaving the mandate in place, which set off a new legal assault against the law.
Kansas, along with a group other states, contended that Congress didn’t have the authority to impose a mandate without invoking its taxing authority.
Mattivi said he wasn’t prepared to say whether the court reached the right conclusion in the case.
Mattivi also said he supported Schmidt’s defense of the state’s new emergency management law, which a Johnson County judge ruled as unconstitutional.
Mattivi acknowledged that he hadn’t studied the law in detail, but trusted Schmidt’s decision to defend the statute.
“I have a lot of confidence in Derek Schmidt. If Derek has made a decision to defend that law then I can tell you my decision would certainly be the same.”
Kobach’s campaign issued its first statement on Mattivi’s candidacy on Wednesday.
It cited Kobach’s efforts fighting the federal government in making the case for his candidacy.
It pointed out that Kobach led a lawsuit over immigration brought against the Obama administration in 2012 and he is now representing sheriffs and ICE agents in a suit against the Biden administration.
“Kris Kobach will lead the charge to defeat oppressive vaccine and mask mandates in the years to come as the next Kansas attorney general,” the statement said.
Mattivi couched his candidacy as one about capability.
“As I watched this race shape up, I began to develop very strong feelings that there needed to be a candidate who was an experienced litigator, an experienced prosecutor who was a conservative, who was pro-Second Amendment, pro-life but could competantly represent the of state of Kansas,” he said.
“I was not seeing that in the race,” he said.
i
