Kris Kobach

Kobach was raised in Topeka and graduated from Washburn Rural High School.[4][2] He graduated from Harvard University in government, first in his department and summa cum laude, received a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and earned a J.D. from Yale Law School.[4][2]

He clerked for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and then became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law.[4][2] He was a White House Fellow under President George W. Bush and served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft.[4]

Kobach was the 31st Kansas Secretary of State, serving from 2011 to 2019.[4][2] He ran for governor in 2018 and lost to Laura Kelly.[2] Before becoming attorney general, he brought three federal lawsuits against the Biden administration: over vaccine mandates, over limits on immigration detention and deportation by ICE agents and sheriffs, and over the Air Force's expulsion of pilots at McConnell Air Force Base.[4]

Kobach became the state's 45th Attorney General in 2023, and in October 2024 he was affirmed as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.[4][3] He lives near Lecompton with his wife, Heather, and their five children.[4]