Campaign mailer misleads voters on Kansas Supreme Court retention and abortion rights

Days before the election, a misleading mailer went out to Kansans that falsely implied voters can protect abortion rights by ousting Kansas Supreme Court justices.

Six of the state’s seven justices are up for retention on Nov. 8, including Chief Justice Marla Luckert and Justice Dan Biles, who signed onto the 2019 ruling that found a right to an abortion in the state constitution. That ruling ensures the procedure will remain protected in Kansas even after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, enabling neighboring Missouri and other states to issue abortion bans.

But a mailer, distributed by a longtime Kansas Republican consultant, urges voters to vote against the state justices’ retention as a way to protect abortion rights. The mailer seeks to tie the Kansas justices to the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to strike down the federal right to an abortion. It features a photo of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the five conservative jurists who signed onto the controversial ruling in June.

“It took just five anti-choice justices to overturn Roe v. Wade,” it reads. “But Kansans pushed back and said, ‘No!’”

Kansans in August overwhelmingly voted to reject an anti-abortion amendment, which would have reversed the state court’s 2019 ruling on abortion rights.

The other side of the mailer shows a Kansas Supreme Court retention ballot quoted with “no” colored in and a “vote yes” sign crossed out in an effort to misleadingly suggest that voting against the justices’ retention would be the same as voting to reject the August amendment. The word “No” covers nearly half the page alongside the message, “Let them hear you again!”

The return address on the envelope is to VMCF, the Van Meteren Charitable Trust, a non-profit run by Kris Van Meteren, a longtime Kansas Republican consultant. Van Meteren didn’t immediately respond to calls and emails from The Star.

In a statement Mike Swenson, a spokesman for Keep Kansas Courts Impartial, called the mailer a “blatant attempt to confuse voters.”

The episode comes months after former U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp’s political action committee was linked to misleading texts ahead of the August referendum falsely telling voters to vote yes to protect abortion rights.

“Apparently the only way opponents of fair and impartial courts in Kansas know how to campaign is by lies and deception,” Swenson said of the mailers.

Five of the six Kansas Supreme Court members up for retention are broadly expected to uphold the 2019 ruling on abortion rights if it came before them. Three of the justices —Melissa Standridge, K.J. Wall and Eveyln Wilson — weren’t on the court at the time of the 2019 ruling, but they were appointed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who supports abortion rights.

Only one of the justices up for retention, Justice Caleb Stegall, former Gov. Sam Brownback’s sole appointee to the court, dissented from the 2019 ruling affirming abortion rights. Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, issued recommendations urging anti-abortion voters to reject every justice except Stegall.

Correction: This story has been corrected to say Justice Dan Biles is on the ballot this year.