Legislature hires defense attorney for senator named in open records complaint from Kansas Reflector
The Kansas Legislature's leadership votes to approve a $20,000 contract to hire a Missouri attorney to defend Sen. Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, in a complaint alleging she violated the Kansas Open Records Act while delaying release of public documents submitted to a Senate committee working to root out government waste. This is a Feb. 5, 2026, image of Erickson on the Senate floor. (Photo by Grace Hills for Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The leadership council of the Kansas Legislature hired a defense lawyer to represent Sen. Renee Erickson against a Kansas Open Records Act complaint filed by Kansas Reflector after the state’s attorney general declined to provide counsel to the senator.
Erickson, the Wichita Republican chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency, or COGE, was informed by Attorney General Kris Kobach that his office wouldn’t represent her in the wake of a KORA complaint. The bipartisan Legislative Coordinating Council responded Tuesday by voting to allocate $20,000 to employ Edward Greim, a Kansas City, Missouri, attorney and former chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, to handle Erickson’s defense.
“Sen. Erickson did make a request of the attorney general’s office for representation in her official capacity. That request was denied,” said Gordon Self, who leads the Legislature’s Office of Revisor of Statutes. “This is the first case I’ve been involved in where there was a KORA complaint and a need for representation.”
Danedri Herbert, spokeswoman for the attorney general, said Kobach declined to provide legal counsel to Erickson because the attorney general’s office was responsible for investigating the KORA complaint. She said that duty meant “it would be a conflict of interest for the office to represent any potential respondents in the matter.”
House Speaker Dan Hawkins of Wichita, Senate President Ty Masterson of Andover, Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi of Wichita and Senate Minority Dinah Sykes of Lenexa expressed disappointment Kobach’s office rejected Erickson’s request for legal aid in the KORA case.
“We all think our attorney general is there to represent us,” Sykes said. “So I have some concern there. I think that’s a chilling effect for us legislators to not have our AG backing us.”
Hawkins agreed with Sykes, but said the Legislature had an obligation to fill the legal representation void.
“We have laws and rules that we abide by, and when somebody attacks those, I do believe it is our duty to defend. Without defense from the AG, it’s up to us. I believe it’s a proper request,” Hawkins said.
The complaint against Erickson was filed in May 2025 by Kansas Reflector editor-in-chief Sherman Smith, who asserted Erickson violated state law by failing to produce requested records in a reasonable amount of time and improperly redacting parts of those records.
“I am thankful the Kansas Attorney General’s Office is taking its responsibility seriously when it comes to investigating open records complaints,” Smith said. “Rather than hire an attorney, the Legislature could simply admit that it violated the law when it needlessly withheld public records and obscured them with capricious redactions. Kansas Reflector will continue our relentless fight for transparency at all levels of government.”
Kansas Reflector on Feb. 25, 2025, asked Erickson for thousands of written suggestions from the public for reforming state government that were submitted to COGE, the committee chaired by Erickson.
To present a suggestion to the Legislature’s COGE online portal, individuals had to acknowledge the submission was subject to state public records law.
Instead of releasing records within three business days or offering Kansas Reflector a detailed legal reasoning for a delay, Erickson said March 7, 2025, that she didn’t intend to produce the materials for reporters until May 1, 2025, after conclusion of the 2025 legislative session. She subsequently revised her deadline and vowed to share the public’s recommendations for eliminating waste or fraud in state government on April 9, 2025.
During this period, Erickson took only 10 days to fully comply March 17, 2025, with a KORA request from Sen. Patrick Schmidt, D-Topeka, for the same COGE records.
On April 7, 2025, Kansas Reflector published a detailed story about contents of the public’s proposals to COGE. That article was based on a leaked copy of hundreds of documents under Erickson’s control. Erickson released an electronic version of the COGE materials on April 9, 2025.
In addition to Erickson’s alleged failure to promptly share public documents in accordance with state law, Kansas Reflector maintained the senator needed to provide a detailed explanation for postponing production of records. The complaint also pointed to the Legislature’s erroneous application of KORA’s privacy exemptions to redact contact information from some of the requested records.
KORA allows nondisclosure of records constituting a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. However, this exemption could be invoked only when disclosure would “reveal information that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, including information that may pose a risk to a person or property and is not of legitimate concern to the public.”
Information redacted from the correspondence to COGE included Masterson’s name in emails that were critical of the Senate president. The process of redaction from the documents was inconsistent because duplicate copies of emails to the Senate committee were redacted differently.
Smith submitted a request for more recent COGE documents on Feb. 12, 2026. Erickson responded five days later with a clarifying question. The senator met her commitment to send Smith additional COGE records by Feb. 27, 2026. In that response, only three emails contained redactions, which appeared to meet the state’s legal standard.
“The disparity in response times for these two open records requests highlights not only that the committee’s response last year fell short of compliance with open records laws, but also that public agencies tend to become more transparent when facing consistent scrutiny,” said Max Kautsch, a Kansas attorney with a practice focused on the First Amendment and open government.
Greim, the attorney selected by the LCC on Erickson’s behalf, participated in U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments to promote the idea that a congressional redistricting map creating a second majority-minority district in Louisiana was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
In April, the Supreme Court upheld a lower federal court’s decision that “race-based” congressional maps tipping the scale in favor of minorities violated the federal constitution.
Greim represented the Kansas Senate in 2020 in a lawsuit filed by Gov. Laura Kelly against the Legislature regarding the Democratic governor’s decision to respond to COVID-19 by limiting indoor gatherings for religious purposes. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled for Kelly on a technicality. Subsequently, Kelly reached a settlement with two churches to modify public health restrictions on church gatherings on condition congregations practiced social distancing.