Rachel Mipro, Louisiana Illuminator

TOPEKA — Kris Kobach is set to take the Kansas attorney general seat, becoming the state’s top law enforcement officer and chief legal advisor after a series of political failures. Kobach said he will use the position to sue President Joe Biden’s administration.

At midnight on Election Day, Kobach had carried the vote by a slim margin, earning 493,775 votes to Democratic opponent Chris Mann’s 471,076, putting the two at 51% and 49% respectively.

The AP called the race Wednesday morning, hours after Kobach declared his win and delivered his victory speech. Mann has yet to concede, saying not all the votes have been counted.

Kelli Kee, Mann campaign spokeswoman, said they were waiting on the rest of mail-in ballots.

“As we stated last night, the race for the Kansas Attorney General is very close. There are tens of thousands of Kansas voters who mailed their ballots in before election day. They deserve for their votes to be counted as the law allows,” Kee said in a statement to Kansas Reflector.

Mann would need more than 22,000 mail-in ballots to make up the difference.

A former police officer and prosecutor, Mann has emphasized his public service record during the campaign. Mann said he believed Kansans wanted a moderate candidate focused on public safety.

“We’ve been about public safety over politics, and that’s resonated across the state,” Mann said Tuesday morning, before election results were in. “People are tired of career politicians who just want to pursue their own agenda.”

Kobach touched on former losses in his victory speech. Kobach lost the 2018 Kansas governor’s race to Gov. Laura Kelly in 2018. In 2020, he lost the Kansas GOP U.S. Senate primary, with some voters alienated by his extremist views.

“I don’t care who you are, or where you come from, you gotta love a comeback story,” Kobach said. “Know that my victory is not about me. It’s about a desire to save our state and save our country. I’m so honored that so many Kansans put their trust in me.”

Kobach said he would protect women’s sports, keep fentanyl out of Kansas, and go after the Biden administration, protecting the state from federal overreach.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said it would be watching Kobach’s actions. Micah Kubic, Kansas ACLU executive director, said the ACLU would challenge the attorney general’s policies if necessary.

“Should Mr. Kobach decide to follow through on his campaign promises of attacking civil liberties, denigrating democracy, and undermining the rule of law, we will relentlessly, persistently, and unflinchingly challenge those policies. And, as Mr. Kobach well knows from his long history of defeats dealt by the ACLU of Kansas, when we have challenged his policies on behalf of the Constitution, the Constitution has won – and will win – every time,” Kubic said Wednesday in a statement.

Kobach has long been a polarizing figure in Kansas politics. During his time as secretary of state from 2011-19, he implemented a widely condemned voting law. It required residents to prove their citizenship before registering to vote and prevented 35,000 eligible voters from participating in elections.

After a five-year legal battle about the law’s constitutionality, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office had to pay $1.9 million in fees and expenses to the ACLU and other attorneys when the law was ruled unconstitutional, with no evidence supporting claims of widespread voter fraud. Kobach was ordered by a federal judge to take six hours of remedial law class after the trial.

As the top law enforcement officer in the state, Kobach will be able to provide legal services to state agencies and boards, issue opinions, protect consumers and defend the state in civil proceedings.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

A juvenile justice advocacy group is suing the city of New Orleans, a little more than a month after the evacuation of a New Orleans juvenile detention center to an adult prison before Hurricane Ida.

Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children's lawsuit, filed by the Loyola Law Clinic, claims that the city's evacuation policy for the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center violates state law, and proved to be traumatic for the 36 teenagers sent to the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel ahead of the storm.

This article was originally published at Louisiana Illuminator

The group announced the lawsuit Tuesday, standing outside of the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center to address the small gathering of lawyers and activists. At the announcement, Gina Womack, executive director of FFLIC, said she felt a lot of conflicting emotions, “Today is a hard day for me and I'm rattled."

The preliminary hearing for the lawsuit is set for Oct. 18. Womack said the city needed to be held accountable for this treatment of teenagers in custody.

“If history, experience if you will, is the best teacher, then New Orleans still has a lot to learn as our children were once again an afterthought during Ida. Even laws were ignored. I'm frustrated to stand here today once more some 16 years after Katrina and 18 years after our state began moving towards best practice and reforms, to once again stand in the gap of our parents who cannot be here today. To have to fight once more for humane treatment for our children. Enough is enough," Womack said.

Hector Linares, a Loyola University law professor who specializes in juvenile justice and the attorney for FFLIC, said that he had been hearing concerns about the evacuation for weeks.

“When parents and advocates started coming to us at Loyola, it became clear that there were serious problems with what had happened at JJIC during the evacuation. As we gathered more information, it was hard to imagine how such an obviously illegal policy was ever created, approved or implemented," Linares said.

According to a state statute that was enacted in 1992, “No child subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court shall be held in adult jail or lockup."

New Orleans planned for three years to send teens to an adult prison during hurricanes and other disasters. Government evacuation documents originally showed a partnership with the Dixon Correctional Institute, starting in 2018.

Forms submitted in 2020 and in May 2021 also listed Dixon as the detention center's evacuation site. Ken Pastorick, the prison system's spokesman, said the location was changed to Hunt due to a COVID-19 outbreak at Dixon.

A a “multi-level security" facility for those convicted of both nonviolent and violent offenses, Hunt prison houses around 1,600 adult male inmates and a few hundred women.

The lawsuit detailed the conditions of the youths held at Hunt, saying that the food was almost inedible, and that the teenagers were denied access to basic hygiene and held in long periods of isolation while suffering from excessive heat. The teens also saw adult prisoners while at the facility, according to the lawsuit.

The advocacy group seeks to prohibit the city from implementing this evacuation policy while the lawsuit is pending, and to get a hearing as soon as possible. The group wants the evacuation policy declared illegal by the court, and for the city to develop a new evacuation policy in line with the state constitution and Children's Code.

“Today we are saying that children can no longer wait," Womack said. “Improved plans must be put into place immediately to ensure our children are evacuated to appropriate facilities and never step foot into another adult prison again."

New Orleans has not responded to requests for comments at this time. The Juvenile Justice Intervention Center's director, Kyshun Webster, could not be reached.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jarvis DeBerry for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

Days after Hurricane Ida knocked out power, people in New Orleans are dealing with extreme heat and gas shortages. Some are struggling to find medicine they need to take.

At the Treme Recreation Center, cars and pedestrians lined up to get bags of ice and Meals Ready to Eat (MREs).

Kim Silver, one of the people standing in line for food, said she and her neighbors were banding together to cook all of the meat they had in their freezers before anything spoiled. Silver is making do, but she is worried about her grandchildren, whom she hasn't been able to contact since they evacuated.

Silver was charging her phone out of her car, but had to stop after two days, when she ran out of gas. Even when she is able to charge her phone battery, her reception is too bad to make calls. She hopes to find out where her grandchildren have evacuated soon.

“My phone was down and I haven't got in touch with them and then the reception is acting so bad so it's even more hard to talk to anybody," Silver said. “I'm hoping by today I'll be able to get them on the phone."

The Treme site had 4,320 bags of ice and around 50,000 MREs ready. One of the site managers, Captain Kim Alexius-Watkins, said the hurricane had also been hard for the 50 soldiers working at the site.

“They have damage to their homes as well and they also have family that is displaced and we're working on efforts getting them back in contact with their families," Alexius-Watkins said. “But it's commendable that they're out here, and it's selfless, considering that they've also been impacted."

Alexius-Watkins hasn't been back to her own home in Slidell yet.

At the Milne Recreation Center, people came for air conditioning and to charge up their phones. College student Daryelle Mitchell said she arrived at noon and planned to leave at four, and would probably return the next day. She said she's been waiting to hear back from her university and from her job, but hasn't received any word about when she'll be able to return to either.

Mitchell was five when Hurricane Katrina happened, and she said it taught her what to do in the aftermath of a storm. For her, it's about waiting it out.

“Just time and patience, just trying to figure out when people are coming back to check on their property," Mitchell said. “Gas, money, food, it's very limited at this point."

At a Salvation Army food truck outside the center, Chantrisse Burnett, New Orleans City Council candidate for District D, helped serve food.

“We're just doing what we do best here as New Orleanians, coming together, working together and helping each other get through this tough time because it's hard for everybody," Burnett said.

Besides food and electronics, others are concerned about their pets. RTA buses are partnering with the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, setting up eight air-conditioned buses around New Orleans where pet owners can bring their animals. Inside the Milne bus, dog bowls were filled with ice cubes and water while the air-conditioning stayed on full blast.

Around six dogs had been taken care of on the bus Wednesday, LSPCA staff member Persie Naylor said.

“People are trying to cool their animals down because a lot of them are very clearly experiencing heat symptoms," Naylor said.

Lee Burgau came to the center to find out how to get more insulin. He is currently down to one shot of insulin, and the only reason he has that one is because he didn't take his full dose of insulin Wednesday.

He is extremely worried about where to get the three shots he needs a day.

“It's just one of those cracks some people slip through. I don't particularly like this world we live in," Burgau said. “I'm not used to being a diabetic going through a hurricane. I wasn't prepared. I just didn't think."

“If I don't get insulin I die. It's plain and simple."

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jarvis DeBerry for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

A child under the age of one died from COVID-19 in Louisiana this week, the state Department of Health announced Wednesday.

The child is one out of 11 children younger than 18 that have died from COVID-19 in Louisiana. According to the LDH, this is the youngest COVID-19 death in more than six months, marking the growing impact of the Delta variant on younger demographics.

“Each COVID-19 death in Louisiana has been heart wrenching, but the loss of such a young child, who could not be vaccinated yet, is tragic and a stark reminder of the difficult circumstance we are in throughout Louisiana," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a released statement. “Right now, we are seeing younger people hospitalized. They are getting sicker than in the previous surge and, unfortunately, some of them may die."

Officials in Baker, La. also said a 14 year-old died of COVID-19 in that community this week, according to The Advocate.

Currently, 31% of all newly reported COVID-19 cases in the state are in children below the age of 18. Since Monday, there have been 6,146 confirmed COVID-19 cases in children, with 63 COVID-19 pediatric cases admitted to the hospital.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jarvis DeBerry for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.