Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach was raised in Topeka, Kansas where he graduated from Washburn Rural High School. He completed his undergraduate studies in government at Harvard University, graduating first in his department and summa cum laude. A Marshall Scholarship recipient, he received his Ph.D. in politics from the University of Oxford. Kobach received his J.D. from Yale Law School, serving as notes development editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Kobach clerked for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and shortly thereafter became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law. Kobach received a White House Fellowship from President George W. Bush. He served in the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft as Counsel to the Attorney General.
He has litigated some of the most high-profile cases in the country, including defending statutes and ordinances against the ACLU on multiple occasions. In 2012, Kobach brought the first challenge to President Obama’s DACA amnesty on behalf of 10 ICE agents. His victory in federal district court paved the way for Texas to defeat the Obama Justice Department in its litigation.
Prior to serving as Kansas’ 45th Attorney General, Kobach engaged in three federal lawsuits against the Biden administration. He brought suit against OSHA in November of 2021 on behalf of employers and employees impacted by Biden vaccine mandates and won. He also filed suit in June of 2021 against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of ICE agents and sheriffs who are barred by the administration from detaining and deporting illegal alien criminals. In 2022, Kobach filed suit in federal court against the Biden administration to stop the U.S. Air Force from expelling pilots at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita for exercising their religious beliefs.
Kobach served as the 31st Kansas Secretary of State, 2011-2019. His first four-year term as Kansas Attorney General began in 2023. He lives near Lecompton with his wife, Heather, and their five children.