Secretary of State of Kansas

The secretary of state of Kansas is one of the constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Kansas. The current secretary of state is the former speaker pro tempore of the Kansas House of Representatives, Scott Schwab, who was sworn in on January 14, 2019.^[1]

Secretary of state of the State of Kansas
Seal of the secretary of state of Kansas
Incumbent Scott Schwab since January 14, 2019
Inaugural holder	John Winter Robinson
Formation	February 1861
Succession	Fourth
Website	sos.kansas.gov

History

The first secretary of state for Kansas was John Winter Robinson, a physician originally from Litchfield, Maine, but who had settled in Manhattan, Kansas, in 1857. Robinson was elected in December 1859, in anticipation of statehood for Kansas, and sworn in after Kansas was admitted to the Union in February 1861.^[2]

As a result of a bond scandal, Robinson was impeached on February 26, 1862, along with the governor, Charles L. Robinson, and state auditor, George S. Hillyer. Robinson was convicted by the Kansas Senate on June 12, 1862, and removed from his office, becoming the first state executive branch official to be impeached and removed from office in U.S. history. Hillyer was also removed from office, on June 16, but Governor Robinson was acquitted. Sanders R. Shepard succeeded to the job of secretary of state on July 28, 1862.^[2]

In 2015, Secretary Kris Kobach requested and was granted by the Kansas Legislature prosecutorial power in voter fraud cases. In October that year, he filed his first three-vote fraud cases dealing with voting in two states.^[3]

Duties

Electoral

The secretary of state is the chief elections officer of the state, administering elections and voter registration throughout the state. The office also receives campaign finance reports and registers lobbyists. The duty of regulating lobbying and campaign finance is shared with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. The secretary was granted by the Kansas Legislature prosecutorial power in voter fraud cases and is the first and only secretary of state to hold that power.^[3]

Economic

The secretary operates the Business Filing Center, which registers business entities, trademarks, trade names and liens made pursuant to the Uniform Commercial Code.

The secretary regulates a wide variety of businesses, including sports agents, trade unions, cemeteries and funeral homes.

Administrative

The Secretary's Publications Section is responsible for publishing various legal and informational documents for the state including statutory and administrative law publications such as session laws, regulations and the state's gazette, the Kansas Register.^[4]

Officeholders

Territorial

Name	Term	Party
Daniel Woodson	1854–1857	Democratic
Frederick P. Stanton	1857
James W. Denver	1857–1858
Hugh Sleight Walsh	1858–1860
George M. Beebe	1860–1861

State

Image	Name	Term	Party
	John Winter Robinson	1861–1862	Republican
	Sanders Rufus Shepherd	1862–1863
	Warren Wirt Henry Lawrence	1863–1865
	Rinaldo Allen Barker	1865–1869
	Thomas Moonlight	1869–1871
	William Hillary Smallwood	1871–1875
	Thomas Horne Cavanaugh	1875–1879
	James Smith	1879–1885
	Edwin Bird Allen	1885–1889
	William Higgins	1889–1893
	Russell Scott Osborn	1893–1895	Populist
	William Corydon Edwards	1895–1897	Republican
	William Eben Bush	1897–1899	Populist
	George Alfred Clark	1899–1903	Republican
	Joel Randall Burrow	1903–1907
	Charles Eugene Denton	1907–1911
	Charles Harrison Sessions	1911–1915
	John Thomas Botkin	1915–1919
	Lewis Julian Pettijohn	1919–1922
	David Owen McCray	1922–1923
	Frank Joseph Ryan	1923–1929
	Edgbert Albert Cornell	1929–1933
	Frank Joseph Ryan	1933–1949
	Larry Ryan	1949–1951	Democratic
	Paul R. Shanahan	1951–1966	Republican
	Elwill M. Shanahan	1966–1978
	Jack Brier	1978–1987
	Bill Graves	1987–1995
	Ron Thornburgh	1995–2010
	Chris Biggs	2010–2011	Democratic
	Kris Kobach	2011–2019	Republican
	Scott Schwab	2019–present

See also

• List of company registers