Kansas Attorney General

TOPEKA – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt today issued the following statement in connection with the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision to allow the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex applicants in Johnson County and to delay further proceedings in this case until federal courts sort out the constitutional issues surrounding state prohibitions on same-sex marriage:

“Although we asked the Kansas Supreme Court to provide statewide uniformity, today’s ruling leaves the decision whether to issue licenses in the hands of the federal judiciary and of district court judges throughout the state. Because a provision in the Kansas Constitution is at peril, the State of Kansas will continue its defense in federal court as long as a defense is properly available. I hope the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly agree to take up the case from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to give finality and certainty to Kansas and the rest of the country on this matter.”

DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democrat-controlled Senate has defeated a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The Senate’s 59-41 vote Tuesday night was a nail-biter to the end.

The bill needed 60 votes to reach the White House. The House passed it overwhelmingly last week.

President Barack Obama did not support the bill, but the White House has been mum on whether or not he will veto it.

Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu pushed for the vote in an effort to save her seat in a Dec. 6 runoff election in Louisiana. She faces an uphill battle against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who authored the House bill.

All Republicans said publicly they supported the Senate bill, as did several moderate Democrats.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has cleared the way for additional gay marriages in the state.

The court on Tuesday evening lifted its hold on marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Johnson County. The justices last month blocked such licenses while reviewing a petition from Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

But the Kansas court did not address whether the state’s ban on gay marriage is constitutional and said it wouldn’t consider the issue until the federal courts resolve a lawsuit filed month on behalf of two lesbian couples.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week told the state it couldn’t continue enforcing its gay-marriage ban while the ACLU’s lawsuit makes its way through the federal courts.

Since then, local officials have had different policies on marriage licenses to gay couples.

DETROIT (AP) — U.S. safety regulators are demanding that automakers expand a recall of cars with driver’s air bags made by Takata Corp. to cover the entire nation.

Previously, cars have been recalled only in areas along the Gulf Coast with high humidity. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it’s basing the decision on a recent incident that happened outside of those areas.

Air bags made by Takata can explode with too much force, sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment.

The safety agency says if Takata and automakers don’t agree to the recall quickly, it will use its legal powers to make sure the inflators are recalled.

The owner of a 2007 Ford Mustang recently complained to the government about suffering an injury when an air bag malfunctioned in North Carolina.

Kansas Association of Broadcasters

The Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government today named Topeka media law attorney Michael L. Merriam as recipient of the Coalition’s “Above and Beyond Award” for Merriam’s career-long contributions to promoting and defending open government.

The award will be presented at 1:30 p.m. Friday in the auditorium on the first floor of the Statehouse.

Ron Keefover, Coalition president, said the Sunshine Coalition Board of Directors voted unanimously to bestow the 2014 award to Merriam based on his 35-plus years of innumerable presentations, consultations, lobbying, and other outreach efforts designed to open government records and meetings, many of which were done at no charge on behalf members of the Coalition and media outlets that had been denied access to government in Kansas.

Sunshine Coalition board members, including Doug Anstaett, executive director of the Kansas Press Assn., and Kent Cornish, president of the Kansas Assn. of Broadcasters, are among officials who will preside at Friday’s brief awards ceremony.

“Said simply, Mike Merriam has been one of the newspaper and broadcast industry’s greatest and most consistent champions these past three decades, never accepting less than total compliance with the open records and open meetings laws of Kansas,” Keefover said.

During the years, Merriam has among other endeavors:

• Successfully pursued the opening of massive records held by the Schools for Fair Funding, a statewide organization of school districts that sued the State of Kansas for additional school finance;
• Operated a legal hotline telephone call-in program for more than 25 years for those inquiring about access to government records and meetings;
• Written an Advertising Law Guide for newspapers;
• Teamed up with the University of Kansas Professor Mike Kautsch to provide the “Mike and Mike Show,” a primer on open government, which has been presented dozens of times to local government officials around the State of Kansas.
• And has spoken at many media law seminars presented in Kansas and at national programs on the open government and the First Amendment, including annual regional seminars on the Kansas Open Records and the Kansas Open Meetings Acts.

Merriam is a fifth generation native of Topeka, where he received his Juris Doctor degree from Washburn University after receiving a B.A. from the University of Kansas. He is admitted to practice law in the courts of Kansas, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court, and in many other jurisdictions whenever necessary. He is currently in private practice in Topeka.

He has practiced extensively in media law and First Amendment representation for over 35 years, and represents many communications companies, individual newspapers, broadcasters, and membership organizations including the Kansas Press Association, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, and the Associated Press, and has created and maintained telephone hotlines for journalists for many years. He has authored many materials for publication on this subject, and has been an Adjunct Professor teaching Mass Media Law at Washburn University. For his work in media law he has been recognized as a Best Lawyer in America biannually since 1991.

The Sunshine Coalition for Open Government is a statewide organization of journalism and law professors, members of the news media and other private citizens committed to promoting open government in Kansas. Its Board members include the Executive Directors of the Kansas Press Association, Kansas Association of Broadcasters and representatives of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Kansas League of Women Voters, among others. It is housed at the Elliott School of Mass Communication at Wichita State University, where the Coalition was founded in 2000.