Iowa organization files complaint against Kansas justice

A conservative organization led by an Iowa attorney filed a complaint Monday requesting an inquiry into whether a member of the Kansas Supreme Court violated a code of conduct for judges.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, organized in 2014 as a counterweight to left-of-center watchdog groups, said the complaint was submitted to the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications regarding an event two years ago at the Topeka home of Justice Carol Beier.

Beier's husband hosted the gathering in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis, who was in a race against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Neither Davis nor his running mate, Jill Docking, attended the event. Beier said at the time she had “taken care not to be there.”

Matthew Whitaker, the foundation's executive director and the fourth-place finisher in Iowa's GOP primary for U.S. Senate in 2014, said the Kansas commission concluded in 1990 a meet-the-governor party organized by a judge's spouse could be viewed as a political endorsement by the judge.

Read more: http://cjonline.com/news/2016-08-22/iowa-organization-files-complaint-against-kansas-justice