Clay Barker, general counsel for the Kansas secretary of state, urges the 2026 Kansas Legislature consider streamlining the filing of required campaign finance, lobbying and other reports by making the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission the exclusive recipient of that information. Barker, shown in this image from Jan. 22, 2025, also says the state should repeal a law requiring the name of a candidate’s campaign treasurer to appear on political advertising. (Photo by Grace Hills/ Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The Kansas secretary of state’s office recommends streamlining the processing of campaign finance records, lobbying reports and statements of substantial interest by filing those documents directly with the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission.
State law has mandated Secretary of State Scott Schwab operate the state government’s intake center for these documents, but his office does almost nothing with the records before transferring each to the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission. This system persists despite statutes placing responsibility for regulation, oversight and imposition of penalties exclusively with the commission.
Clay Barker, general counsel to the secretary of state’s office, asked the Kansas Legislature’s interim committee on campaign finance to accept this duplicated approach no longer made sense, given widespread access to the internet.
“In today’s world, there’s no need for the secretary of state to be the middleman. We’re just there. We just suck up time and money taking the reports and passing them on,” Barker said.
Both the secretary of state and the disclosure commission offices separately publish online the content of campaign finance reports for candidates, parties and political action committees.
Barker recommended all campaign finance reports in Kansas be filed directly with the disclosure commission. All should be submitted electronically, he said, with limited exceptions for use of paper. State law currently compels candidates for statewide office, such as governor or attorney general, to submit records by computer. Other candidates have an option of paper or electronic reporting.
He said paper filings were inefficient because countless staff hours were consumed by state employees entering contents of documents into a database for analysis. Scans of original documents weren’t easily deciphered, he said.
“It’s very hard for the public sometimes to read or search handwritten campaign finance reports,” Barker said.
Barker also recommended the Legislature repeal a state law requiring candidates to include on advertising the name of the campaign’s treasurer.
“It is a disincentive for a volunteer treasurer to have their name on every mailer whose message, especially negative messaging, they had no role in creating,” Barker said.
Another change suggested by the secretary of state’s office would repeal a requirement candidates, political parties and PACs report expenditures by subcontractors engaged in advertising, public relations or consulting on campaigns. The law requiring reporting on payments to contractors as well as subcontractors was difficult to comply with and hard to enforce, he said.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, said the challenge of extracting information about subcontractors shouldn’t deter the state from seeking information about the name, amount, date and purpose of payments.
“I’m kind of concerned we’d do this just because people don’t follow the law,” Simmons said. “We’re here for transparency. I worked on campaigns professionally for years. People go out of their way to try and hide things, and I don’t know why we would enable that.”
Barker said the law posed a disproportionate reporting burden on campaigns and committees because the information was frequently beyond their reach. Often, he said, consulting firms bundled services for clients through complex networks of subcontractors. The inability of candidates to verify activities of subcontractors risked the filing of incomplete or inaccurate reports, he said.
“I do everything I can to follow the law and be transparent as I know other legislators do,” said Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker. “I don’t see an issue with this either way.”
