While she couldn't block Phill Kline's selection as District Attorney, Governor Sebelius didn't have to sign the paper granting him the post. At the time when the selection by GOP officials took effect, the governor said:
With the overwhelming election of Paul Morrison as Attorney General -- an outcome even more pronounced in Johnson County -- the people of Kansas made a strong and unequivocal statement about Phill Kline’s fitness for law enforcement and his pursuit of misguided, personal priorities in public office. Out of a deep and enduring respect for the will of the people, I cannot approve of Kline’s appointment as Johnson County District Attorney by a small, narrow group of partisan political operatives. I do not believe such a clear majority of Kansans rejected Kline’s stewardship as Attorney General with the intention of seeing him continue a public career in law enforcement paid for by taxpayers. Since Kansas law treats my response to this decision as purely ‘ceremonial’, I join the people of Kansas in hoping he conducts himself differently as District Attorney than he did in his term as Attorney General.
While we all share her hopes, I doubt anyone actually expects that. He has a Planned Parenthood clinic within his purview, and I expect that other matters of law enforcement will play second fiddle to hassling that clinic.
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I hope the good people of Kansas continue blocking Kline's obsessive misuse of the law. Sebelius did the right thing.