When Stephen Six was named Kansas’ new Attorney General, few outside of Lawrence had ever heard of him.

Six never had to campaign for the position, and he’s never held political office before. But Kansans can expect to get to know Six as his office takes on high-profile cases and serves the people as the state’s top lawyer.

The 42-year-old former Douglas County judge replaces Paul Morrison, who resigned after one year as AG in the wake of a sex scandal. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius picked Six, a Democrat, to fill the last three years of Morrison’s term. He’s the state’s third Attorney General in just over a year.

Six said he hopes to restore continuity and stability to the office, which he notes is one of the smallest AG offices in the country.

“I think we’re just ahead of Guam in the size of our attorney general’s office and I just don’t think it’s been fully developed to take advantage of that potential to help the people of Kansas,” he said. “This office could do great things for the state but it’s hard to do that without some stability and continuity,” he said.”

Primebuzz spent 30 minutes with Six on Tuesday talking about how he got his newest job, his background, and his plans for the office and his thoughts about running for re-election. (Note, some questions and answers have been edited for clarity).

Primebuzz: How's the transition going? What's proving to be the biggest challenge as you learn about your new office?

Six: I’ve been on the job for three days now. We did a little transition before that, getting to meet everybody, establishing some relationships and working on knowing who the staff is and a little about what each office was working on. Since coming on board I’ve also done a little outreach to folks across the street (Legislators)…. I met with some of the senators, Sen. Morris (Senate President Steve Morris) Sen. (John) Vratil, Speaker (Melvin) Neufeld and also some of the other key players over there. That’s going on at the same time as I’m trying to dig into a couple of the areas that I think perhaps need some immediate attention.

Primebuzz: What are those areas?

Six: There are some things I want to do in the consumer (protection) division. That’s one area that had a lot of turnover before the last administration and they had a lot of things they were trying to get up to speed on…

Some of the other areas I think are working pretty well, at a high level right now. The criminal division is well staffed with some good folks. Rick Guinn (chief of prosecutions) I think is an excellent prosecutor and has really has a good handle on that.

Those cases also tend to have a beginning and an end to them and move forward according to the schedule the judge sets in court. Some of the other things we do here - if somebody’s not pushing them, developing them, setting up meetings and getting information out - tend to just sit there. Some things just require a little more attention than others.

Primebuzz: Do you want to see any dramatic changes (to the consumer protection division)? Any new routes you want to take, new things you want to address?

Six: The one new area, and it overlaps with (the) criminal (division), is really working on the ways fraud and criminal activity have become pervasive in everybody’s life through the use of computers… There are opportunities there (for fraud and identity theft). I think people in Kansas are having trouble with scams like that.

That’s going to be the first big area that I’m going to try and incorporate into our consumer division. It’ll be through outreach, education, trying to work on some legislation - some of this is of course in the beginning stages - to try to help protect people and of course on the criminal side, working with prosecutors across the state in those areas.

There are things we can try to develop so people know what to do, what steps to take to prevent it, and then once it happens, how we can help them.

Primebuzz: How did all this come about? Did you get a call from the governor’s office to see if you were interested? What was the process?

Six: I got calls from some friends and colleagues who started talking to me about it. It wasn’t something I’d been sitting around thinking about. Probably my initial level of interest was not to immediately say, great, let’s go do it. But several people kept talking to me about it and as I started to look into it a little bit more and look at some of the opportunities I thought I could bring to the office, it evolved from there...

I think this office could do great things for the state but it’s hard to do that without some stability and continuity in what’s moving forward. I think like any business, if there’s always turnover and then a learning curve (for the new AG), getting up to speed, and then turnover and starting again, you tend to lose some of the focus and continuity…

So my hope certainly is that I can provide some of that stability and get the office up to full capacity. I think we’re just ahead of Guam in the size of our attorney general’s office and I just don’t think it’s been fully developed to take advantage of that potential to help the people of Kansas.

 

Primebuzz: At the swearing in ceremony last week you mentioned your family, your father. Did you learn any lessons about the law, or life in general, growing up with a state Supreme Court justice (Fred Six, father to Stephen Six) in the house?

Six: There’s not a specific event or anything like that I can recall. It was always just that my father placed a real premium on doing what you said you were going to do, following through on things, keeping your word, doing things with integrity and honesty. That was just sort of pervasive in the way he conducted himself.

Primebuzz: Do you think your lack of experience as a prosecutor will be a hindrance or a challenge?

Six: Once I got here and did the quick triage of what was going on, the first things I started working on were the consumer division (and) some of the tobacco responsibilities we have in this office, to ensure the tobacco settlement monies continue to come in. there’s some Medicaid fraud stuff we’ve worked on. Those were the areas I started putting my time into. And they need effort to keep all those things moving forward. If nobody is overseeing that they’ll just sit there and sometimes nothing will happen. When I came in the criminal division was really running quite well and didn’t need a lot of my attention.

About 85 percent of what goes on in here is not criminal work, if not a higher percentage. Of course we put a real premium on helping law enforcement and prosecuting these serious cases across the state. I’m not saying it’s not important, it’s just less of a percentage of what the work is. The Republican River water dispute with Nebraska is going to involve millions of dollars, and that’s really a civil case with experts and environmental reports and decisions about what documents mean and how to interpret them. The tobacco stuff is really the same way with payments of $50-60 million coming in each year...

As a judge, I handled a criminal docket and presided over criminal trials. I didn’t have any murder trials – thank God there aren’t that many in Douglas County – but from rape all the way to battery and domestic violence…

Primebuzz: In regards to abortion law, Phill Kline investigated Planned Parenthood and left office before filing any charges. Paul Morrison investigated Planned Parenthood and cleared them of any criminal wrongdoing. Now, some have said that with the allegations surrounding Morrison and his handling of that case, there may a need to reopen it. Do you have any plans to investigate Planned Parenthood?

Six: The decisions on that I think have been made. It’s been looked at. I don’t have any agenda I’m pursuing to reopen that case.

As to the Wichita case (in which Morrison filed charges against abortion provider George Tiller), it’s been filed and is proceeding according to the schedule of the judge who is handling the case. It will continue to move forward...

On that whole subject, the privacy of medical records is something that I think is very important to Kansans. We’ve taken every step in this office to keep the records that are here confidential. There’s only one attorney who has access to the records and they’re locked up and she’s the only person that has reviewed them. I don’t have any plans to change the direction of that case other than to let it run its course.

Primebuzz: Do you think probable cause affidavits should be open to the public, as they are in other states?

Six: You know, in some counties they are open...  I don’t have too big a problem with that The arguments against it are that it could interfere with an investigation or it could taint the jury if they get this information ahead of time. But it hasn’t been my experience that either of those things, in 99 percent of the cases, is really going to happen. There may be some high profile cases where I think things need to be kept confidential. But I’m generally in favor of the presumption that things should be disclosed.

Primebuzz: What do you think of the trend of lawmakers asking the AG’s office to file friendly lawsuits. I’m thinking of the challenge to the gambling law or the funeral picketing statute. Do you have any concerns about that or are you happy to go along when asked?

Six: There’s a lot of uncertainty with whether there’s going to be challenges to things like the gambling law and there are a lot of business interests and development issues that the legislature is pushing. It’s not hard for us to assist in the development of some certainty on how the issue is going to come out by filing those things. I’m not saying we’ll never object to doing that, but in those two examples I think it’s been really useful to get these issues up to the Supreme Court and get it as quickly as we can, because it gets the question answered.

Primebuzz: Will you run for re-election in 2010?

Six: Right now I’m really focused on trying to get a good handle on the work we’re doing here. The staff has been through a lot with what has gone on in the last five years. I think there’s some leadership needed. There are some efforts we need to work on with morale, getting every body up to full speed.

We’ve got a technology problem here, we’ve got antiquated computers. If you were to have a law office in the state that was involved in $60 million tobacco settlements and $50 million water settlements, there’s no way they’d be using the technology that exists in this office.

I think the office has not kept pace with what the requirements are. And those are the things I’m working on. (When he accepted the position) My only thought was, I’m going to get to the end of this, whenever it is, with the goal of being able to say to myself, I did the best job I could, worked as hard as I could and I made the decisions for the right reasons. If I can do all of those things, whenever my time here ends, I’ll be fine.