Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission sets April 17 application deadline, schedules interviews for May 20–21

The Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission voted to set the application deadline for a forthcoming Supreme Court vacancy on April 17, with a noon deadline to allow for in‑office hand deliveries, and scheduled an organizational meeting for 11 a.m. on April 21 to plan interviews. Chair Terry Campbell opened the rescheduled meeting and apologized to the public for a systems outage that canceled the commission’s prior meeting.

Derek Shima, clerk of the Kansas appellate courts and commission secretary, told commissioners Justice Lukert’s retirement is effective March 28 and reminded the group that the commission has 60 days to submit three nominees to the governor. “The governor will have 60 days from this commission’s nomination…to make the selection,” Shima said, explaining the timeline that frames the commission’s work. Commissioners agreed to hold candidate interviews May 20–21 and to keep calendars clear for that window.

Campbell asked staff to distribute the application promptly and said candidates would be given roughly 30 days to complete the detailed form. “We want to give the candidates around 30 days to get that done,” he said. The commission agreed that applications ordinarily arrive in large batches near the deadline and that setting a specific time (noon on April 17) would help administrative handling.

Next procedural steps: staff will publish the application and filing instructions, the commission will convene virtually at 11 a.m. on April 21 to assign investigation duties, and two commissioners will be assigned to vet each candidate’s references and materials ahead of interviews in May.