Nuss recuses from Montoy proceedings

TOPEKA—The Supreme Court today announced that one of its members, Hon. Lawton R. Nuss, has recused from any further proceedings in Appeal No. 92,032: Montoy et al. v. State of Kansas et al.

The recusal arose following a court conference today in which it was disclosed for the first time to the members of the Supreme Court that Justice Nuss had discussed this pending litigation with two Kansas state senators to determine whether figures he had read in the media regarding proposed school funding legislation were accurate.

In that regard, in February Justice Nuss prepared on his own a three-column tabulation showing figures from the Augenblick & Myers cost study and the Division of Legislative Post Audit study, as well as proposed funding from a pending House bill. He shared a copy of his tabulation during a March 1 lunch with Sens. Pete Brungardt and Stephen Morris, a copy of which is attached. Justice Nuss has advised that his purpose in preparing the comparison of the two school finance cost studies and the House bill was to clarify in his mind the exact amounts of funding that were proposed in the pending House bill.

Justice Nuss was meeting with the senators without the knowledge of any other member of the court and acting on his own. His recusal resulted from his decision to avoid any appearance of impropriety, even though there was no discussion with the senators of what amount of funding might eventually be acceptable to him or to the court as a whole.