1. Derek Larkin Schmidt was born on January 23,1968 and is an American lawyer and politician serving as the US representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district since 2025.
40 Facts About Derek Schmidt
1. 2.
Derek Schmidt previously served as the Kansas Attorney General from 2011 to 2023.
3.
Derek Schmidt became the state attorney general in 2011, after he defeated incumbent Democrat Stephen Six.
4.
Derek Schmidt was the Republican nominee for governor of Kansas in the 2022 election, but narrowly lost to incumbent Democrat Laura Kelly.
5.
Derek Schmidt graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor's degree in 1990, received a master's degree in international politics from the University of Leicester in England, and received his JD degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.
6.
Derek Schmidt was then a legislative assistant to Republican US Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas, an assistant Kansas attorney general and special counsel to Governor Bill Graves.
7.
In 2004, Derek Schmidt was elected the Senate majority leader, holding this post through 2010.
8.
Derek Schmidt was a supporter of the highly popular Kansas version of Jessica's Law, but "almost single-handedly killed the final bill by demanding inclusion of a provision allowing private prisons in Kansas" as the town of Yates Center, in Derek Schmidt's district, sought to bring a private prison to the town.
9.
Derek Schmidt was the Republican nominee for Kansas Attorney General, defeating Ralph DeZago in the Republican primary election on August 3,2010.
10.
Derek Schmidt won the general election against the incumbent, Democrat Steve Six and took office on January 10,2011.
11.
Six chose not to join 25 other states in challenging the constitutionality of the ACA, while Derek Schmidt pledged to join the lawsuit challenging the law, if elected.
12.
In 2018, Schmidt defeated Democratic nominee Sarah G Swain, winning election to a third term.
13.
Republican Derek Schmidt opposed Kelly's order, contending that it violated the Kansas Constitution and Kansas law.
14.
Derek Schmidt issued a memo calling the order likely unconstitutional and urged law enforcement not to enforce it.
15.
Kansas challenged Obama-era regulations on the oil and gas industry, including a regulation controlling emissions of the greenhouse gas methane; in 2015, Derek Schmidt joined Kansas in a suit challenging the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
16.
In July 2017, Derek Schmidt joined a group of eight other Republican state attorneys general, led by Ken Paxton of Texas, as well as Idaho Governor Butch Otter, in sending a letter to President Donald Trump saying that they would litigate if Trump did not terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that had been put into place by the Obama administration.
17.
Derek Schmidt defended Kansas in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, seeking to invalidate Kansas's ban on same-sex marriage and its prohibition of allowing same-sex couples to change the names on state drivers' licenses to reflect their married names, receive spousal health benefits, or file joint state tax returns.
18.
In 2014, after the chief district judge of Johnson County ordered the state to issue licenses to same-sex couples, Derek Schmidt filed a petition in the Kansas Supreme Court and obtained a temporary halt to the issuance of licenses to same-sex couples pending a hearing.
19.
Derek Schmidt petitioned the US Supreme Court to block the order, but the Court denied his request.
20.
In 2015, after the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, Derek Schmidt dropped his Kansas Supreme Court case against same-sex marriage.
21.
Derek Schmidt asked the US Supreme Court to reverse the Tenth Circuit's decision, but in December 2018, the Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari.
22.
In 2015, Derek Schmidt asked the Kansas Supreme Court to strike down a ballot measure, approved by voters in Wichita, that created a city ordinance reducing marijuana possession enforcement in the city.
23.
Derek Schmidt asserted that the voter imitative was barred because it conflicted with uniform state law, a claim that the city disputed.
24.
In January 2018, Derek Schmidt issued an opinion stating that all forms of marijuana, including cannabidiol are unlawful in Kansas.
25.
In September 2012, while leading the three-person State Objections Board, and supported by its other members, Kansas Secretary of State Jeff Colyer and Derek Schmidt, Kobach requested additional evidence that Obama was actually born in Hawaii.
26.
Derek Schmidt joined forces with Republican Kris Kobach, then-Kansas Secretary of State, in filing a brief in support of a lawsuit seeking to force the Kansas Democratic Party to field a candidate in the 2014 US Senate general election.
27.
However, the Kansas Objections Board, composed of Republicans Lieutenant Governor Tracey Mann, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Derek Schmidt, refused to uphold the complaint.
28.
Derek Schmidt answered that he did not possess the authority to remove Capps.
29.
Derek Schmidt noted state law forbids recall elections in the last two hundred days of a representative's term and since the legislature would not meet before the election, it could not expel Capps.
30.
In March 2021, Derek Schmidt joined 11 other Republican state attorneys general in a lawsuit against the Biden administration, challenging a January 2021 Biden executive order aimed at mitigating climate change and incentivizing green jobs.
31.
Derek Schmidt claimed that the order would be "job-killing" and alleged that Biden lacked the constitutional authority to implement new rules about greenhouse gases.
32.
Derek Schmidt joined 20 other Republican state attorneys general in objecting to voting rights legislation passed by the US House, alleging violations of the US Constitution and an intrusion on states' rights to manage elections.
33.
Derek Schmidt had joined in an action brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
34.
In 2016, Derek Schmidt created a new Fraud and Abuse Litigation Division to prosecute financial crimes and elder abuse.
35.
In 2017, Derek Schmidt's colleagues elected him to serve a one-year term beginning in 2018 as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, an office which rotates on a regional basis.
36.
Derek Schmidt has given oral argument several times on behalf of the State of Kansas in the United States Supreme Court.
37.
In March 2021, Derek Schmidt became the first major Republican candidate to enter the race against incumbent Democrat Laura Kelly for governor of Kansas in the 2022 election cycle.
38.
Derek Schmidt named former Kansas Republican Party Chairman Kelly Arnold as his campaign treasurer.
39.
Derek Schmidt did not receive the endorsement of three of his former Republican superiors: former governor Bill Graves, former United States Senator Nancy Kassebaum, and former Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall.
40.
Derek Schmidt was sworn in to the 119th United States Congress on January 3,2025.