Case graphic: Clerk Drops Recall Lawsuit. Dismissed with prejudice, hours before Tuesday's hearing. Walker pays recall backers $800 and waives all future challenges. Walker v. Crux, Bourbon County District Court.
Bourbon County, Elections

Clerk Drops Recall Lawsuit, Waives Any Future Challenge to the Petition

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Bourbon County Clerk Susan Walker has dropped the lawsuit she filed in May to invalidate the petition seeking her recall, ending the case hours before a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

A Stipulation of Dismissal was electronically filed at 9:48 a.m. on July 28 in Bourbon County District Court, and District Judge Richard M. Fisher Jr. signed it the same morning. The case, Walker v. Crux (BB-2026-CV-000048), is dismissed with prejudice, meaning Walker cannot bring it again.

A motion hearing had been set for 1:30 p.m. that same day. Court records now show it canceled.

Walker sued on May 22, arguing the recall petition circulated against her was invalid because County Attorney James Crux never issued the written legal-sufficiency determination that K.S.A. 25-4322(b) requires. Her position was that Crux reviewed and rejected an earlier draft but never independently reviewed the amended version that was actually circulated for signatures. She asked the court to declare the petition invalid and to block any recall election based on it.

She originally named Crux along with three recall committee members, Kyle R. Parks, Kevin Wagner and Lyle K. Owenby, then narrowed the case to Crux alone. The three members were dismissed on May 29 and spent June asking the court to let them rejoin.

By July the case had three fully briefed motions waiting on the judge: the committee members’ motion to intervene, Wagner’s motion to set aside the order dismissing the committee, and Crux’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, which asked the court to rule the petition legally sufficient and let it go to the voters. Walker had filed her response to that motion on July 8.

The stipulation was filed under K.S.A. 60-241 by all parties who had appeared in the case. It sets out four terms:

  • Walker agrees to pay the proposed intervenors eight hundred dollars.
  • Walker waives all future legal claims challenging the Petition to Recall Susan E. Walker or process related to it.
  • The proposed intervenors agree to withdraw their motion to intervene.
  • The proposed intervenors waive all claims against Walker for attorney’s fees.

The document is signed by Jonathan L. Ehrlich for Walker, Jacob D. Bielenberg for Crux, and Patrick B. Hughes for the three committee members, who are represented by both Patrick B. Hughes and Quinn M. Hughes.

None of the three contested motions was ever decided.

That distinction matters. Crux’s motion for judgment on the pleadings asked the court to hold that the recall petition was legally sufficient, which was the central legal question in the case. The court never reached it. A judge did not uphold the petition; the challenge to it was withdrawn and waived by the person who brought it.

The motion to intervene was likewise never granted or denied. The committee members withdrew it themselves as part of the agreement. Wagner’s motion to set aside was never decided either.

One note for readers who look the case up themselves: the state’s public case-search portal lists the July 28 disposition as “Dismissed for Lack of Prosecution.” That label does not match the signed order, which is a stipulated dismissal agreed to by every party and entered while the case was actively briefed and set for hearing. The filed document is the authoritative record.

Timeline and documents

For readers who want the fuller history, here are the key filings and our prior coverage, in order:

Background: the recall petition and the clerk’s public statement on the recall.

Read the newest filing: Stipulation of Dismissal (PDF), filed and signed July 28, 2026 in Bourbon County District Court, Case No. BB-2026-CV-000048.

Being named in a lawsuit is not a finding of wrongdoing, and the filings described here reflect each party’s arguments, not the court’s conclusions. FortScott.biz will continue to follow the recall.

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