Bourbon County Clerk Susan Walker has filed her written response to County Attorney James Crux’s request to end her recall lawsuit without a trial — and she is asking the judge to reject that request and let the case proceed.

The response, filed July 8 in Bourbon County District Court, is the latest step in Walker v. Crux (BB-2026-CV-000048), the suit Walker brought in May to challenge a recall petition being circulated against her.

In late June, Crux — the defendant in the case — asked the court for a “judgment on the pleadings,” a request to decide the case on the written filings alone, without a trial. In that motion, Crux argued the recall petition is legally sufficient and should be allowed to go to the voters, and he asked the court to bring the three recall committee members back into the case.

Walker’s July 8 filing asks the court to deny that motion. Notably, she is not asking the court to rule in her favor now. She is asking it to let her two claims move forward “to trial so it may fully examine the facts and law.”

Walker makes two main arguments, both drawn from her amended petition.

First, she says the county attorney did not do what the law requires. Under K.S.A. 25-4322(b), the county attorney must review a proposed recall petition and determine whether it is legally sufficient. Walker contends Crux reviewed and rejected an earlier draft but never independently reviewed the second, amended version that was actually circulated for signatures. She argues Crux effectively concedes this in his own motion, and that he cannot rely on “substantial compliance” with the statute because, if he never reviewed the petition, he met none of its requirements. Reading the recall law generously in favor of voters, she writes, “does not erase” the county attorney’s duty to follow the procedure.

Second, she says the petition itself is too vague to be valid. The petition cites no statutes, which Walker argues leaves her unable to respond meaningfully within the roughly 200-word rebuttal the law allows a targeted official — pointing to the Kansas appellate cases Reynolds v. Figge and Baker v. Gibson. She also argues the petition still implies “misconduct” and “disenfranchisement,” accusations she says a reasonable signer could read as claims that she broke the law.

Walker asks the court to deny Crux’s motion and allow her petition to proceed to trial. Her underlying suit seeks a court declaration that the recall petition is invalid and an order blocking any recall election based on it. In the same filing, she also opposes a separate bid by recall organizers Kyle Parks, Kevin Wagner and Lyle Owenby to join the case as parties. You can read Walker’s full response here.

How the case got here:

• May 22: Walker sues to block the recall petition, naming Crux and three committee members (original report).
• Late May: Walker narrows the suit to name only Crux; a judge dismisses the committee members, and one member asks to undo that (update).
• June 23: Crux answers the suit and files his motion for judgment on the pleadings.
• July 8: Walker files the response described here.

A case management conference — where the judge is expected to take up the recall organizers’ motion to intervene and a related motion — is set for July 14 at the Bourbon County Courthouse in Fort Scott.

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 case.