Calhoon challenges lawsuit over holding commissioner, undersheriff posts

Atchison County’s newest commissioner is fighting to keep both his county seat and his Jackson County law-enforcement job, telling a judge that the challenge to his dual service was filed under the wrong legal procedure.

In a response filed Tuesday in Atchison County District Court, Commissioner John Calhoon denied that he was serving unlawfully and asked the court to throw out the county attorney’s case. The lawsuit seeks to block Calhoon from holding his commission seat while also serving as Jackson County undersheriff, a pairing the county says cannot stand under Kansas law.

Calhoon’s filing centered first on procedure. He argued that if the dispute is really about whether he was eligible to take office, it should have been brought as an election contest under a short deadline that has already passed. He also argued that the county attorney lacked the legal standing required to bring the case under that framework. Those arguments put the timing of the lawsuit, not just its merits, at the center of the fight.

He also rejected the underlying claim that the two posts are incompatible. Calhoon said there is no conflict between the duties of a county commissioner and the duties of a law-enforcement officer in Jackson County, and he challenged the legal authorities the county attorney relied on. The county attorney’s filing, by contrast, asked a judge to declare that Calhoon cannot lawfully hold both positions and to require him to give up one of them.

The case turns on a key question in Kansas law: whether the undersheriff role qualifies as a public office with law-enforcement authority similar enough to a commissioner seat to create an incompatibility. If the judge agrees with the county attorney, Calhoon could be ordered to resign one of the positions. If Calhoon prevails, he could keep both roles and set up a clearer boundary for dual service in county government and neighboring law enforcement.

Calhoon also asked for attorney fees and a jury trial on any issues that can be decided by a jury. That request signaled that he plans to contest the lawsuit aggressively rather than quietly step aside, and it raises the stakes for a case that could affect how Atchison County and other Kansas offices handle overlapping public duties.