A group of 45 Kansas lawmakers has introduced a resolution asking the attorney general’s office to release information from an investigation into a police raid last year on the newspaper in Marion.

KFDI’s news partners at KWCH report the resolution was sponsored by 35 Democrats and 10 Republicans, and it condemns the raid last August on the offices of the Marion County Record, the home of its publisher and the home of a Marion city council member.   The mother of Record publisher Eric Meyer, 98-year-old Joan Meyer, died the day after the raid.

The raid touched off a national debate over freedom of the press.  The Marion police chief at that time, Gideon Cody, said he was investigating whether the newspaper and a city council member had violated the privacy of a local business owner.   The police chief resigned in October.

Attorney General Kris Kobach oversees the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which began looking into the raid and then turned the case over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.  Kobach has said that if any charges are filed, the information will come out during the legal proceedings.

The resolution’s lead sponsors are Democratic House members Mary Lynn Poskin of Kansas City and Boog Highberger of Lawrence.  It will go to the House Judiciary Committee but it’s unclear if there will be a hearing.

The Society of Professional Journalists and the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University are hosting a screening of a documentary about the Marion raid, and then there will be a panel discussion including Eric Meyer of the Marion County Record and executive director Emily Bradbury of the Kansas Press Association.  The event will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 1st at the CAC Theater in the Rhatigan Student Center on the WSU campus.