The Wilkes Barre Citizens’ Voice has a story today by Kent Jackson headlined, “Attorney with Hazleton ties joins Trump’s transition committee.” It begins:

An attorney who helped Hazleton write and defend its immigration act 10 years ago is now helping Donald Trump with his transition to the presidency.

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, joined the president-elect’s transition committee and has been mentioned as possible nominee for United States Attorney General or director of the Department Homeland Security in the Trump administration.

And it says this about the Third Circuit appeal in Lozano v. City of Hazleton:

The law would have penalized landlords for renting residences to immigrants who lacked legal status to live in the country. Employers also faced sanctions if they hired immigrants who weren’t authorized to work in the United States.

Kobach helped the city revise the law to provide due process to immigrants, landlords and employers and to meet other constitutional standards.

Immigrants living and working in Hazleton challenged the law with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

After a trial in U.S. District Court in Scranton, Federal Judge James Munley ruled the law unconstitutional in 2007 and said the federal government, not cities, sets immigration law.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld the ruling twice after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the judges to reconsider the case in view of its decision regarding an immigration law in Arizona.

More news coverage of Kobach as a possible AG is here, with a critical profile on Vice.com here and a critical report on his work in the Third Circuit and elsewhere by Southern Poverty Law Center here.

UPDATE: here is a link to the audio of the hour-plus first oral argument in Lozano. Here is the second (post-Scotus remand), two-hour plus, argument — jump to the 9:30 mark, and it continues here. Kobach goes first both times.