vetoed by then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat. However, on April 18, 2011, Governor Brownback signed Kobach's voter ID "SAFE" Act. Its core provisions are as follows: newly registered Kansas voters must prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote; voters must show photographic identification when casting a vote in person; and voters must have their signature verified and provide a full Kansas driver's license or non-driver ID number when voting by mail. Travel issues Under Governor Sam Brownback, who left office on January 31, 2018, Kansas endured major fiscal deficits that affected highway funding and school transportation funding. In an effort to critically examine government expenditures, the Associated Press (AP) examined records of all flights taken by top government officials (regardless of which state agency paid for the trip) taken within the 15-month period from January 2015 to March 24, 2016. The Governor of Kansas is required to reimburse the state for personal or political travel, but the AP discovered that Kobach had not reimbursed the state for flights totaling more than 4,350 miles in the state Highway Patrol (KHP) nine-passenger, Raytheon King Air 350. A number of Kobach's trips aboard the state plane seemed to provide no apparent benefits to Kansans, nor were they undertaken in pursuit of official duties. Kobach is alleged to have scheduled negligible state business to coincide with Republican Party functions, taking his family along with him. In August, he and two of his daughters made a $360 flight to Newton to meet the county clerk before attending the county Republican Ice Cream Social. Two days later he flew to Wichita, at a cost of $524, to be the keynote speaker at the Sedgwick County Republican Party fundraising picnic. He spoke there about Republican party partisan issues. He was unable to reserve the Beechcraft to fly to Washington, D.C., for a hearing and deposition on a lawsuit which he had joined in support of Brian Newby, whom he had helped get appointed as the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) director. Newby had previously been appointed by Kobach as a Kansas elections official. Kobach and a staff member's commercial flights and other expenses cost $6,594. Newby, without public notice, unilaterally changed a national voter registration form in order to require residents of Kansas, Georgia and Alabama to show proof of citizenship. Representative Jim Ward criticized Kobach's use of the state plane to promote national voter ID policies,