Topeka ? One of Gov. Sam Brownback’s nominees to the Kansas Human Rights Commission received some pointed questioning during a confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, asked Joshua Ney, an attorney from Lawrence, and executive director of a conservative legislative group, if he could be open-minded while serving on the commission.

The commission investigates complaints alleging discrimination in the areas of employment, public accommodations and housing, as well as racial profiling in conjunction with traffic stops.

“I have some serious concerns,” Owens said of Ney’s nomination and mentioned his job with Kansas Legislative Education and Research Inc., or KLEAR, and a paper Ney wrote saying that Kansas’ method of selecting judges was unconstitutional.

But Ney said his job with KLEAR was “based on a rubric determined by a board of governors and doesn’t define me as a person in all that I consider.” Ney also serves as as an assistant county attorney in Jefferson County and has his own law firm in Oskaloosa.

“I’m not coming to the Human Rights Commission with an axe to grind or with a cause other than to uphold the law,” he said.

Sen. Jean Kurtis Schodorf, R-Wichita, said she supported Ney’s nomination based on his answers to the Senate Confirmation Oversight Committee. But, she added, “I hope that you will remember this discussion and work as hard as you can to be as fair as you can.”

The committee forwarded the nominations of Ney and former House Speaker Melvin Neufeld to the full Senate. Neufeld, a Republican from Ingalls, was praised by Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka, who said Neufeld did an excellent job of helping straighten out the commission back in the 1990s.

During the last legislative session, Brownback had proposed placing the Human Rights Commission under the attorney general’s office. At the time, Brownback had said the move would save $177,000.

But commission officials opposed the plan, saying it would have set up conflicts because sometimes the commission investigates complaints against state agencies, and it is the attorney general’s office that defends those agencies. Brownback later backed off the proposal.