TOPEKA | Shawnee County prosecutors began an admittedly difficult investigation of whether legislators violated the state's open meetings law when they attended dinner meetings at the governor's mansion.

Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor and his staff are trying to sort out whether the meetings at Gov. Sam Brownback's Cedar Crest home were social in nature or whether they transacted government business that should be open to the public.

Taylor, a Democrat, is responding to a complaint brought by the Topeka Capital-Journal, which contends that business was discussed at the meetings in violation of the law.

"Basically, it's going to be an individual by individual process to determine who has knowledge. It's going to be a pain-staking process," Taylor said of the probe.

Last month, Brownback invited dozens of Republican lawmakers -- many who sit on committees that will vet his tax and school plans -- to dinners at the mansion. In some instances, the majorities of the committees attended the meetings.

The governor, for example, invited all the Republican members of the House education, taxation and appropriations committees to the dinners, according to lists provided by the governor's office.

In the Senate, all the Republicans on the tax committee were invited to a dinner as were GOP members of the education committee.

In all, seven meetings were held last month and two more are scheduled for next week.

Brownback said Friday that he's willing to cooperate with the investigation.

"I am completely confident that they will find no wrongdoing," the governor said.

The governor's counsel, Caleb Stegall, sent a four-page response to the district attorney on Friday. In the letter, Stegall outlined how Brownback used the dinners to highlight his major policy initiatives laid out in his State of the State speech.

"The law does not prohibit this and, in my view, we would be well advised not to create an atmosphere of fear through the presumption that (open meetings) violations may lurk around every legislative corner," Stegall wrote.

In this case, the governor's staff said lawmakers were advised at the dinners that while they could listen to the governor's policy agenda, they could not discuss committee affairs at the dinner.

The state open meetings law is intended to ensure that the meetings of governmental bodies are open to the public. The law does not extend to elected leaders such as the governor that are not part of the policy-making body. It also requires notice of meetings to be provided to anyone who requests it.

Violating the law is a civil penalty that carries a fine up to $500 for each violation. Any action taken in a meeting that doesn't comply with the law could be voided.

Taylor acknowledged that proving a violation will be hard since he will be relying on lawmakers being honest with him about their own actions.

Whether anyone will be subpoenaed will depend on how cooperative witnesses are, Taylor said. "At the end of the day, if folks want to be cooperative and hopefully bring a quick resolution to this, let us do our job, let us be the fact finder," he said.

But Taylor agreed that a group of lawmakers gathered together does not mean it's a violation of state law.

"There are multiple events where every member of the Kansas Legislature is in the same building under the same roof at the same legislative function hosted by a variety of interests," Taylor said.

"That is not a per se face (open meetings) violation," he said.

The investigation left some lawmakers shaking their heads Friday morning when they received notice from the district attorney instructing them to preserve all documents in their possession that might be relevant to the investigation.

They complained that similar dinners have been held by previous governors and questioned what made this situation different.

State Sen. Terrie Huntington attended two of the meetings, including one attended by only three lawmakers although more were apparently invited.

At one meeting, there was talk about how public input was collected for plans to reform the state pension system. At another meeting, Huntington she remembered a lot of talk about college basketball and not much else.

"I never heard anyone talking specficially talking about any bill or legislation or being asked to vote one way or the another about any piece of legislation or any forthcoming policy," Huntington said.

State Rep. Marvin Kleeb, a Republican from verland Park attended a dinner at the mansion.

"If this was some sort of lobbying effort or some sort of 'Let's have a substantive discussion on issues,'' it was a disaster," Kleeb said.

He said there were a lot of generalities discussed about the need to work together on tax and school policy. "There was no lobbying or push for any particular issue in any direction," Kleeb said.