Welcome to the U. S. Senate race in Kansas – the single most confusing, likely chaotic, one of them all.
Let me explain.
As you may be aware, Pat Roberts, the long-time U.S. Republican Senator from Kansas, is running against either Democrat Chad Taylor and Independent Greg Orman…..or Democrat Greg Orman who is taking over the spot vacated by Taylor because he dropped out of the race.
The issue here is that Taylor, who won the Democrat primary, turns out to be a lousy candidate. He was not raising very much money, and was not attracting much voter interest beyond his Democrat base – which is deadly in a red state like Kansas. In short, a pretty obvious loser.
By contrast, Orman, who at one time or another has been both a Republican and a Democrat, is running as an independent – and appears to be a much more attractive candidate than Taylor.
Pat Roberts won his primary, but had a pretty stiff challenge from Dr. Milton Wolf – and, according to several polls may be vulnerable if the right circumstances evidence themselves.
Since “the right circumstances” would be Orman as the Democrat challenger with no split vote, Mr. Taylor was induced to withdraw from the race (hey, who cares that primary voters nominated him. Since when do they count?).
Here is a copy of his withdrawal letter:
Why is Mr. Taylor\’s withdrawal letter so important? Because, under Kansas law, he can\’t withdraw unless he either
-has died (Taylor may not be much of a candidate, but he\’s still vertical), or
-declares himself to be incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office (read his letter: do you see that claim anywhere?).
Here are the key parts of
the statute, which lay this out with crystal clarity:
25-306b. Withdrawalfrom nomination; omission of name from ballot; death of nominee; person fillingvacancy may withdraw. (a)Except as provided by this section, no person who has been nominated by anymeans for any national, state, county or township office may cause suchperson\’s name to be withdrawn from nomination after the day of the primaryelection.
(b) Any person who has been nominated by any means for anynational, state, county or township office who declares that they are incapableof fulfilling the duties of office if elected may cause such person\’s name tobe withdrawn from nomination by a request in writing, signed by the person andacknowledged before an officer qualified to take acknowledgments of deeds.
(c) In the case of the death of a person who has been nominatedfor any national, state, county or township office, the county chairperson ofthe political party of which such nominee was a member may cause such nominee\’sname to be withdrawn from nomination by a request in writing, signed by thechairperson and acknowledged before an officer qualified to takeacknowledgements of deeds.
Based on the law, Kansas\’s Secretary of State, Republican Kris Kobach, has ruled that Taylor must stay on the ballot. However, I assume you will not be surprised to learn that Democrats are fighting this decision.
Chaos time.
Personally, my feeling, in reading that resignation letter, is that they don\’t have a case. It is eminently clear that Mr. Taylor did not establish a legal reason for bowing out. But when it comes to the law, strange things happen every day, so who knows?
It would be hard to overstate the importance of this race. One seat may decide whether Republicans or Democrats run the Senate for the next two years. So I promise to keep an eye out for new developments as they arise.
