Should candidates facing allegations be able to drop out? No, says Kobach-backed law
Three Kansas House candidates facing allegations of impropriety will appear on the November general election ballot.
They have no choice.
A 2015 Kansas law championed by Republican Secretary of State and governor candidate Kris Kobach doesn’t give them the option of dropping out. The candidates must remain in the race — and voters are stuck with them.
Some legislators say the law went too far in stopping candidates from dropping out.
“If the point of the person running is to do what’s best for the state, then they realize what’s best for the state is for them not to run, why wouldn’t that be an option?” said Sen. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who sat on a committee that helped craft the 2015 law.
Kobach said the law is working effectively.
“I think it is important that there not be an opportunity just to drop off for no reason or any reason at all,” Kobach said.
Accusations of emotional abuse against Wichita candidate Michael Capps became public in late August. The Kansas Department for Children and Families said it had found Capps was emotionally abusive with boys. Capps has said the finding was later overturned. DCF said it was thrown out because of technical errors. The Republican Party has severed ties to him and called on him to end his campaign.
In June, Democrats accused Johnson County candidate Adam Thomas of faking his residency. In early September, prosecutors charged Thomas with election fraud.
Under past Kansas law, both candidates would have had the option of dropping out by declaring that they were incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office they seek. It’s unclear if they would have considered that option, though: Capps has been defiant since the emergence of the allegations, and Thomas is fighting the accusations against him.
But a 2015 law supported by Kobach requires candidates to have a severe medical hardship, live out of state or die in order to come off the ballot on or before Sept. 1.
A third candidate, Wichita resident Jim Price, was arrested in May on suspicion of having a gun while being a felon and for possessing marijuana. His arrest was not publicly reported until last week, after the Sept. 1 deadline. He has since expressed doubts about running.
Kobach has contended that under the old law candidates were dropping out because serving in office would be inconvenient, not because they were truly incapable.
He pushed to change the law after the 2014 U.S. Senate election, when Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out to clear the way for independent Greg Orman to take on Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. Kobach went to court to try to block Taylor from exiting the race, but lost.
Soon after the 2015 legislative session began, Kobach went to the Legislature with a bill to stop anyone from coming off the ballot unless they die. Lawmakers ultimately softened the bill to allow candidates to drop out if they have medical hardships or move out of state.
Kobach told lawmakers at the time that candidates rarely invoked the state law that allowed them to declare they were incapable of carrying out their duties in order to get off the ballot. And when it was used, the secretary of state’s office didn’t investigate to see if their declaration was true, he said.
This week, Kobach said the purpose of the 2015 law was to make the previous law more effective.
“I think our system is working and wouldn’t want to abandon the changes of 2015 just because of these instances,” Kobach said, referring to candidates facing allegations.
Kobach indicated that ultimately voters are a check against candidates with problems. He emphasized that even though candidates remain on the ballot, opposing campaigns can raise the allegations as an issue.
Rep. Scott Schwab, an Olathe Republican who is running for secretary of state, said it is up to the Legislature to set policy on candidates dropping out. But he said he would advise lawmakers to avoid changes that would put county clerks in danger of violating federal law, which provides strict timelines for mailing ballots to military personnel overseas.
In practice, the federal requirements mean Kansas needs to finalize ballots early in the fall, leading state lawmakers to set the Sept. 1 deadline.
Brian McClendon, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, said the critical cutoff point for removing candidates from a ballot would come when advance ballots need to be printed and voting machines programmed.
McClendon said Kobach and his legislative supporters appeared to have crafted the 2015 law in an attempt to create a partisan political advantage rather than a good-faith effort to improve elections. He appeared open to changing the law to make it easier for candidates to drop out.
“If we are going to make law about whether a candidate can be removed from the ballot, I believe the law should allow for a candidate’s name to be removed from the ballot should the candidate request it. It’s a slippery slope if we allow candidates to be removed from the ballot involuntarily,” McClendon said in a statement.
Even with the 2015 law, there is another option to keep candidates with problems from taking office.
The House could refuse to seat a winner if members deemed his or her problems too great. The move would be extraordinary.
“There’s a lot of fail safes in our system from preventing it going too far,” Schwab said.
Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, said the 2015 law “obviously went way too far” and that the end result is that the Republicans are now stuck with nominees with serious problems.
But he is withholding judgment on whether he would vote against seating any of the candidates if they are elected.
“If that’s the will of the voters, if that’s truly what the voters of those districts – who they want to represent them – then it’s probably their right to go ahead and elect folks with that type of past,” Carmichael said.
This story was originally published September 21, 2018 at 11:31 AM.