Kansas state parties didn’t disclose which candidates they’re backing and attacking

The Kansas Democratic and Republican party committees likely violated state campaign finance law by failing to disclose which candidates they’re backing and attacking with more than $1.7 million in mailers this election cycle.

Neither party has correctly reported its spending since 2010, when both parties clearly identified which candidates they were boosting with campaign mail, a Wichita Eagle analysis found. In the past decade, both major state parties stopped reporting information that is required by state law.

The Republican Party failed to disclose candidate names for $1,014,967 in mailers since August. For the Democratic Party, that amount was $730,333.52.

The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission has notified both party committees and asked them to correct this year’s reports, but it’s unclear if the information will be available before the election.

“There is not a current timetable,” said Mark Skoglund, executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, which enforces the state’s campaign finance laws.

“If we send a formal Errors and Omissions Notice through the mail, which we will if corrections are not made promptly, that starts a 30 day deadline to issue corrections. Given the immediacy of the election, we opted to reach out through faster means first,” he said in an email Thursday.

The Wichita Eagle caught the mistake while researching which races are being targeted by the state’s major parties. Skoglund, who has been executive director since 2017, said this is the first time the incomplete disclosures have come to the Ethics Commission’s attention.

Ron Keefover, president of Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit group that advocates for open government, said the public has a right to know how money is being used to influence elections in Kansas.

“Clearly, that information should be disclosed,” Keefover said. “This information ought to be transparent, it ought to be available, and if it’s required to be available, somebody needs to explain why it’s not.”

Kansas Republican Party Chairman Mike Kuckelman did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment this week. Kansas Democratic Party officials did not comment Thursday afternoon.

“We have been made aware of the filing error and consulted with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission,” said CJ Grover, Kansas GOP communications director, in an email. “We are in the process of making an additional filing correcting the error.”

O’Donnell-Lopez race

Both state parties are flooding Wichita mail boxes with campaign advertisements in an attempt to influence voters in the Sedgwick County Commission District 2 race in southwest Sedgwick County, where Democratic candidate Sarah Lopez is challenging Republican Commissioner Michael O’Donnell, who has vowed not to accept the seat if he wins.

Sedgwick County Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Shepard said outside of the U.S. Senate race, the 2nd District is getting the most third-party attention.

The Democratic Party views it as a winnable race, even though O’Donnell raised nearly three times as much money in the last reporting period from late July to last week. That’s when a secret recording of him upended his campaign.

On Saturday, he said he would not accept the seat if he wins, allowing the Republican precinct committee to fill the vacancy. Republicans hope to hold on to the seat and appoint someone to replace O’Donnell if he resigns.

Until the state party committee reports are corrected, it’s impossible to say how much each party is pouring into that race or any other race in the state, obscuring where the state’s dominant parties are focusing their resources in an election year when every seat in the state legislature is on the ballot.

The Kansas Democratic Party has sent out at least a half-dozen mailers in recent weeks attacking O’Donnell for scandals and supporting Lopez as an alternative with integrity. The Kansas Republican Party has sent several mailers attacking Lopez for attending a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally outside a Wichita Police Department substation, also attended by several local officials and the chief of police.

O’Donnell has come under fire from the Sedgwick County GOP and Wichita officials for his role in a smear video falsely accusing Brandon Whipple of sexual harassment during last November’s mayoral race.

After the accusations in the video were proven false by Eagle reporting, O’Donnell, Wichita City Council member James Clendenin and state Rep. Michael Capps were secretly recorded last November plotting to cover-up their involvement.

O’Donnell admitted to participating in the cover-up and to raising money for the ad, but he denies participating in “the creation, production, script or initiation” of the video.

“If it comes to light that I was responsible for the script or production or initiation of that project, I will absolutely do it (resign),” he told The Eagle on Wednesday.

Despite the Sedgwick County GOP cutting support to O’Donnell and calling for his resignation, the Kansas Republican Party has continued to send out mailers attacking his opponent. At least two mailers attacking Lopez with an altered image that was originally photographed by a Wichita Eagle photographer. The image was used without permission and the mailers employ racist tropes to portray Black people as excessively violent and prone to rioting, according to Russell Fox, a professor of political science at Friends University.

Shepard, the Democratic chairman, said Lopez is being targeted because she’s seen as a threat to the status quo.

“When you have candidates coming in who have the potential to disrupt the status quo, it makes others nervous as their win can be viewed as a shift in a political culture that has taught us over time that those outsides of the ‘norm’ of what a candidate of the Democratic party is supposed to look like, talk like and stand for shouldn’t stand a chance in competitive races such as the ones both Dr. Bollier and Lopez find themselves in,” Shepard said.

Other races

The Sedgwick County Commission race is not the only one where the state parties and other outside groups are throwing their weight around.

Both state parties and other outside groups are aggressively targeting east-side Wichita voters in Kansas Senate District 30. That race — between Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, and Melissa Gregory, D-Wichita — will decide who replaces Senate President Susan Wagle, who is not seeking re-election.

Mailers from the Kansas Democratic Party have focused on Gregory’s goals of job creation, increased education funding and making healthcare more affordable.

The Kansas Republican Party has sent out positive mailers for Erickson, focusing on her desire to lower healthcare costs, reform property taxes, cut the state budget and lower the sales tax on food.

The state GOP also has sent out mailers attacking Gregory for supporting “a radical labor group that favors open borders, government-run health care, gun bans and taxpayer-funded abortion.” That labor group is the National Education Association, also known as the teachers union.

Erickson is also getting a boost from Americans for Prosperity Action, a political action committee whose biggest donor is by Koch Industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign finance at OpenSecrets.org.

Unlike the state parties, Americans for Prosperity Action actually listed the names and dollar amounts for candidates it’s backing this year. Between Aug. 31 and Oct. 19, the political action committee spent $30,708.44 to help get Erickson elected.

Two third-party groups are sending mailers against Erickson: Kansas Trial Lawyers Association-affiliated KTLA Consumer/Civil Justice PAC and a dark-money group called Kansas Values Institute that isn’t required to disclose its donors.

The KTLA mailer claims Erickson is “in the pockets of big insurance companies” because she took donations from people in the insurance industry. Campaign finance reports show the group spent $30,377.85 on mail and digital ads against Erickson in September and October.

The Kansas Values Institute has been sending anti-Erickson mailers that claim she voted to make it difficult for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and stalking to find safety and housing. The bill she voted against also included provisions that were friendly to the insurance industry and construction contractors.

The Kansas Values Institute is able to avoid Kansas disclosure laws by not expressly advocating for or against a candidate but instead sending “educational mailings” urging people to call Erickson and “tell her to commit to making Kansans’ health a priority. It’s unclear how much the group has spent in Kansas this election cycle.

Sedgwick County GOP Chairman Dalton Glassock said two other state races are also getting a lot of attention from outside groups this year:

▪ Senate District 28: Mike Peterson, a Wichita Republican, against Democratic challenger Jim Ward, who’s trying to make a jump from the State House to the Senate.

▪ House District 96: Incumbent Stephanie Yeager, a Wichita Democrat, is defending her seat against Republican challenger Tom Kessler.

Most of the spending in those races is coming from the state parties and directly from candidates, Glasscock said.

Sedgwick County Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Shepard said Democrats are also being targeted by outside organizations in several races:

▪ U.S. Senate: Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Democratic candidate, is trying to be the first Democratic U.S. Senator elected in Kansas since 1932. Her race against Great Bend Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall is one of the closest Senate races in the country.

Shepard said many of the attack ads against Bollier are coming from the Senate Leadership Fund, a Mitch McConnell associated group, and the Kansas Republican Party.

The Kansas Values Institute has also run negative television ads about Marshall.

Outside the U.S. Senate race, Shepard said the state Republican Party is also attacking Laura Lombard, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Ron Estes for the 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Yeager.

▪ Outside Sedgwick County, the Kansas Republican Party has also launched a campaign against Kansas House District 79 candidate Ken White, Democratic candidate from Belle Plaine who is challenging Cheryl Helmer, a Republican from Mulvane.

This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 2:00 PM.