Democrat Chad Taylor sues to get name off Kansas Senate ballot

Chad Taylor filed an emergency petition with the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday to remove his name from the November ballot.

Taylor’s complaint states emphatically that he does not wish to remain a candidate for U.S. Senate and that keeping him on the ballot as the Democratic nominee is “likely to cause confusion among Kansas voters, who have a right to cast their votes free from misleading ballot information that would lead any reasonable person to believe that Petitioner was still in the race.”

Taylor, district attorney for Shawnee County, submitted a letter to withdraw from the Senate race to the Secretary of State’s Office last week.

Taylor’s withdrawal was seen by many political analysts as a boost to independent candidate Greg Orman against U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, a three-term Republican incumbent. The Kansas Republican Party objected to Taylor’s removal from the ballot and accused Democrats of cutting a backroom deal to unseat Roberts.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach ruled that Taylor would stay on the ballot. He said Taylor had failed to meet the requirements for withdrawal because he had not declared himself incapable to serve if elected, as required by Kansas statute.

Taylor’s complaint contends that Kobach, a member of Roberts’ honorary campaign committee, should have recused himself from the decision as he did in May when Roberts’ candidacy was formally challenged.

“But respondent did not recuse himself from the decision whether to permit Petitioner to withdraw from ballot in the same race. Instead, he appears personally to have decided to overturn the conclusion of a nonpolitical member of his staff regarding the efficacy of Petitioner’s withdrawal,” the complaint states.

Taylor has repeatedly said that Assistant Secretary of State Brad Bryant assured him that his letter was sufficient to withdraw from the race. The documents submitted to the court include a sworn affidavit from Taylor recounting this exchange.

Kobach disputed this claim last week.

Taylor’s complaint also notes that the Secretary of State’s Office received a “summary of argument” against his withdrawal from the Kansas Republican Party, but sought no rebuttal from the candidate.

“By keeping my name on the ballot despite my explicit and timely withdrawal, the secretary of state is conscripting me to run for office, in violation of my First Amendment right,” Taylor says in his affidavit.

A poll released this week by SurveyUSA, paid for by KSN-TV in Wichita, showed Taylor still receiving 10 percent of the vote despite dropping out of the race.

Orman and Roberts were shown to be in a dead heat, with the independent leading Roberts 37 percent to 36 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Kobach said through a spokeswoman that both he and Attorney General Derek Schmidt are confident that they will prevail against Taylor’s challenge in court.

His office later issued a short statement by e-mail saying the statute was clear and Taylor failed to follow its “unambiguous requirements. This should be a straight-forward case of statutory interpretation, and the Secretary looks forward to making his case in court.”

Kobach said last week that his decision was not influenced by Republican Party officials.

“This has nothing do with the party. The law is the law,” Kobach said last week.

“One of the most fundamental rules of construing a statute is that every word has to have meaning,” Kobach said. “They very specifically in 1997 inserted this requirement that the candidate must declare that he is incapable of serving if elected.”

Taylor submitted his letter on the last day to withdraw from the race. His affidavit states that the Secretary of State’s Office initially accepted his letter and removed his name from the candidate list. By the time the office decided to take the matter under review, it was too late for Taylor to amend his letter.

The complaint notes that Sept. 18 is the deadline for ballots to be finalized so they can be mailed overseas.

The Kansas Republican Party issued a statement critizing Taylor for filing with the state Supreme Court rather than a trial court, saying it was an attempt to avoid testifying “on the corrupt agreement under which Mr Taylor agreed to withdraw as a candidate after being elected by tens of thousands of democrat primary voters.”

“We have confidence that the Kansas Supreme Court will do what is right and deny the request,” said Kelly Arnold, party chairman. “The clear standard is that the candidate must be incapable of performing the duties of the office if elected, not that they cannot win or no longer want to run for office.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2014 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Democrat Chad Taylor sues to get name off Kansas Senate ballot."