The Republicans’ bid to regain control of the US Senate suffered a major blow on Thursday when the Kansas Supreme Court issued a ruling widely-viewed as a boost to an independent challenger in the state.



The ruling compels Kansas’s Republican secretary of state to remove the name of a Democratic candidate from ballot papers ahead of November’s elections.

Republican strategists had wanted Chad Taylor to remain on the ballot, hoping it would divide the large block of Kansas voters opposed to the state’s three-term incumbent senator, Pat Roberts. Instead, the decision is expected to lead to Democrats switching allegiance to the independent, Greg Orman, who according to one recent poll already enjoys a seven point lead over Roberts in the deep-red state.

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state who attempted to keep the Democrat’s name on the ballot paper, had been accused of abusing his position to boost the electoral prospects of Roberts, a fellow Republican.

Taylor brought a lawsuit to the state supreme court, claiming Kobach was effectively “conscripting me to run for office” even though he had complied by the rules for withdrawing from the race.

In its ruling, the court sided with Taylor, determining that Kobach “shall not include Taylor’s name on any ballots” in the forthcoming Senate election. The decision is a significant setback for Roberts, a Kansas senator since 1997, who will now see the anti-incumbent vote effectively consolidate behind Orman, his most serious challenger.

Political science professor Chapman Rackaway, who has been closely following the Kansas race, said the court ruling was a boon for the independent candidate. “If Orman can hold his lead through the attacks that are coming, he has taken command of this race that he is unlikely to relinquish,” he said.

The result also deals a blow to Kobach, who is facing his own re-election battle in the state. Although Kansas is a deeply conservative state, politics there has been upended in recent weeks, with a swathe of top Republican incumbents, up to and including the governor, Sam Brownback, battling against a surge of public anger over deep tax cuts.

However the significance of the decision was also felt in Washington. Given the close national race for control of the Senate, political forecasters have said the Kansas race, which just a weeks months ago was considered a safe Republican seat, could feasibly help determine whether Republicans or Democrats balance of power in the legislative body.

Orman has not said which party he would caucus with if he wins the Senate race, but Democrats believe he would ultimately join their ranks. Both other independents in the Senate - Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont - currently caucus with Democrats.

At the very least, the judgment is a political setback for Republicans nationally, who are having to divert funds and resources they to defend what should be safe, conservative territory.

The Orman campaign, which is striving to rise above the fray and appear non-partisan, responding to the ruling by claiming it did not mind which other candidates were on the ballot. “No matter who’s on or off the ballot, Greg Orman is running as an independent against the broken system in Washington that has failed Kansas and failed America,” his campaign manager, Jim Jonas, said in a statement.

The Roberts campaign, in contrast, reacted angrily to a decision it claimed had been issued by “liberal activist supreme court justices” which it said had “disenfranchised” Democratic primary voters.

The precise impact of the court’s ruling on the Kansas Senate race will be difficult to decipher One poll this week showed Orman opening up a 41-34 lead over Roberts. Even though he had publicly announced his withdrawal from campaigning, Taylor still received 6 points in that survey, by Public Policy Polling.

A second poll, by Fox News, had the race closer - with Orman and Roberts running neck and neck. However that survey had Taylor still receiving 11% of the vote.

Taylor’s lawsuit centred on the letter he filed to withdraw his name on 3 September, just an hour before the deadline for making changes to the ballot. Kobach argued the letter failed to meet the legal requirements set out in a 1997 statute.

The court heard that once the deadline passed, Kobach, the state’s attorney general, Derek Schmidt, who is also a Republican, and a room full of lawyers stayed up late into the night reviewing the letter. They concluded that his name could not be removed because, although he quoted the correct statute in his letter, Taylor did not specifically claim to be “incapable of fulfilling the duties of office”.



At a hearing on Tuesday, several justices appeared to take issue with Kobach’s argument, with one accusing the secretary of state of a “loosey-goosey” and “ad-hoc” determination of which candidates can appear on the ballot.

Taylor’s lawyers had pointed out that Kobach had permitted another Democratic candidate, Miranda Rickel, from removing her name from the ballot. Her letter - which also did not directly declare an incapability for holding office - was delivered to Kobach’s office on the very same day as Taylor’s. She was permitted to withdraw from the race. Taylor, on the other hand, was not.

In their ruling, the seven justices concluded that Taylor’s letter “effectively declares he is incapable of fulfilling the duties of office if elected”.

One issue that remains unresolved is whether Democrats are now legally obliged to nominate another candidate to replace Taylor, or whether there would simply be no Democrat on the ballot paper. The Kansas Democratic Party did not respond to a request asking if it would name a replacement candidate.

Before the judgment was handed down, Kobach said that if he lost the case, and Taylor’s name had to be removed, the Democratic party was legally obliged to provide a replacement name. He threatened to return to the Kansas supreme court with his own lawsuit, to force Democrats to name a replacement.

But time is running out; absentee and ballot papers for military personnel serving overseas need to printed on Friday.