It continues to look like Kansas might have a bearing on which party controls the Senate. As I previously discussed, with the Democratic candidate dropping out of the Kansas Senate race, independent Greg Orman has a real chance of defeating Republican Pat Roberts. Multiple polls have showed Orman defeating Roberts in a head to head race, but Roberts led in a three way race. After Democratic candidate Chad Taylor dropped out, Orman led in the polls but the anti-Roberts vote was split when Taylor was listed.

In order to improve Roberts’ chances, Kansas Secretary of State Chris Korbach (who is also a member of Roberts’ honorary campaign committee) played politics and refused to take Taylor’s name off the ballot. The Kansas Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Taylor’s name should be removed from the ballot now that he has dropped out.

Kansas election law does provide for the ability of the Democratic Party to name a replacement after Taylor dropped out, but obviously they have no intention of doing so. Korbach is claming that the Democrats are required to name a replacement, but it is rather absurd that a party must run a candidate if they do not desire to do so.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert from the University of California, Irvine, said that it was unlikely that Kobach would be able to force the Democrats to name a replacement for Taylor.

“If Democrats refuse to name or no candidate agrees to serve, then what? It seems like it would be a tough First Amendment claim to FORCE a party to name a replacement,” Hasen wrote in an analysis. “Perhaps if Democrats do nothing Kobach will realize there’s not much he can do and drop the issue.”

Of the various reactions to this situation, the most interesting was for the Democrats to tell Kobach that they nominated him for the Senate seat. We won’t see that happen. Kobach has given up and is putting out the ballots with no Democratic candidate listed.

Despite his current lead, it is still possible that the Republicans can hold onto the seat. The national party is taking over management of Roberts’ campaign, and has called in Bob Dole to help secure the seat. Even if Orman maintains his current lead in the polls and wins, there is no guaranteed that he will caucus with the Democrats. With the battle for control of the Senate so close, it is certainly possible that he could wind up casting the deciding vote.

Originally posted at Liberal Values