With Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis on the 2024 ballot, GOP could have state-funded primary in Kansas

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

With a potentially contentious 2024 race for the Republican presidential nomination waiting in the wings, lawmakers and party officials are considering whether to authorize a rare presidential primary in the state, a move that hasn't happened in Kansas in decades.

Legislation to allow for the one-time, state-funded primary is being considered in the Statehouse, with prominent Republicans and, potentially, the state Democratic Party on board with the idea.

Kansas Republican Party Chair Mike Brown, elected last month on anti-establishment platform, didn't weigh in on the bill during a hearing Thursday and didn't return a phone call seeking comment.

More:Amid tensions, Kansas Republican Party departs from status quo to tap Mike Brown as chair

Former Republican National Committeewoman Helen Van Etten advocates in favor of a state-funded presidential primary in 2024, a move she argues would increase voter turnout.
Former Republican National Committeewoman Helen Van Etten advocates in favor of a state-funded presidential primary in 2024, a move she argues would increase voter turnout.

"I think democracy is worth the cost," Helen Van Etten, Brown's vanquished rival in the race for state GOP chair, told the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee.

Such a move would be a departure from tradition in Kansas. Only twice in the past 45 years have state and local election officers administered a presidential primary.

Instead, Kansas has held caucuses in recent years, which are organized and funded by the state's main political parties, rather than state government and take on a slightly different format than a primary election.

Democrats in 2020 conducted their election entirely by mail ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic and also used ranked-choice voting. Republicans opted not to hold a caucus at all amid former President Donald Trump's re-election bid.

But while proponents of the idea believe it will make voting in the primaries more accessible, the idea carries a multimillion dollar price tag.

And some questions the wisdom of a state funded election that would only benefit voters registered with a particular political party.

"There is so much potential for looking at this," said Davis Hammet, executive director of the voter engagement group Loud Light. "But how this bill is designed is just very problematic and, I think, irresponsible and, as written, is essentially a $5 million bailout of the Republican Party."

Hopes are a Kansas presidential primary would improve voter turnout

Presidential primaries present a fundamentally different arrangement than partisan primaries, where Kansans are used to selecting their party's pick for Congressional, statewide and legislative races.

Under a state-funded primary, the state would administer the election and then hand the final results off to one or both of the two major political parties, who will calculate the number of delegates that the various candidates would receive at their conventions.

Under a 1981 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, states can't order parties to conduct a primary. Accordingly, the bill allows Democrats and Republicans to opt to retain the current caucus model.

More:2024 presidential race looms. Here's how Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo are polling in Kansas.

But allowing state and local election officials to handle the primary could result in a more accurate vote count, as well as a higher turnout, experts say. Many counties, including Shawnee, only have one Republican caucus site, meaning a flood of GOP voters descend on that location, leading to potentially long waits.

While caucuses are confined to a narrow timeframe on a set day, a primary election would have a wider window for ballots to be cast and would also allow for advanced in-person or mail voting.

In 2016, three-and-a-half times as many voters participated in the August GOP primary election as in their presidential caucus held in March, despite the fact that the party had a competitive race for the presidential nomination at the time.

David Soffer, a former GOP legislative candidate and Orthodox Jew, noted that many religions could not participate at the typical caucus time, held at midday on Saturday.

"For our community, it is important that we are able to vote," he said.

And then there is the issue of cost.

Under the previous system, parties would have to bear the cost of organizing their caucuses or primaries. For Democrats, that expense in 2020 was nearly $800,000 and Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said it would likely only rise in 2024.

Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said she is open to the prospect of a state-funded presidential primary in 2024.
Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said she is open to the prospect of a state-funded presidential primary in 2024.

The party, she added, is currently planning on holding a primary, with at least one candidate, Marianne Williamson, announcing plans to challenge President Joe Biden. Repass said she is open to the bill, though she wants to see what the final version of the legislation might look like.

"At this point, I genuinely believe it is more important to functionally hold a primary," Repass said in an interview. "What I would like to do is see where the committee lands."

Is a presidential primary worth the money for Kansas?

But Bob Beatty, professor of political science at Washburn University, said there was a reasonable counter-argument that conducting a primary with state backing wouldn't be the best bang for taxpayers' buck.

The election would fall on March 19, when the presidential election might well be decided. An earlier date is difficult, as the parties restrict states that don't historically have early primaries or caucuses from doing so.

"The calculations were if Kansas is doing this in March, which it usually was, it's a waste of money because it's just not going to have much of an impact" Beatty said. "So, in terms of states getting value for their money in terms of candidate visits and all that sort of thing, the earlier the better because there's always a chance the nomination is sewn up early."

The exact cost is unknown, but Clay Barker, deputy assistant secretary of state, said it was a multimillion dollar price tag. Further complicating matters is that many counties have already formulated a budget for 2024 — minus the cost of an additional election.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Clay Barker presents before the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday on a bill to create a presidential primary in Kansas in 2024.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Clay Barker presents before the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday on a bill to create a presidential primary in Kansas in 2024.

Independent voters would not be able to vote in the primary and unaffiliated residents would not be able to declare an affiliation on Election Day, as they can currently in other primaries.

The 2024 presidential primary would also include a number of changes from how elections are typically run, including the elimination of the three-day post-election window for advanced ballots to arrive at the county elections office.

And Hammet, of Loud Light, said it was wrong for lawmakers to consider such a major change to election administration with only a couple of weeks remaining in the legislative session.

"That should be a serious conversation," he said. "That should have begun at the beginning of the year, not on a tight timeframe."

A competing proposal from Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, would hold the presidential primary on the same day as state and local primary races, likely at some point in May or June.

Caucuses could raise questions about election integrity, Tyson said, but she argued her plan made the most sense to save the additional costs on taxpayers.

"We'd be saving taxpayer money and being frugal and making it easily accessible every election," Tyson said.

The legislation comes as lawmakers have considered a range of bills to restrict voting, such as permanently ending the three-day window for mail ballots to arrive and banning ballot drop boxes.

More:Kansas lawmakers advance bills to restrict ballot drop boxes, mail voting amid GOP split

Rick Piepho, the Harvey County clerk, was neutral on the bill, though he questioned whether counties would ultimately be reimbursed for their costs.

But he found it ironic that legislators who had cast doubt on the integrity of election administration in Kansas now wanted those same officials to handle the presidential primary.

"It does make sense that you want to use the trained election officials to do (the presidential primary)," he said. "But there is some irony that we have been under attack and our systems have been under attack and they want to use those systems for this."

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas could have state-backed presidential primary in 2024