Lawyer who dropped out of US Senate race sues to get his name removed from ballot
Corrected: Commonly, when a lawsuit is filed to get a candidate’s name off an election ballot, it’s filed by an opponent in the race.
But it’s former U.S. Senate candidate Chad Taylor himself who’s filed a petition with the Kansas state supreme court seeking to remove his name from the ballot, Politico reports.
At issue is whether Taylor, a Democrat, needed to state expressly in his otherwise timely withdrawal letter last week that he was “incapable” of serving if elected to qualify under a state statute for removal from the ballot, the Kansas City Star reports.
Taylor contends he followed advice provided to him by an employee of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, and was assured by the worker that the written material he submitted authorized the removal of his name from the ballot.
Kobach disputes these claims and noted in a news conference that “Mr. Taylor is an attorney. He is capable of reading a statute.”
Taylor is now making a constitutional argument for taking his name off the ballot, Politico reports.
“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 rights,” said Taylor in an affidavit filed at the Kansas Supreme Court. “I do not want to be a candidate for U.S. Senate in the 2014 election and do not want the ballot for that election to associate me with the Senate race.”
Correction
Updated at 11:29 to correct a mistake in the headline; the race Taylor had been involved in was for a U.S. Senate position.
