What are the latest happenings in that oh-so-close Kansas Senate race?
AEI Resident Scholar Norm Ornstein will tell us, on this episode of
Election Countdown.
We talked about the Kansas Senate race a few weeks ago, a race in which GOP
incumbent Pat Roberts will be facing a tough challenge
from independent businessman Greg Orman. The Democratic candidate, Chad Taylor,
has actually withdrawn from the race. I think my favorite description of this
race so far
comes from Jennifer Duffy with the Cook Political Report. She wrote
recently that this race is like “the Rubik’s Cube of Senate races.
At the end of the day, it will be solved, but no one really knows how long it will
take
or how many different ways to solve the puzzle there really are.”
With us to talk about this Rubik’s Cube and a few other things is AEI Resident Scholar
Norm Ornstein
a contributing editor to National Journal and The Atlantic. Norm, thanks
for joining us
glad to be with you Jen. Norm, one of the messiest parts of this race
has been
the democratic nominees withdrawing from the race what do you think that Taylor
chose to withdraw
the Democratic Party took a look at this race which they
at the beginning thought they would have no chance of
being competitive in and all of a sudden they saw a race in which the independent
Greg Orman
could actually knock off Pat Robbert if it were
a two-way contest so they basically leaned on
Mr. Taylor and he withdrew for the good of the party
and now all of a sudden and one of the handful the reddest States
in the nation an independent who might very well
caucus with the Democrats... is in a position to win
so at minimum what the democrats believed is
they could at least force republicans to put a lot of money into this race
and their doing a lot better than that right now now. Do you think there will
actually end up being a democrat for Senate on the ballot in Kansas. I doubt
very much as of
right now we're waiting for the final court decision but
up the secretary of state Republican a
kris kobach who tried very much to force the
democrats to have a candidate on the ballot was rebuffed by the Kansas
Supreme Court
came back and found a registered democrat who had standing and said
I deserve as a democrat to have a candidate on the ballot
but when they held a court hearing on his case he didn't show
so that makes it very unlikely that we'll see a democrat on the ballot
and in the meantime this has been just a horrible few weeks for Pat Roberts the
incumbent the longtime incumbent
who is now being whipsawed from a number of directions
not only does he face this attractive independent
who's never run for office before never held office before
Roberts is trying to attack him as a politician which isn't working too well
but Roberts went after Nancy Landon Kassebaum
a venerated figure in the state. The daughter of
Alf Landon the republican presidential candidate in the 1930's
a senator herself the widow now of a former Senate Republican leader
Howard Baker try to get an endorsement even an ad
and she rebuffed him and that was followed by
a lot of word from Tea Party officials and advocates
that they would consider withdrawing their support from Pat Roberts because
they don't trust him
if you lose the support up the moderate pragmatic
establishment Republicans in your own state and then
you get rebuffed by the Tea Party there's not a whole lot left for mister
Roberts, and so he's struggling right now
yeah this is going to be a fascinating race to watch now in Kansas there's a question
Of who will be on the ballot but other states there's a a question about who's
going to get to cast a ballot
in at North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin
there either currently or there are about to be court cases coming up
involving voter identification requirements the norm it's quick rundown
on those cases
in each one of these cases you have suits that have been brought
challenging restrictive voting laws and
what's happened so far is that
some federal judges and state judges
have thrown out these laws or postpone them
based on the idea that they
unduly restrict the voting especially of minorities but the Ohio case
which was in many ways the Shakiest his case because Ohio
has a robust early voting
where a number of other states including New York for example
don't have early voting a but the Republicans in the state
wanted to curtail that by a week including cutting off voting
on the final Sunday before the election which happens to be when a lot of
churches
especially black churches do traditional
get-out-the-vote efforts and we had a number of judges
who said you that's not allowable but went to the Supreme Court
and on a five to four vote with the usual breakdown
the five conservative Republican appointed justices
basically said know we reverse that
put that back on the books. Now
in another case a we had a three judge panel
of the Seventh Circuit reverse
another decision and allowed to stand
a restrictive voter ID law in Wisconsin
which actually went very much against the grain of explicit Supreme Court
discussions
or rather
instructions that you don't
change the election rules right before an election
and absentee ballots had already been printed
and now they're going to have to go back and
change them because the absentee ballot said no voter ID required
so we've got that in turmoil and it's not clear whether it's going to
move along, we had a tie vote in the seventh circuit
that will also be taken to the Supreme Court and we may see the same happened
in these other states
so questions about who will vote when they can vote
are very much up for grabs in states that are now
battleground states. Right absolutely not that lead to my next question do
you think that where more these cases could end up changing the outcomes
of elections in the state I think there's no doubt that
as these laws get applied they could change the outcomes
in particular in a state like Wisconsin
where we have the a nail biter
in race for governor and Scott Walker a national candidate
could find his ambitions thwarted
the ability to curtail turnout
a specially from minorities could make a real difference
now we may also see a all the rest to these cases ultimately get to the
Supreme Court
and it wouldn't be surprising to find that we have four states
with restrictive voting laws where the four Democratic appointed
justices all say this is not allowable
and the five republican-appointed justices say oh yes it is
were fine with restrictions and that adds to the kind of tribal partisan
tensions that we have out there and to
the characterization the Supreme Court is being not much different
from the political process. Right really his be breaking down along party lines
yeah
another state whose voting we’ll be watching, and that’s
because for the first time,
every Colorado voter will receive a ballot in the mail. Voters there will
also be able to register to vote through Election Day
The Colorado County Clerks Association says that in the last general election,
74 percent of the state’s voters voted by mail. --Do you think this
all-vote-by-mail approach will result in higher turnout? you know we
have very mixed results on that in the research
the states that have done all vote by mail particularly Oregon
now it's moved in that direction in Washington
there election officials have been real proselytizers for this and they've
talked about how much increase turnout
what the results show is a few measure turnout
by previous elections in
high profile elections it hasn't made much difference in effect what's
happened is habitual voters
now find it easier to vote but if you're not motivated to vote
the vote by mail has not made a huge difference it has
had an impact and very low turnout elections municipal elections and others
increasing turnout by some proportion Colorado was gonna represent
a very interesting test case because
unlike many of the previous elections knowing the high stakes involved in both
the
governor's race and the Senate race which are both very much in the toss-up
category right now
both seats held by Democrats in a state that are lean in that direction but
where
the president's unpopular and
it's a very tight but the Democratic Party in particular has put a major
effort into a turnout with
vote by mail and since that is easier to do for people
then voting at the polls and since you can register right up to election day
a rules put in place by the Democratic legislature and the Democratic governor
with an eye towards increasing turn-out it'll be very interesting to see if that
makes the difference
in these very close elections and puts
democrats John Hicken-looper the governor Mark Udall
the senator barely over the top now. Now conventional wisdom is that when more
people turn out
that helps democrats do you think that something is going to be happening in
Colorado
I think it is more likely than not to help democrats
in an election where it's very very tight
and where democrats in a mid-term to begin with
are just not as motivated now you know what happens
what the election we called the six-year itch is
the president's party usually ends up with lots of its people demoralized are
disillusioned
plenty of democrats are in that category
on environmental issues, on the NSA, on
guantanamo, on the military involvement
now in the Middle East on a host of issues
they're not terribly excited about what the president's been doing and so
they're less likely to turn out and the party out at the white house is almost
always more motivated cuz they're mad
they're angry this time republicans have nominated
passable candidates not extreme candidates
for both of these positions and in a low-turnout election they're likely to
prevail because
they've got the the more motivated voters
increase that turnout by
the margin up five or 10 percent that can make the difference.
Will be very interesting to watch I wanna finish up by talking about
import referendum Florida voters will be deciding on a constitutional amendment
to allow medical marijuana
this november it's thought that this referendum a
might bring enough young voters out to the polls in support democratic nominee
Charlie Crist to win him with a very close election right now
so could this referendum and the resulting youth turnout be enough to put
Crist over-the-top
I think there's little doubt that the referendum is on the ballot for just
that reason
and what's happened in Florida is that this has become
a battleground maybe even more intense than the governor's race
because you have staunch strong
opposition to it coming from a lot of people
not just because a fear of turnout
but because oven anti-drug the
philosophy that's particularly strong and it's therefore somebody
the AEI knows very well Mel Sembler a longtime member of the board and his
wife and family have been a in the forefront of
a movement against drugs they see
medical marijuana as a wedge into an expansion of the use
and legalization of marijuana with good reason as we've seen in other states
and so we've seen an enormous amount of money poured into this
referendum it takes sixty percent to
pass it the polls have shown that it would pass overwhelmingly
and the question now is to fall one is
whether it'll pass that 60 percent threshold the other is whether all of
this massive amount of money going in
may have an impact on that turnout might
not make it were quite as effectively as democrats
want. I and that of course will affect more than the
the the marijuana situation it'll also affect
the governor's race and some other high-profile. Right right now recent
polls are showing a clear majority in favor of the measure
which indicate that will there will be plenty of voters in Florida
Who support medical marijuana but don't support Charlie Crist
does Florida have a large libertarian contingent
and if so for the casting their votes for for governor?
its they're up for grabs at this point there is a libertarian contention
but I also think there's a strip the big elderly population
and I think for a lot of those voters
the you know medical marijuana may take on a different
a coloration as a were or categorization then for others
so it's a combination of those things
you know its less I think I'd attempt by Democrats
to get libertarians out most of whom presumably
would be the a little bit more Republican in their orientation
much more an effort to get younger voters who traditionally
turnout in low numbers in a mid-term contest
to come out to the polls but also with those younger voters
it's not at all clear why they would be particularly attracted to
Charlie Crist as opposed to Rick Scott except for the panoply of other social
issues including
of course
abortion, same-sex relationships, and the like. Right I'm looking forward to seeing
what's gonna happen there
be very interesting thing to watch. Norm thanks for joining us election countdown
and thank you for watching do you agree or disagree about any of our election
coverage
let us know in the comments then please subscribe for all the videos in the
series
we'll see you next week