Handful to choose next legislator
Staff writer
Unless things change radically from where they stood at the start of the week, just 20 people in the eastern and northern halves of Marion County will get to vote on who will serve as the area’s next state representative.
Eighteen more votes will go uncast because nearly half of Republican precinct committeeman and committeewoman positions entrusted to vote on replacing Scott Hill as 70th District representative are vacant.
Unless committee vacancies are filled — and filled quickly — Marion County’s paltry votes will be overwhelmed by votes from the portion of the district that’s in Dickinson County.
In total, Dickinson has 56 committeemen and committeewomen in the 70th District, and none of those positions are vacant.
Republicans in Dickinson County recently rushed to fill their vacant committeeman and committeewoman seats in anticipation of last week’s vote to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of ultra-conservative J.R. Claeys as state senator for Saline and Dickinson counties.
Hill, another ultra-conservative who now represents portions of Marion, Dickinson, and McPherson counties in the Kansas House, won that election. It’s the seat he’ll be leaving in the House that next will be filled.
Hill is to be sworn in as senator Thursday, something county Republican chairman Rose Davidson did not know.
Having nearly half of Marion County committeeman and committeewoman positions vacant is a bit surprising given the power such members can have.
The vast majority of countywide officials in Marion County first took office after having been selected by committeemen and committeewomen to fill vacant positions.
Kansas law specifies that committeemen and committeewomen from the party that won an office in the last election have the power to choose replacements when those county or legislative positions become vacant.
Replacements generally serve until after the next state election. In Hill’s case as a senator and in the case of his replacement as a representative, the party-chosen candidates will serve until January, 2027.
The system of having precinct committeemen and committeewomen fill vacancies makes the often-criticized Electoral College look remarkably representative.
In the portion of Marion County included in the 70th District, wide disparities exist because townships and precincts each get two votes, regardless of their population.
The estimated 19 people in Summit Township get the same number of votes as the 419 people in Centre Township.
The 1,989 residents of every township in the district except Centre and Clear Creek combine to get 26 votes, while the 2,010 residents of Marion get only 4, the same number that the combined 822 residents of Centre and Clear Creek townships receive. Florence, with 537 residents, also gets 4 votes.
It’s not that some people don’t pay close attention to precinct committeeman and committeewoman races.
The positions, filled during party primaries in years when statewide offices are voted upon, occasionally are contested.
After ultraconservative Republicans ousted more moderate Bob Brookens as their county chairman, they went after his seat as a precinct committeeman.
In successive elections, however, he successfully turned back ultra-conservative challengers — first, now-former St. Luke Hospital administrator Jeremy Ensey and then, beloved professional volunteer Gene Winkler.
The race for Brookens’ committee membership was, however, one of a very few ever contested at the polls.
Positions as precinct committeemen and committeewomen more often are uncontested or filled by appointment from the county’s party chairman — in this case, another ultraconservative, Davidson, who also runs the county’s ultra-conservative Patriots for Liberty group.
This creates a system in which a small group of diehards essentially can control who fills vacancies and who therefore gets a head start serving as an incumbent before real elections are conducted.
Vacancies among precinct committeemen and committeewomen often are filled with candidates carefully selected immediately before committeemen and committeewomen are called upon to fill vacancies in elected offices.
But there’s a catch. Under state law, committee membership is frozen the moment a vacancy that the committee must fill occurs.
Davidson said Tuesday that she had heard nothing official about Hill resigning from his House seat. She usually hears about resignations from the Marion County clerk, she said.
State law requires she be notified of a vacancy from the secretary of state’s office.
She said she did not know when Hill’s House seat would officially become vacant — whether it is when he is sworn in as senator or when he submits a resignation from his House seat.
But she said she doubted she would have time to fill committee vacancies because “nobody wants the job.”
Hill could resign as state representative any day, as soon as Governor Laura Kelly rubberstamps, as she is required to do by law, his promotion to the State Senate.
Whatever maneuvering might occur — or not occur, if the goal of those involved is to reduce Marion County’s role — must take place quickly.
According to County Clerk Ashley Herpich, here are the vacant Marion County precinct committeeman and committeewoman seats as of the start of this week:
- Both positions in Clear Creek, Colfax, Logan, Lost Springs, Milton, and Moore townships and in Florence’s 2nd Ward.
- The committeeman position in Durham Park and Grant townships.
- The committeewoman position in Summit Township and the Marion South precinct.
Reporter Phyllis Zorn contributed to this story.