Kansas’ secretary of state has rebuffed an attempt by a Republican-affiliated political strategist to take control of the state’s arm of the political party founded by No Labels, the bipartisan group that investigated a third-party presidential bid in 2024, but decided not to. It.
Kris Van Meteren, a Republican strategist in the state, says he is the party’s rightful chairman after convening his own convention – with one attendee, where he elected himself chairman after launching No Labels Kansas, Inc. had established as a non-profit organization in the state. After doing so, he nominated two candidates to the party’s ballot line in a few Senate districts: his wife and a Democrat who says she was nominated without her consent.
But the Kansas Secretary of State has rejected those nominations, and No Labels is crying foul. They both say Van Meteren has no claim on the party, despite the national leadership’s decision not to field candidates this cycle. And No Labels told NBC News it is actively working to ensure no one hijacks state voting lines they won’t use this fall, which would throw a new wrench into the general election.
No Labels announced this spring that it would “pull back” in its bid to win a third-party presidential ticket, despite forming state party organizations and gaining voting rights in 21 states, including Kansas. In many of those places, the state parties replaced by the national organization technically had the final decision on whether to nominate candidates on the ballot. But so far there is no indication that they would ignore the wishes of the national No Labels group. And the party has not put forward any candidates in Kansas.
Still, days before the Kansas candidate filing deadline, Van Meteren said he was taking action.
In a post on Facebook, the political consultant said early Friday morning that he had filed paperwork to form the party and register it with the IRS before calling a convention, calling himself party chairman and nominating candidates. One of those was former Democratic Senator Marci Francisco, who is facing primaries within her own party (and told NBC News and local media she had no knowledge of Van Meteren’s efforts). The other was his wife, Echo Van Meteren, a Republican running for Senate.
Van Meteren did not respond to emails NBC News sent to his company, The Singularis Group, which has worked with several Republicans in the Midwest and Great Plains in recent years.
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab rejected Van Meteren’s nominations. His office said in a statement that state law says “the nomination for state office.” [must] are convened by the state chairman of the party. The chair of the No Labels party is listed as Glenda Reynolds, not Kristian Van Meteren.” The secretary of state also provided NBC News with copies of letters sent to each candidate rejecting the nominations.
In statements to NBC News and local media, No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy confirmed that Reynolds remains chairman of No Labels Kansas and that Van Meteren’s documents have not been approved by the group.
“No Labels Kansas did everything it was required to do under state law: it appointed and hired party leadership; The statutes were initially submitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs together with the signatures of the petitions. Unfortunately, it appears that this individual is now shamefully masquerading as a No Labels official,” Clancy said.
“We do not know him or have any ties to him and we hope that Kansas election officials hold him fully accountable for any violations he has committed,” Clancy continued. “This is the kind of nonsense that undermines voters’ confidence in our democracy. and it has to stop.”
Van Meteren has insisted he followed state law and has called on the secretary of state to reverse his decision. He said he is the “legitimate chairman” of the No Labels Kansas Party in his Facebook post Friday, arguing his tactics were legal.
He wrote on Facebook that he was accused of “conning the good people of Kansas into buying some dangerous election snake oil. Clearly, potentially giving voters in the general election is such a dangerous drug.”
“What is being demanded and what I am asking for is a fair reading of the law by an impartial legal authority to see whether I, as accused in the press, am guilty of any form of electoral fraud or crime,” Van Meteren continued. “Conversely, I am very interested in finding out whether I actually followed the law as it was written.”
A copy of the articles of incorporation No Labels Kansas filed with the state shows how the organization tried to protect itself from something like this when it began its 2024 presidential campaign.
The bylaws state that the party is not authorized to nominate state or local candidates, but only to nominate candidates for the presidency and vice presidency. And a memo from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the media states that political parties are not required to file incorporation papers, so in his view Van Meteren was not taking advantage of some valid loophole.
The companies he founded, the memo states, are “completely different and distinct [entities] of the No Labels Kansas, the recognized political party.
The memo adds that Van Meteren’s filings “may have violated Kansas law prohibiting ‘false impersonation of the role of a party official.’
Could such an effort work elsewhere? It’s unlikely.
Access to ballots is one of the main obstacles that makes campaigning difficult for third-party candidates, so it’s easy to see why No Labels’ ballot lines would be attractive to someone looking to run for office as something other than a Democrat or Republican.
But Richard Winger, a voting access expert and co-author of the Ballot Access News newsletter, told NBC News that in states like Kansas, where new parties nominate their candidates through conventions, “no labels can easily block candidates because the state chairmen, those loyal to the national organization will simply refuse to convene a nominating convention.”
Winger added that there are a handful of states where No Labels has its own primaries, including Arizona, where the state is appealing a ruling that said the party can block potential candidates from running for office on the ballot. Florida also has a No Labels primary, but no candidates are currently registered as candidates for the No Labels Party. Wisconsin could have been another of these states, but the party withdrew its pending application for access to the ballot box and ultimately never qualified.
Clancy told NBC News in a follow-up interview that “it has been made very clear to us that we have the ultimate authority over our own ballot and determine how that is used” in the states they have access to.
“There may be other circumstances where someone is trying to take this stuff, but: Number one, they’re not allowed to do it, and number two, we’ve communicated with a lot of our state officials to let them know, and so on. they can help prevent this,” Clancy said.
“Our reputation and credibility are at stake,” he continued. “We’re not going to just walk away from this and leave this property there for people to mess with and cause mischief.”
And he added that the party will work with authorities to ensure that no one “attempts to act illegally or unethically in relation to a voting line.”
The saga reminds us of the possible unintended consequences of third-party political efforts.
In at least one case in recent years, the introduction of a new political party acted as a kind of “Chekhov’s gun” – a seemingly minor development that resurfaced years later with new intrigue and consequences.
When former Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — a longtime ally of No Labels who led the presidential candidate advisory committee before his death earlier this year — lost the 2006 Democratic primary to seek reelection, he formed his own political party to continue to appear. on the ballot. Lieberman won his last term in the Senate as a member of the ‘Connecticut for Lieberman’ party.
But after the election, a Lieberman critic changed his voter registration to join the party, saying the secretary of state told him he was the only member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party in the state — then threw himself elected as party chairman and used the Lieberman party to screw Lieberman himself.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
