Did a Kansas GOP operative commit a crime by claiming to lead No Labels state party?

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Before the sun rose on June 3, Kris Van Meteren submitted paperwork creating No Labels Party of Kansas, Inc.

Van Meteren then recorded a video of himself calling a No Labels party convention. Sitting in what appears to be a home office, wearing a blue suit and tie, he nominates himself as party chair.

“Are there any other nominations?” Van Meteren says to silence. “Hearing none, the chair will call nominations closed and will accept a motion to elect myself chair by acclamation.”

By 11 a.m., the longtime Kansas Republican operative had filed certificates of nomination placing Echo Van Meteren, a Republican state Senate candidate in Leavenworth and his wife, and Sen. Marci Francisco, a Lawrence Democrat, on the ballot line of No Labels — a third party that publicly weighed running a centrist presidential candidate but abandoned the idea.

Kris Van Meteren’s nomination effort quickly imploded, leaving behind a morass of confusion, accusations and questions of criminal wrongdoing.

Two days later, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican, invalidated the nominations. In letters to Echo Van Meteren and Francisco, the state’s top elections official wrote that Glenda Reynolds, a former Democratic state legislative candidate, is the current chair of No Labels, which Kansas recognized as a minor party in January.

Because Kansas law requires minor parties to nominate their candidates at conventions called by the party chair, and since Schwab determined Van Meteren doesn’t lead No Labels, the nominations were invalid.

Van Meteren’s strange scheme of attempting to take over a political party to guarantee his spouse and a longtime Democratic lawmaker spots on the general election ballot has drawn attention to the intricacies and potential loopholes of Kansas election law. It has also put a spotlight on Van Meteren, well known in Kansas Republican politics as the owner of The Singularis Group, a marketing firm used by GOP candidates.

“This is clown car stuff,” said Mark Johnson, a Kansas City attorney who has long worked on election issues. He said he couldn’t recall ever encountering a similar situation.

Kansas law makes falsely impersonating a political party officer a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. A spokesperson for the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office said the office on Monday made a referral to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has the authority to prosecute election crimes. A timeline of events released by Schwab’s office on Monday says the two candidate filings “may have violated” the false impersonation law.

A Kobach spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Van Meteren on Monday provided The Star with a video of his party convention, which he previously provided to the Kansas Reflector. In a lengthy Facebook post last week, he outlined his version of events.

“I believe that, at the end of the day, I will be found to have been on the right side of the law – even if it’s law that swamp dwellers themselves wrote but now find politically distasteful,” Van Meteren wrote.

Van Meteren told The Star in an email that he welcomes a review of his actions and that he has “read the statute they accuse me of violating (impersonating a party officer, a Class A Misdemeanor) and, apart from its doubtful constitutionality, am confident I will not be found to be in violation of that statute.”

Schwab originally recognized No Labels Kansas in January after it submitted signatures of registered voters equal to 2% of votes cast in the 2022 election for governor – a little over 20,000 votes.

Nationally, the party was considering whether to nominate a presidential candidate amid public concerns with both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. In early April, the party announced it had failed to line up a suitable candidate.

While No Labels decided against a presidential campaign, the party in Kansas now had official recognition. Van Meteren wanted to harness that recognition.

Van Meteren, who was the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party in the 1990s, often plays a behind the scenes role in state politics. His firm is responsible for many of the fliers and other campaign materials from GOP candidates that end up in mailboxes around election time.

But Van Meteren has also been a divisive presence within the party. A falling out in recent years with his previous business partner, the Republican strategist Jared Suhn, led to heated litigation that played out in public view.

This year, Echo Van Meteren is running in the Republican primary for Kansas Senate District 5, a narrow district that runs from Leavenworth to Bonner Springs. Her primary opponent is Jeff Klemp, a Lansing businessman who she has portrayed as a tool of the business lobby. Democratic Sen. Jeff Pittman currently holds the seat and is seeking reelection.

By nominating his wife as a No Labels candidate, Kris Van Meteren would have been able to assure she had a spot on the general election ballot even if she lost the primary. That outcome could have risked splitting the Republican vote.

In Francisco’s case, Van Meteren’s nomination could have split the Democratic vote. Francisco represents Senate District 2, which includes parts of Lawrence, Lecompton and rural Jefferson County. She faces a Democratic primary challenge from Rep. Christina Haswood of Lawrence.

The Republican candidate, David G. Miller, stood to benefit from having Francisco on the November ballot if she loses the primary to Haswood. In 1998 Miller mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge of Republican Gov. Bill Graves. Van Meteren was Miller’s campaign manager in the campaign.

“To hear lefty reporters breathlessly tell it, I’m a half-crazed, ultra-conservative gypsy who showed up in politics yesterday, bent on swindling the good people of Kansas into buying some kind of dangerous electoral snake oil,” Van Meteren wrote last week.

“Obviously, potentially giving general election voters more options is such dangerous medicine. The buzz phrase du jour within the political establishment is ‘election interference’ and fever swamp dwellers are seizing the opportunity to accuse me of it.”

Van Meteren said neither Echo, Francisco nor anyone else knew in advance or participated in his plans to nominate them on the No Labels ticket. Echo Van Meteren didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Francisco said in a statement the nomination came as a “complete surprise” and that she had never considered running for any party nomination except the Democratic nomination.

Impersonation?

Even if a candidate had participated with Van Meteren, his No Labels nominations appear to fall short in at least two areas, according to Johnson. The first is Van Meteren’s claim to be the party’s legitimate leader.

No Labels submitted a petition and a copy of its bylaws to Schwab’s office in August 2023. The documents, provided to The Star in response to a records request, list Reynolds, a Whitewater resident, as chair.

Its bylaws require a majority of committee members to conduct business. In addition to appearing alone on the video of what Van Meteren says is the party convention, he wrote on Facebook that no one else participated in his plan, seemingly ruling out the possibility that he acted with a quorum.

Van Meteren wrote in an email that four of the five recognized political parties in Kansas are incorporated and that he followed the lead of those parties in filing articles of incorporation for No Labels Kansas. He said he also registered the organization as a not-for-profit with the IRS.

He referred to No Labels’ “purported bylaws” and said he has asked Schwab’s office for documents backing up Reynolds’ status as chair but had yet to receive any records.

“Until such time as those documents are made available, reviewed, determined to be legitimate, and verified as carrying legal weight superseding the filing of Articles of Incorporation, I contend that I remain the chair of No Labels Kansas Party and request that the Certificates of Nomination I filed be immediately reinstated,” Van Meteren wrote.

But even if Van Meteren were the No Labels chair, state law requires nominations to be signed by both the presiding officer of the party convention and the party secretary. The certificates of nomination submitted by Van Meteren bear only one signature – Van Meteren’s.

Additionally, the No Labels state party bylaws authorize the party to only put forward presidential electors, not candidates for state or local offices.

No Labels said in a statement it has no connection to Van Meteren.

“No Labels Kansas did everything it was supposed to do according to state law: party leadership was designated and adopted; bylaws were submitted to the Secretary of State at the outset along with petition signatures. Unfortunately, this person now appears to be shamefully impersonating a No Labels official,” No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy said.

“We don’t know him, have no affiliation with him and we hope Kansas state election officials hold him fully accountable for any violations he has committed. This is the kind of nonsense that undermines voters’ faith in our democracy and it has to stop.”

Clarity on law sought

Over the past week, the spectacle has prompted calls for more clarity on what Kansas law says about third party candidates.

Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee, said last week that recent news had “made it clear that reform is needed” in how third party and independent candidates are placed on the ballot.

Pittman, the Leavenworth senator, on Friday sent a letter to Kobach asking for his legal analysis.

“While there have been some opinions offered, someone in your official role could help with providing transparency and clarification for the voters in my district,” Pittman wrote. “This in turn helps ensure public trust in the accountability of the electoral process.”

Johnson, the attorney, said Van Meteren tried to be clever, adding that usually when people try to be clever it backfires.

“There’s the word of being too clever by half,” Johnson said. “I think this is being too clever by way more than half.”