TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A New York man is seeking to revive his candidacy for Kansas governor and had an attorney argue in court Monday that Kansas law doesn’t block him from running and he would move if elected.
Andy Maskin was the first of at least 11 out-of-state residents to file for a spot on the ballot in Kansas after filing the initial paperwork appointing a campaign treasurer or committee. Maskin paid a $2,207 fee earlier this month to run as a Republican in the state’s primary in August, only to be booted from the ballot.
State Attorney General Derek Schmidt filed a lawsuit last month against Secretary of State Kris Kobach, seeking a ruling that Kobach’s office cannot put out-of-state residents on the ballot. A state court judge allowed Maskin to intervene in the case.
After Maskin filed for office, the Kansas Republican Party objected, and a state board that includes Schmidt removed Maskin from the ballot last week. Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson already had a hearing on Schmidt’s lawsuit set for Monday, and attorney Mark Johnson argued that Maskin should be allowed to run.
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“If elected, he would move to Kansas,” Johnson told the judge.
Kansas law doesn’t explicitly ban out-of-state residents from running for governor if they pay the full filing fee, although it does require them to be residents if they opt to gather registered voters’ signatures on petitions so they can pay a lesser fee.
Schmidt contends that the law on gathering signatures and multiple other statutes imply that candidates must be Kansas residents. Watson has said she hopes to rule before the June 1 candidate filing deadline.
In court Monday, Chief Deputy Attorney General Jeff Chanay said that before this year’s election, everyone assumed candidates “would be from Kansas.”
Kansas also has had no minimum age for running for governor, and multiple teenagers, including some from outside the state, have expressed an interest in running. State lawmakers passed legislation to set the minimum age at 25 — and explicitly declare that candidates have to be qualified to vote in the state when they run. But the changes take effect next year.
Johnson pointed to the latter provision as proof that Maskin still can run. But Chanay argued that lawmakers were merely clarifying what existing law is.
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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna .