The United Kansas leader talks fusion voting, the limits of the two-party system, and the long work of creating something new

On the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry talks with Scott Morgan, executive director of the United Kansas Party and the party’s candidate for Kansas Secretary of State.

Morgan is a fifth-generation Kansan who has been around politics for most of his life. His father was the Kansas political editor for the Kansas City Star. Morgan worked for Senators Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum, served as chief counsel for Dole’s presidential campaign, worked for a Republican governor, and served as a Senate representative on the Federal Election Commission.

Asked what he makes of American politics today, Morgan’s answer is short: “It’s a hot mess right now.”

He has also watched the changes in Kansas politics up close. Morgan remembers a Republican Party in which moderates and conservatives fought hard with each other, but still operated within the same broad coalition. What he sees now is something different.

“It’s not this existential viciousness that you get now. There are a lot of reasons why I think that has happened, but having watched it happen in person, I realize we can’t just sit there and let that become the norm.”

Morgan first ran for Kansas Secretary of State as a Republican in 2014, challenging Kris Kobach in the primary. Part of the purpose of that campaign, he tells Micah, was to locate the remaining pockets of moderate Republican voters around the state.

That effort ultimately led Morgan and others to create the Free State Party. This year, Free State merged with United Kansas, which has a focus on restoring fusion voting in the state.

Morgan is now focused on building a functioning political party.

Morgan says the message that gets the best response as he travels around Kansas is simple: “I’m not Republican. I’m not Democrat. I’m something different.”

That grabs people’s attention, Morgan says. The harder part is persuading people that a new political party can actually matter.

Fusion is an important piece of the strategy, because without it, voters balk at the risk of spoiling or wasting their votes. But Morgan admits that it is not something he generally leads with when talking to voters. Most people have no idea what fusion voting is, and explaining it takes longer than the few seconds a candidate may have with someone at an event or on a doorstep.

That has helped push United Kansas toward the more basic work of organizing: creating local chapters, recruiting candidates and developing a presence around the state.

And Morgan makes a larger point about election reform that will be familiar to readers of The Ticket:

“Either way, it’s important that this party build political support for these issues, whether it’s fusion voting for some of the local races … but also redistricting and proportional representation, all that. You need to have political power to ultimately get that done.”

United Kansas has also been pursuing fusion through the courts. The party and several voters challenged the Kansas laws that prevent a candidate from appearing on the ballot as the nominee of more than one party. After this episode was recorded, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled against them. United Kansas has said it will appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Morgan is one of the plaintiffs. But he doesn’t see litigation as a substitute for organizing.

Kansas illustrates a familiar problem. Many state legislative races are effectively settled in low-turnout party primaries. Candidates have strong reasons to pay attention only to primary voters and no reason to build a broader, multi-party coalition for the general election. But if our laws allowed parties to get out of the wasted vote and spoiler box (via fusion, proportional representation, or both), new kinds of alliances and bargaining would take place.

“You just got to change the math,” Morgan says. “I mean, everything about politics has always been math and you’ve just got to change that.”

The work isn’t glamorous: driving around Kansas, talking to people, organizing locally and trying to convince voters that something different can last.

Sifry ends the podcast conversation, as always, by asking what keeps Morgan going. Faith, family, and a little fire, Morgan says, and an eye to the future.

“I’m ready to pass the torch, but I’m really hoping to build something to pass on.”

That might just be one of the best definitions of party building we’ve heard.