Common Ground

Late last month, I stopped by the Kansas Secretary of State's office to deliver a stack of petitions signed by 2,986 Kansans - 500 more signatures than required to file for re-election to the United States Congress.

If you've ever collected signatures for a petition, you know that it's a backbreaking exercise in grassroots democracy. You must engage voters in conversation, one at a time, and persuade them that your cause is worthy of their support. You need superb grassroots organizing, a broad base of support, and plenty of old-fashioned hard work.

The process is so demanding, in fact, that no other federal candidate in Kansas has even attempted it for at least 15 years. (I say "at least" because no one in the Secretary of State's office can recall when it happened last!) I felt humbled, honored, and immensely grateful that so many Kansans had signed their names in support of our campaign.

A few weeks later, after the Secretary of State's office finished verifying all of those thousands of signatures, we learned that our petition had fallen just short of the required 2,441 qualified signatures.

Sound like disappointing news? Maybe... but we were thrilled to learn the reason. Our petition fell short because so many Republicans and independents had changed their party affiliation to sign it.

Under Kansas law, a primary election petition may be signed only by voters of the candidate's political party. Voters can, of course, switch political parties at any time - and over the last few months, Kansans have joined the Kansas Democratic Party in droves. At the recent presidential caucuses, at voter registration drives across the state, thousands of former independents and Republicans (and even former non-voters!) signed up as proud Kansas Democrats.

Over 400 of these new Kansas Democratic voters signed our petition, and I was deeply moved by their support.

Unfortunately, in many cases Kansas election officials had not processed these new Democrats' registration forms before they signed our petition. The result: hundreds of otherwise valid signatures were discarded. I can only imagine the disappointment these voters must have felt to find their voices silenced on a technicality.

Even if the support of former independents and Republicans proved a liability for our campaign's re-election petition, we feel confident that it will serve us well on Election Day. More importantly, it proves that a new kind of politics taking hold in Kansas.

Kansans are increasingly looking past party lines. We're focusing on the issues that matter most to our state, the issues that transcend partisan politics, the issues that bring Democrats and Republicans together.

All Kansans, Democrats and Republicans alike, can find common ground to rein in the billion-dollar lobbying industry. We can work together to clean up the culture of corruption. We can all agree that the federal government must stop using our tax dollars to line the pockets of Big Oil. We all feel the same patriotic gratitude to our soldiers, the same profound debt to our veterans.

If you're one of the independents or Republicans who recently joined our campaign, it's an honor to have you on board. If you're a longtime Democrat, I remain immensely grateful for your support. And if you're an independent or Republican who still isn't quite ready to take the leap... please keep your eyes and ears open! This will be an exciting election cycle, and I hope that, by Election Day, our campaign will have earned your respect and your vote.