Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab is removing Republican Doug Billings from the ballot as a candidate for governor after the attorney general issued an opinion saying Billings couldn’t run as a solo candidate after his running mate dropped out.
In an opinion issued Friday, the attorney general concluded that because the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run together as a joint candidacy, a vacancy in one slot terminates the overall campaign ticket.
When a vacancy occurs after a candidate has filed for a primary election but before the filing deadline in June, the remaining member cannot fill the vacancy because it’s not authorized by state law, the opinion says.
However, the candidate may re-file as part of a new candidacy, which must fulfill all the statutory requirements for ballot access, including paying the full filing fee when
submitting a declaration of intention to become a candidate.
“In sum, when one member of a governor/lieutenant governor candidacy withdraws or dies after the candidacy has filed for office but before the filing deadline, the candidacy terminates,” the attorney general wrote.
“And while the remaining member is free to pursue a new candidacy with a new running mate, his candidacy must follow the statutory requirements to obtain ballot access, including paying the whole filing fee,” the opinion says.
The opinion doesn’t mention Billings by name but was requested by the secretary of state after Billings’ running mate, April McCoy, withdrew from the campaign in July.
Schwab, who is also running for governor as a Republican, said he decided to remove Billings from the ballot based on the attorney general’s advice.
If Billings fails to find another running mate, the already crowded Republican field for governor would be winnowed, although there are still plenty of candidates supporting President Donald Trump left in the race.
Billings, a conservative podcaster who promised to make God first in Kansas, did not return a phone call or an email seeking comment.
Calling himself a “MAGA conservative Republican,” Billings promised to run as a gubernatorial candidate who stood for “faith” and “freedom.”
He was the first candidate to file for governor in April but has since run into political trouble in recent weeks.
When McCoy first withdrew, she didn’t explain her reason for dropping out but has since raised questions about Billings’ integrity over a $2,700 campaign donation that he’s been accused of pocketing, according to published reports.
Billings has denied any wrongdoing and blamed it on a misunderstanding.
Billings has had other past legal troubles that were highlighted in his 2010 Christian self-help book, “Your Wonderful Life.”
They included accusations of propositioning two young female students and misappropriating funds. He said he took plea deals in both those cases.
In his book, Billings revealed accusations that he said “inappropriate things” to two female students when he was working as an English teacher in 1993 at an alternative high school where the student population tended to be older.
He called the accusations “extraordinary.”
Billings said the accusations were revenge for him suspending the students’ privileges such as cigarette breaks and using a game room with darts, pool tables and soda machines.
He said a security guard and another student overheard the female students plotting against him.
He said in his book that he hired a lawyer because the students had filed a police report.
“The attorney laid out the scenario for my wife and me,” Billings wrote.
“I could go either go to court and have a jury trial and clear my name publicly or I could take care of this ‘behind the scenes’ and plea bargain in order to have it erased from my record without the publicity of a trial,” he wrote.
“I’m a guy who, for the most part, goes to lengths to avoid confrontation. The thought of having a jury trial over this issue was frightening to me,” he wrote.
“There were no guarantees of how a jury would see the situation. My name and image would be all over the radio and television.”
Billings does not go into detail in the book about where he was teaching nor what charges he was facing and where he was in court.
Billings said in his book that the “emotional trauma seemed too much to bear” so he opted for a plea bargain and “got rid of the issue with no criminal record.”
He said he didn’t have to surrender his teaching license, although he lost his teaching job at the time. He said he went on to teach again.
“Even though things seemed to work out, there was a ‘cloud’ over me that labeled me as a teacher who was accused of inappropriate behavior,” he wrote.
He said his wife, who had stood behind him throughout the ordeal, left him because she “fell victim to the strain, emotional trauma and the burden of it all.”
He added that a sheriff’s deputy showed up at his door and served him with papers ordering him out of his house immediately.
“I’ve never run from that issue,” Billings said in his Facebook video. “It’s taught me how lies can be weaponized against you. I refuse to let those lies define me.
“Every day Americans who are innocent go to the court system because of the weaponized system that we have,” he said.
“And because they have limited funds and limited ability to defend themselves properly or as they would really like to, they make deals and they get on with their lives to avoid a public spectacle. It happens every day.”
In a Facebook video, Billings related a story from 18 years ago when he was working as a human resources manager and set up a bank account to hold funds for a company while he waited for the corporate office to create its own account.
“Before everything happened with the new account, I was falsely accused again of misappropriating those funds,” Billings said in the video.
“It was a low-grade felony charge. That was serious and it’s a big deal.
“Not one dime of that money was missing,” he said. “The company had it all. But because of a weaponized legal system, there were charges to face. And I faced them head on just like President Trump did.
“I’ve never misused a dime of that money. The company had full account of everything there,” he said. “I took a deal to avoid crushing legal costs and the persecution that was going to follow.”
Without going into details about the company and the charges that he faced, Billings said the case was ultimately expunged. He said he never went to jail or lost his right to vote.
Billings said he was going public about his past because he believed the “deep state swamp” sees his MAGA, pro-Trump agenda as a threat.
