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Kentucky Republicans are poised to clear the path for Rand Paul to hang onto his Senate seat as he runs for president, despite a state law that prohibits running for two offices at once.
But their plan to have Kentucky switch its presidential primary to a caucus – financed entirely by Paul's campaign – could end up putting his otherwise safe Senate seat at risk.
On Saturday, the Republican Party of Kentucky's 340-member central committee is expected to vote to approve the caucus plan and will have until Oct. 1 to clear legal and logistical hurdles and inform the Republican National Committee. The caucus determining the state’s delegates to the Republican nominating convention would occur on a different day than the state’s primary, where his name would appear on the ballot for Senate.
But while Paul’s intention to run concurrently for both offices initially received a positive reaction, his lackluster performance in the first Republican debate and less-than stellar poll numbers have raised concerns over whether extraordinary expenditures – up to $600,000 to run a caucus to help Paul circumvent the law – is worth it.
Earlier this week, Paul attempted to assuage those fears, promising that his campaign would take on all associated costs for the caucus. In a letter to the state GOP, Paul said he had transferred $250,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky and planned to pay another installment of $200,000 once budgets and rules are finalized.
And while Paul's plan may clear the legal obstacles for the primary, critics say his ponying up the money to facilitate the caucuses smacks of crossing a line.
"He's allowed to give unlimited sums from his campaign committee to the state party under federal law," says Joshua Douglas, an elections law expert at the University of Kentucky. "But it's certainly strange, and people are raising the question as to whether this is ethical."
Former Republican state Rep. Bob Heleringer, who says he supports Paul but not the caucus plan, was more blunt.
“It sends a message that the Republican Party in Kentucky is for sale,” Heleringer says. “We’re changing one system of voting for one man, to accommodate one office-holder in our party. I think it sets a bad precedent."
There appears to be no precedent for what Paul is attempting to do. In the cases of previous simultaneous candidacies – Lyndon Johnson ran for both Senate in Texas and president in 1960, Joe Biden remained on the ballot for Senate in Delaware and as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008, and Paul Ryan was re-elected to the House in Wisconsin while on the ticket with Mitt Romney in 2012 – either state law already allowed running for multiple offices, or, in the case of Johnson, the Texas legislature changed the law ahead of the election.
Paul’s legal contortions became necessary when Democrats blocked an attempt to change the law legislatively. Instead of filing a challenge to the law in federal court, arguing it's unconstitutional because it allows state law to interfere in the choosing of federal lawmakers, Paul has chosen the path of more certainty – at least temporarily.
“Rand Paul probably knows he has an advantage” in a caucus, says Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science at Yale University. “Candidates like him draw an enthusiastic crowd.”
Caucus structure, Hersh said, can play to the strengths of candidates like Paul because they require supporters to show up to meetings across the state and make the case for their preferred candidate. His policies help him stand apart in the crowded GOP presidential field, and his constituency tends to be distinct and more committed to him.
But caucuses, which can be lengthy, tend to drive down participation – even below the fraction of the electorate that would vote in a primary. And requiring voters to both attend a caucus and get to a polling place on primary day could further discourage engagement.
"There's a lot of controversy with caucuses because they have such a low turnout," says Barbara Norrander, an elections expert at the University of Arizona. "It’s difficult for some people to get to the caucuses because you have to find somebody to babysit the kids."
Skeptics of Paul's plan also point out that, if he wins the nomination or ends up on the ticket as the running mate, his ambitions could endanger the party's efforts to hold his seat.
Kentucky's Republican bench is deep, and if Paul chose not to seek re-election in order to focus on his bid for higher office, the party would have little trouble fielding a candidate who would be heavily favored to win in November. But if Paul doesn't end up on the ballot, either withdrawing from the Senate race after the primary or if he is kicked off through a legal challenge, it would be too late for the party to field a replacement. State law dictates candidates can only be replaced after the primary in the event of death or incapacitation – withdrawing to run for president doesn’t count.
Even if he did win the Senate nomination and somehow managed to secure either the GOP presidential nomination or be tapped as a vice presidential candidate, the campaign so far has not publicly said how he would handle the potential conflict on the November ballot – his caucus plan would not address address the problem – and experts say none of the scenarios is great for Paul or the Kentucky Republican Party.
“Republicans in Kentucky are nervous, because it’s very difficult to replace a candidate on the ballot,” Douglas says. “There’s concern that there would be no Republican on the ballot [for Senate] at all.”
Another option, Douglas says, is for Paul to avoid a conflict by removing his name from contention for the presidency in Kentucky, foregoing the state’s eight electoral votes, a strategy Paul has said he wants to avoid.
"I think we're going to take a step [with the caucus] that we're going to regret," says Heleringer. "We're creating a mechanism that we could lose that seat. In their fervor to help out a sitting senator, they're losing sight of the big picture."
hXXp://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/08/20/rand-pauls-plan-to-buy-an-election
