Opinion: This idea could bring middle back to Kansas politics and temper extremes

I can’t wait until Election Day is behind us. Politics has gotten so nasty. Whichever party you support, we’ve forgotten that the people on the other side are Americans, too.

Democrats are not an “enemy” worse than our actual adversaries overseas. And Republicans are not “fascists” if they simply disagree with Democrats about the issues. This level of hostility is not the Kansas way.

I’ve been a Republican my entire life and I don’t plan on changing. But let’s face it. The reason things have gotten so polarized is because of the two-party system itself. Instead of listening to the public, both major parties have become captive, to varying degrees, to their worst extremes.

We weren’t so badly divided a generation ago. But with the rise of talk-radio and then the internet, it’s become easy to become popular and make money simply by stoking more and more political rage among society’s different silos. And in a system with only two parties, both are incentivized to keep fighting each other.

But history and experience teach us that America has only progressed when both parties have worked through their differences on hard issues, gotten to reasonable compromises and passed bipartisan legislation with broad public support. And that doesn’t happen much anymore thanks to our hyper-polarized two-party system. The center has been abandoned.

What we desperately need is a way to give people in the middle — moderates who understand that working together to solve problems is more important than bludgeoning your enemies — a bigger voice in the process.

That’s why I am so intrigued by the new United Kansas Party, which was started earlier this year by a group of moderate Republicans, Democrats and independents. Even more interesting to me is its effort to revive fusion voting. The basic idea is simple. With fusion, two or more parties can each nominate the same candidate. Each party gets its own line but in effect they “fuse” their support.

If the candidate welcomes each party’s nomination, voters can support the candidate on the ballot line of the party that best reflects their values.

If you’re a centrist Republican like me, and the United Kansas Party cross-nominates a Republican candidate, you could vote for that candidate on the United Kansas line. If that candidate gets, say, 10% of the vote on that line, you can bet they’re going to pay more attention to what United Kansas stands for: values like moderation, problem-solving, and respect for the rule of law.

It would work the same way on the opposite side. If Republicans nominate someone really extreme and the Democrats back someone more moderate, United Kansas could endorse the more moderate choice, and someone like me could vote for them on that line, rather than having to back them as a Democrat.

With fusion, people in the abandoned center could really improve things. Fusion makes it possible for smaller parties to form and maintain their identities distinct from the major parties, without forcing them to be spoilers. (In our two-party system, third-party candidates very rarely win, but do often inadvertently help to elect the least preferred candidates.) It also has the merit of strengthening our constitutional rights to free speech and free association.

Since achieving legal party status, United Kansas has nominated candidates from both major parties. Not surprisingly, there has been resistance from entities which have sought to preserve laws passed more than a century ago that took away fusion voting. The party intends to continue pursuing their right to freely associate with the candidates of their choice. As legal challenges take shape, let’s hope the Kansas courts recognize this important right.

With fusion voting, we’d probably end up with a multiparty system with the two major parties buttressed by a couple of additional fusion parties. We’d have more competition, and voters would have more choices. The major parties would become more responsive to the will of the people.

Most importantly, we’d break the spiral that the two-party system has caught us in, which is making this fall election so ugly. And that would be good for all of us.

Don Hineman served 12 years in the Kansas House, including two as majority leader, before retiring in 2020. He is the chairman of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.