No Labels Kansas Party selects former GOP official as chairman of alternative party
The No Labels Kansas Party will be led by David Miller, a former leader of the Kansas Republican Party, a member of the Kansas House and chair of the Kansans for Life political action committee. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Members of No Labels Kansas Party unanimously selected a former Kansas Republican Party official and Kansans for Life political action committee director to serve as chairman of the alternative political organization founded two years ago.
Chairman David Miller said No Labels Kansas, which claims more than 6,000 members, was committed to challenging the political establishment in Topeka and competing with the dominant GOP and Democratic parties. He said No Labels Kansas would likely draw enough members to become the state’s third-largest party by November.
“We intend to give voters a real choice at the ballot box rather than being forced to choose between two candidates representing the ‘uniparty’ that runs Topeka,” Miller said. “We expect the establishment to attempt to quash any competition, but are prepared to fight to build a strong, viable alternative.”
Miller, of Eudora, said Kansans were weary of choosing among candidates preferred by a Republican Party hitched to “big business” and a Democratic Party smitten by “big government.”
He said the Kansas Legislature performed admirably for more than a century as it sought to represent the state’s shared values, background and common interests. He asserted Kansans lost faith on the two major parties as the Legislature decided to award itself a 93% salary increase in 2025, to scale back its legislative work week to four days during a four-month annual session and to engage in layering their retirement packages with “perks and privileges.”
“Kansans need to decide if being governed by an elitist professional political class is what they want out of their state government. I doubt it,” Miller said.
No Labels Kansas treasurer John Altevogt, of Tonganoxie, said bipartisan passage by the Legislature of state economic development incentives to bring the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line to Kansas amounted to socialism. The state government and owners of the Chiefs agreed to a public-private financing plan to build a domed NFL stadium in Wyandotte County and to construct a separate headquarters and practice facility for the football franchise in Johnson County.
“The saddling of local taxpayers with higher taxes and yet-to-be-revealed infrastructure costs to subsidize the out-of-state billionaire Hunt family is the worst kind of socialism and a glaring example that both parties have become little more than two heads of the same snake,” Altevogt said.
The selection of Miller to chair No Labels Kansas followed recent announcement of a merger between two minor political parties in Kansas. The Free State Party and United Kansas Party, which seek to drive Kansas to the political center, plan to operate as United Kansas, the Free State Party.