THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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JAMES HOYT/KANSAN
BY ALLISON KITE
@ALLIE_KITE
Nov. 8 marks the 20th anniversary of a Kansas House of Representatives race that was decided by a tiebreaker.
In the 1994 election between Joe Shriver and Danny Jones, the election was decided after multiple recounts by the drawing of a backgammon chip. In the initial count, Shriver, the incumbent Democrat, lost by 32 votes to the challenging Republican Jones.
When Shriver requested a recount, he won by seven votes, but the investigation didn't stop there. It took five recounts for District Judge Stephen Hill to declare the race a tie, according to a Topeka Capital-Journal article from January 1995. After the recounts, a special committee of the House performed its own recount only to come up with the same
conclusion.
"It was a matter of seven votes at the county level, and it was a matter when the court got through, it was a one vote race," said Shriver, who retired from the legislature in 2005 and is now living in Arkansas City. "When the legislature got done, it was an exact tie."
When the House committee came to the conclusion that the race was tied at 3,031 votes, the legislature had to break it.
"That had never happened before, so they didn't know how you were going to break the tie," said Barbara Ballard, associate director for the Dole Institute of Politics and Kansas State Representative since 1993.
Jones told Tim Shallenberger, the Speaker of the House at the time, that he wanted the tie to be broken by a lot, not a vote, a decision which infuriated some Republicans.
Ballard said Shallenberger was under pressure from House Republicans, who held the majority, to break the tie with a vote. However, a vote in the House would undoubtedly result in a victory for Republican Jones.
The recount process, the court case and the process by the legislature took nearly three months, from the time of the initial election in November to the tiebreaker in February, which meant Jones and Shriver were on hold for all that time.
"Danny Jones was saying in essence, 'If I were in the other person's shoes, I'd want somebody to give me a fair shake.' "Ballard said.
"We laugh about it now," Shriver said. "It was hard to laugh about it when it was going on because there was so much tension and so much pressure. Putting your life on hold like that is not fun."
Jene Vickrey, who has
served in the 6th District seat since 1993, said other members of the House had gotten to know both candidates over the three-month stretch, making it tough to know only one would win.
Finally, the day came for the tie to be broken. House Chief Clerk Janet Jones was tasked with pulling a backgammon chip from a plastic box. Ballard said the House was completely silent.
"I think everybody there was kind of under the same kind of feelings and stress because you knew they were both great guys, and somebody was going to lose and it had taken such a long time," Vickrey said.
"I just don't know how you could not have been very anxious about that. I think it was reflected in how quiet the House was." Ballard said.
The white chip pulled by Janet Jones signified a victory for Danny Jones.
Shriver returned home and continued his job as a firefighter, which had been held for him during the three-month period. He then went on to run against Jones in 1996 and win 4,456 to 3,322 — a 1,134-vote race and a 28.3 percent larger turnout.
— a 1,134-vote race and a 28.3 percent larger turnout.
"It makes again a case for when people turn out to vote, they make a difference in the outcome of elections," Ballard said. "Maybe because it's the community where they came from had lived with this for three months too and they saw the outcome of it, that this time you saw more people paying attention to this."
"When I do see him when he does come back, we're very cordial, and we laugh about it now," Shriver said.
Now, 20 years later, Shriver is retired in Arkansas City and is still friends with Jones.
- EDITED BY EMILY BROWN
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110 years of a student-built tradition 110 years of a positive distraction