Topeka ? In an open display of intra-party warfare Saturday, the Kansas Republican Party Committee approved a resolution to open its primary to unaffiliated voters, raising immediate questions about the Aug. 3 GOP election.

State Republican Party Chairman Dennis Jones, who has pushed for opening the primary to nonregistered Republicans, said he would ask a judge Monday to OK the proposal for the primary now just more than a week away.

“Whether the judge acts on it is up to him,” Jones said.

Jones earlier tried to open the primary to unaffiliated voters but was stopped after several Republicans sued, saying Jones overstepped his authority.

Shawnee County District Judge Charles Andrews ruled against Jones earlier this month and issued an order keeping the primary open only to registered Republicans. Andrews concluded the party chairman had “dangerously overstepped his bounds.”

Jones has filed a motion asking Andrews to reconsider that order, and will forward the new resolution to the judge Monday.

Primary already started

But other party officials said it was too late to change the rules for the upcoming primary.

Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, a Republican, said the primary elections were already in progress, with advanced voting and ballots that have been sent to soldiers overseas.

“It would be utter chaos to change the system at this point,” he said.

Numerous top Republican elected officials, including the entire Kansas Republican delegation to Congress, oppose opening the primary. U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., in a telephone call broadcast during the meeting, urged Republicans to reject the resolution.

But after a contentious hour-and-a-half debate, the GOP committee voted 68-50 for the resolution that would allow unaffiliated voters in the primary.

Making converts?

Supporters of the measure said it would attract independent voters to Republican candidates. Nearly 30 percent of the registered voters in Kansas have no party affiliation, and the Democratic Party primary has been opened to unaffiliated voters.

There was no legal challenge to the June decision by Democrats’ state executive committee to open their primary to unaffiliated voters — meaning the two parties have different rules for who can participate.

Bob Bibb, former chairman of the Johnson County Republican Party, said, “We can’t win without the support of unaffiliated voters. Let’s draw them closer into the party.”

GOP vice chairwoman Pat Ranson, who introduced the resolution, said if Republicans allowed independents to vote in the primary “perhaps we can keep their loyalty in the general election.”

But conservative Republicans said the purpose of the resolution was to bring more left-leaning voters into the primary to defeat conservative candidates.

“This is a question of the future of the Republican Party,” said state Sen. Phil Journey, R-Hays. He said those who supported the resolution were “afraid they are going to lose so they want to change the rules of the game.”

Ranson called that “paranoid thinking.”

Moderate-conservative split

After the resolution was approved, Bibb accused Journey of muttering a threatening remark, which Journey denied.

The vote on the resolution reflected the moderate-conservative split in the GOP. Delegates from the more moderate 3rd Congressional District, which includes east Lawrence, voted 23-0 for the resolution, while delegates in the conservative 4th Congressional District voted 29-0 against it. Yes votes outnumbered no votes in the other two congressional districts and on the executive committee.

Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, of Lawrence, voted for the resolution.

“We just need to get more people participating in the primaries,” she said.

But Praeger said she had reservations about trying to open the Aug. 3 primary at this late date.

House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, spoke against the resolution, saying many Republican candidates had been campaigning solely among Republicans for the primary and mailing out campaign literature to only GOP households.

“This would be very unfair to Republican candidates,” he said. But his motion to table the resolution until after the primary was defeated.

A Kansas law has mandated closed Republican and Democratic primaries since 1908. But in May, citing a recent federal appeals court ruling, Thornburgh concluded the law would not withstand a legal challenge and that the decision of who may participate in the primaries must be left to the parties. He asked each chairman for a decision.