Hi Alex
The below use/workaround of an empty HTML component with a fixed height should provide the expected UX
<columns>
<column>
<object-dropdown query="some_query" bind="some_var" label="Some label" empty-message="Your items will appear here" required="false" />
</column>
<column>
<html show-fullscreen-button="false" height="20"/>
<button label="Some Button" on-press="$:someFunction()" validate="false" style="solid" />
</column>
</columns>
All credit to @jwyrick for the original implementation of the empty html component for padding. You can see his post here