Jan 19, 2022

GOP redistricting plans in Kansas split Democrat's district

Posted Jan 19, 2022 1:59 PM
Proposed map
Proposed map

By JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas are pursuing redistricting proposals that would remove Democratic voters from the Kansas-City area swing district currently held by the state’s only Democratic member of Congress.

GOP lawmakers on Tuesday made public their first congressional redistricting proposals during meetings of committees in the state House and Senate. Those committees could vote on new lines for the state's four congressional districts by the end of the week.

The debate in Kansas comes with Republicans hoping to regain a U.S. House majority in this year's mid-term elections. Democrats fear that new political boundaries will make it harder for Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids to win reelection in Kansas' 3rd District and are focused on keeping most of Johnson and Wyandotte counties together. Those two counties contain most of the state's side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, and Wyandotte County is among a few Democratic strongholds in Republican-leaning Kansas.

Rep. Sharie Davids
Rep. Sharie Davids

Davids' district is almost 58,000 residents over the ideal district population of about 734,000. The other three districts are underpopulated, with the already-sprawling 1st District of western and central Kansas needing to pick up close to 34,000 people for all four districts to be as equal in population as possible.

The House committee Chair, Rep. Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican, said he wasn't considering politics when he outlined a proposal that would draw part of Wyandotte County out of Davids' district. He also emphasized that new proposals may emerge from hearings and debates later this week.

“A lot of it's population driven,” he said. “There's a lot of factors that go into it.”

Top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature hope to avoid the meltdown that occurred in 2012, the last time lawmakers faced redrawing political boundaries to account for shifts in population. A bitter fight over legislative districts between conservative and moderate Republicans kept any proposal from passing — and three federal judges drew all the lines.

Democrats are skeptical that GOP proposals on congressional redistricting aren't driven by a desire to wound Davids politically. Democratic state Rep. Tom Burroughs, of Kansas City, outlined his own proposal that would keep Wyandotte County in Davids' district with most of Johnson County. He said local residents don't want their area split between two congressional districts.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who can veto redistricting measures, told reporters last week: “What should happen is that they should shrink it in a way that maintains that community interest there in the KC metro area.”

In Croft's proposal, the northern part of Wyandotte County would go into a redrawn 2nd District with Topeka and most of southeast Kansas.

A second proposal came from Republican Rep. Kyle Hoffman, of Coldwater, and it would move all of Wyandotte County into a 1st District that would stretch from the Colorado to the Missouri border in the north part of the state. He said it was based on a proposal that won House approval in 2012.

“I'm not really introducing it because I'm in love with it,” Hoffman said. “It's more of a map to just give us an idea and a baseline.”

Burroughs' proposal appeals to Democrats, but it has the 1st District snaking over the Wichita area and taking in most of southeast Kansas. Some GOP lawmakers pushed a similar idea in 2002 — only to have their proposed map angrily mocked by some residents of both northwest and southeast Kansas.