Efforts to draw new election boundaries for members of Congress at mid-decade appear to be losing momentum, with House Speaker Dan Hawkins saying the House is short of the votes needed to pass a new a map.
“We don’t have the votes,” Hawkins said in an interview Monday morning. “We’re a long ways away from the votes” needed to pass.
“I have always said that if we can’t pass something big like that, why have the vote. And that’s my position” he said. “I’m a long ways off from being able to pass it.
“If I did have a vote, I’d be lucky to get 63,” Hawkins said, alluding to the majority of lawmakers needed to pass a bill.
The Legislature would have needed a supermajority of 84 votes to override an inevitable veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
“Do the math. Sixty-three and 84 don’t match,” he said.
Unless the political climate changes and President Donald Trump’s administration decides to pressure Kansas lawmakers into drawing a new map, Hawkins said he didn’t expect redistricting to emerge as an issue during this upcoming session.
“I don’t foresee that coming. If it was, it would have happened already and it didn’t happen,” Hawkins said.
“Right now I don’t see on the House side redistricting ever coming up.”
The Senate president’s office didn’t immediately comment Monday afternoon.
There was a push to get lawmakers to call themselves into a special session last fall to draw new congressional election districts at the behest of Trump.
Any new map drawn in Kansas would have likely targeted the 3rd Congressional District represented by Kansas’ lone congressional Democrat, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids.
A new plan would have likely carved up Johnson County – the anchor of 3rd District – two or three ways and made it harder for Davids to win reelection.
Two-thirds of lawmakers needed to sign a petition to call the Legislature into a special session. It would have been only the second time in Kansas history that the Legislature called itself into a special session.
The House came up six signatures short of the 84 needed to call the Legislature into a special session to draw new maps. The Senate had 29, two more than needed.
While 78 House members signed the petition, Hawkins noted that a number of them agreed to sign the document just to get to a special session.
“We had a number of people, a large number of people that didn’t necessarily want to vote for redistricting, but they would do what everybody should have done and that was to sign on to the special session,” he said.
“That was purely a procedural move to get into special session,” he said. “I don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire on the actual vote or against the bill – never have.
“I always believed that everybody’s got a vote,” he said. “I knew that vote was going to be a particularly difficult vote for some people to take.
“But there were other things in that special session that were very important to us.”
After the special session failed, Hawkins removed three committee chairs and four vice chairs, notably including the second-highest ranking Republican in the House.
Hawkins said he didn’t punish the legislators who didn’t sign the petition.
“You serve at the will and pleasure of the speaker,” Hawkins said of legislative leaders.
“When you become a chair or vice chair, you’re expected to support the procedural motions of the body,” Hawkins told reporters later Monday.
“If they’re not going to support the caucus in what they’re trying to do, then we need chairs and vice chairs that will.
“They knew the ramifications when they took their position.”
Hawkins said the Legislature wanted to put a check on how Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration spends hundreds of millions of dollars in federal rural health care money coming to the state.
A special session also would have given the Legislature the chance to change a law addressing gender marker changes on driver’s licenses.
Attorney General Kris Kobach asked lawmakers to convene a special legislative session to keep the courts from allowing transgender Kansans to change their gender markers on driver’s licenses.
Kobach’s request came after the Kansas Supreme Court upheld an appeals court decision that allowed transgender Kansans to change their gender markers on driver’s licenses while an ongoing lawsuit plays out.
A Shawnee County district judge had issued a temporary injunction blocking the gender marker changes but was overturned when the case was appealed.
The Supreme Court denied a request to take up the case and allowed the state appeals court ruling to stand.
