A new set of congressional districts that could potentially weaken Democratic Congresswoman Sharice Davids’ chances for reelection while bolstering a district now held by a Republican advanced out of a House committee Monday.
Split along party lines, the House Redistricting Committee sent a new set of congressional districts to the full House for consideration.
The map mirrors the boundaries passed by the Senate last week. The House plans to take up the Senate bill on Tuesday, a week after it was introduced.
The Republican-drawn map – known as Ad Astra 2 – continues to face fierce opposition because it splits Wyandotte County between the 3rd and 2nd Congressional Districts and potentially undercuts the voting strength of Black and Hispanic voters.
The map carves off a slice of Davids’ Kanas City-centered district along Interstate 70, trading it for more Republican-leaning areas farther south in Miami, Anderson and Franklin counties that were overwhelmingly won by former President Donald Trump.
The plan moves about 112,000 Wyandotte County residents from the 3rd District into the 2nd District, including about 37,000 Hispanic or Latino residents and about 28,000 Black residents.
Opponents also have challenged the map because it moves Lawrence out of the 2nd District and places it in the sprawling 1st District, which covers the vast expanse of western Kansas and runs to the Colorado border.
Putting Lawrence into the 1st District puts one of the state’s few Democratic bases into the heavily Republican district and could no longer be used as a launching pad to run for Congress in the 2nd District.
“I’ve never seen a map this politically gerrymandered in my time up here,” said House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, who was first elected to the Legislature in 1986.
“Putting the city of Lawrence in the 1st District with rural Kansas, dividing Wyandotte County, the city of Kansas City, basically in half, that’s clearly, clearly gerrymandering,” Sawyer said.
Democrats pressured Republicans about the origins of the map and who was involved in drawing it up, a question that state Rep. Chris Croft, chair of the Redistricting Committee, was reluctant to answer.
“Where did this map come from? Who drew this map?” Sawyer asked. “I’m curious who actually drew this map. Anybody have an answer to that?”
At first, there was a moment of silence in response to Sawyer’s question. Croft then said he didn’t know who drew up the map.
“So, we don’t know where this map came from,” Sawyer shot back. “It just kind of came out of….Who knows?”
Later, Democratic state Rep. Vic Miller of Topeka pressed the issue again, asking Croft if he didn’t know where the map came from.
“I know it was a group of a lot of people that were part of the process,” Croft said.
Miller said he didn’t understand Croft’s answer.
“It was a group of legislators that got together and put that map together,” Croft explained again.
Republicans have argued throughout the process that population growth demanded that the 3rd District change and that Wyandotte and Johnson counties could not remain completely together.
They say Democrats have been hypocritical, proposing new congressional districts that keep Wyandotte County intact but slice off a chunk of southwest – and more Republican- Johnson County and moving it into the 2nd District.
Democrats tried to get the House to adopt a map proposed by the League of Women Voters that kept Wyandotte County joined with Johnson County, but it failed.
The map would have moved the southwest part of Johnson County into the 2nd Congressional District and would have kept Lawrence in the 2nd District.
Republican state Rep. Bill Sutton of Gardner praised the map backed by the Republicans in the House and Senate.
“It’s keeping Johnson County whole,” he said. “That’s important to me. It’s important to my constituents.”
Croft describes it as a math problem because the population in the 3rd District is about 792,000, or roughly 58,000 more than the targeted population of 734,000 for each district.
“This is math,” Croft told reporters after the hearing. “There are many different ways to look at the problem. This is just one of those ways.”
Republicans have said that while the newly configured 3rd District would have fewer Black and Hispanic voters, the newly drawn 2nd District would have more minority voters.
However, that hasn’t satisfied Wyandotte County residents who believe their voting power will be watered down if they’re placed into a less diverse 2nd District that extends to the Oklahoma border and is now represented by U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner.
A group of Wyandotte County residents held a news conference Monday morning to voice their concerns about the plan.
“If legislators think we in Wyandotte County are snoozing through this travesty, that we are not aware or that we do not care, think again,” said Connie Brown Collins, founder and organizer of the Voter Rights Network of Wyandotte County.
“You have awakened a sleeping lion.”
The view was shared by Tom Alonzo, another Kansas City, Kansas, resident.
“We are a unique community, one of the few truly diverse communities in Kansas,” Alonzo said.
“There is nothing democratic or patriotic about deliberately cutting up a district to prevent its voters from having the ability to select individuals to represent us that will respect and protect our interests.”
