House launches congressional redistricting with introduction of four boundary maps

TOPEKA — The Kansas House committee working on redistricting introduced Tuesday four competing maps that would redraw the state’s congressional districts in response to rural-to-urban population shifts of the past decade and attempt to lock down partisan advantages in upcoming elections.

Kansas Republicans have made no secret of a desire to undermine re-election prospects of U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat serving the 3rd District in Wyandotte and Johnson counties, and to reinforce the campaign of GOP challenger Amanda Adkins. At the same time, Republicans don’t want to meaningfully influence the re-election challenges faced by U.S. Reps. Tracey Mann of the 1st District, Jake LaTurner of the 2nd District and Ron Estes of the 4th District.

Democrats, while a minority party in the House and Senate, want to do the opposite. Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has veto authority over maps adopted by the Legislature for the U.S. House, Kansas House, Kansas Senate and Kansas State Board of Education. The GOP-led House and Senate could override a veto by the governor.

State Rep. Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican and chairman of the House redistricting committee, introduced a congressional map that would slice Wyandotte County in half from east to west and place it in LaTurner’s 2nd district. Croft’s idea would be to push the 3rd District to the south into rural counties for potential advantage of Adkins, who lost to Davids two years ago. He also would pull Lawrence into the large, rural 1st District that stretches to the Colorado border.

Croft said his proposal, which was named “Ad Astra,” would leave the state with four districts with exactly the same populations — 734,470 — based on the 2020 Census.

“What I really like about what you got today is there’s a big variety out there for us to really dig into and see what the best options are for the state,” Croft said.

In 2012, the Legislature failed to complete the mapping project. The job was assumed by federal judges who quickly compiled the maps relied upon in elections for the past decade. The new set would control boundaries through 2032, and must reflect the dramatic population growth in Johnson County and loss of residents in dozens of rural counties.

State Rep. Tom Burroughs, a Democrat from Kansas City, Kan., introduced a map that would leave Wyandotte and Johnson counties united in the 3rd District. The 2nd District would become concentrated in northeast Kansas in his “Buffalo 2” map, while the 1st District would reach into southeast Kansas.

He said the Legislature should produce maps that kept together so-called communities of interest, such as urban residents in Wyandotte County and rural Kansans in rural communities.

“Those concerns have been expressed to us in thousands of pages of testimony,” Burroughs said. “The advantage of my map is that he meets the population variances and it keeps the metropolitan Wyandotte-Johnson counties together.”

The third map, which was formally introduced by Croft, was developed by the Kansas League of Women Voters and was consistent with the map proposed by Burroughs.

A fourth map was introduced by state Rep. Kyle Hoffman, R-Coldwater, that was a slight modification of the congressional map approved by the Kansas House in 2012. It was never implemented, but it would have placed Wyandotte County inside the agrarian 1st District.

Hoffman said he voted for that map a decade ago, but wasn’t certain he would still hold to that perspective. He said the previous incarnation was made available for comparison sake as the Legislature went through the process of compiling updated maps.