In mid-March, the ACLU Foundation of Kansas learned that Phillips County in northwestern Kansas has not reapportioned its county commission districts since 1965.  Because Phillipsburg has grown markedly over the last fifty years in comparison to the rural areas of the County, the county commission districts are now malapportioned so that residents of Phillipburg are grossly underrepresented while voters in the rural areas of the County are overrepresented.

On March 25, 2014, Laughlin McDonald, Director Emeritus of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, and Legal Director Doug Bonney sent a demand letter to the Phillips County counselor advising him that the County’s current commission districts are in violation of the one person, one vote standard required by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On April 30, the Phillips County Review reported that the county commissioners had advanced a redistricting plan in an effort to comply with the one person, one vote standard and to provide the currently underrepresented residents of Phillipsburg with constitutionally required representation in their county government. 

In a letter dated May 5, the county counselor advised the ACLU that the commissioners have put forth four possible redistricting plans for public comment.  The letter also indicated that the commissioners would probably adopt one of the redistricting plans in the next couple of weeks.  Although the commissioner from Phillipsburg had been raising the redistricting issue with the other two rural commissioners for at least a couple of months before the ACLU sent its demand letter, press reports during that time suggested that the rural commissioners had no clear desire to redistrict.  Actual progress on redistricting occurred only after the County received the ACLU’s letter. 

Regardless of the impetus for the redistricting plans, the result offers hope that Phillips County will soon comply with the one person, one vote standard.