News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union settled a lawsuit filed five years ago against prosecutors in Montgomery County for disproportionately seeking harsh sentences for defendants posing nominal risk to the public by declining to make available diversion program alternatives required under Kansas law.

The state's tab for two months of defending a hotly-debated set of congressional maps in court has already stretched over a quarter of a million dollars — even though the constitutionality of the maps is far from resolved.

Brett was one of several attorneys representing Kansas voters who brought three lawsuits, now consolidated, seeking to block implementation of congressional maps passed earlier this year as part of the decennial redistricting process.

A new map of congressional districts is being challenged in Kansas.

The ACLU of Kansas is suing to have the state’s recently drawn congressional redistricting map thrown out. The organization argues Republican lawmakers drew the new districts in an attempt to dilute the ballots cast by voters in the Democratic strongholds of Lawrence and Wyandotte County.

At issue: A map known as Ad Astra 2 splits the Kansas City metro area along Interstate 70, separating the heavily Democratic northern part of Wyandotte County from Johnson County and the 3rd District, and places Lawrence into the same 1st District as rural counties that border Colorado.

Jowei Chen, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, had a computer draw 1,000 versions of Kansas congressional maps, using non-partisan and traditional guidelines. The map Kansas lawmakers passed this year had more Republican districts than 98.8% of them.

Policy differences are the point in politics. Politics helps us sort out policy differences.

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday rejected Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s request to dismiss lawsuits filed in Wyandotte and Douglas counties over redrawn congressional districts. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Loud Light filed separate lawsuits to stop the gerrymandered map.