Kansans want the KC metro to stay in one congressional district. That may be impossible
Cassie Woolworth had a stern warning for lawmakers.
“Gerrymandering is cheating,” the Olathe resident said at one of the 14 redistricting town halls held by the Kansas Legislature this week.
“We know our people in our neighborhoods,” she added. “We voted Sharice in, we voted Laura Kelly in, dammit.”
The audience of several hundred at the Matt Ross Community Center in Overland Park roared with applause.
Redistricting — the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional and state legislative maps based on the new Census — has provoked strong feelings among Johnson and Wyandotte County residents. The revisions are barely underway, yet they have already raised thorny questions about representation, community and belonging.
Many who live on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro fear the Republican-controlled Legislature will redraw boundaries to weaken U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the state’s sole Democrat in Congress, who represents the 3rd Congressional District. They imagine a potential separation of Johnson and Wyandotte counties that would end decades of unified representation.
Redistricting has been a source of partisan suspicion since last year, when then-Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, vowed that the Legislature, with GOP supermajorities, could draw four GOP congressional districts.
“I would like to keep these counties together … and keep them whole in their entirety, wherever they end up,” said Amy Carter, an Overland Park resident. “Any effort to separate any part of the counties would be an attempt to dilute our votes.”
Population data released by the Census Bureau on Thursday reveals that keeping both counties entirely together will prove mathematically impossible. The total number of residents in the two counties now exceeds the federally mandated size of a congressional district by about 44,000.
Some part of Johnson or Wyandotte counties — or a combination of both — will have to be cleaved away into a different congressional district. The new maps, however they’re drawn, will mark a shift in the tectonic plates of Kansas politics, with consequences for residents and politicians alike over the next decade.
Democrats, who have transformed Johnson County into a power center in recent years, may find new opportunities to increase their state legislative numbers as the county’s growth leads to more House and Senate seats. The party’s minority status in the Legislature isn’t expected to change anytime soon, but redistricting could help Democrats boost their influence in Topeka, depending on what parts of the county get the new seats.
Republicans may be able to weaken Davids’ base of support by shifting parts of traditionally Democratic Wyandotte into a different congressional district, or pursuing the even more aggressive option of splitting Wyandotte and Johnson apart. The party covets full control of the state’s six-member federal delegation (four House members and two senators) and believes it is within reach. Amanda Adkins, who lost to Davids by 10 percentage points in 2020, is again running for the GOP nomination and faces no serious opposition.
Lawmakers will face intense scrutiny if they make significant alterations to the current, non-gerrymandered districts. A decade ago, the Legislature failed to agree on maps, forcing federal judges to draw them. The judicially configured districts were a sharp departure from Kansas’s usual procedure, which gives the Legislature the power to pass maps, the governor the authority to sign or veto them, and the Kansas Supreme Court a mandate to review them.
“We’ll be watching to see how things play out in Kansas,” said Yurij Rudensky, redistricting counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and public policy institute. “There has been very open talk about gerrymandering in Kansas of course and that’s a big concern and a really unfortunate thing so we’ll keep our eye on the state.”
The Republican-controlled legislative committees heading up redistricting opted to barnstorm the state this past week holding town halls, compressing into five days an process that lasted four months a decade ago. The ensuing backlash prompted promises of additional, virtual hearings in the fall.
Still, hundreds turned out for meetings in Overland Park and Kansas City, Kan. and dozens more submitted written comments. Many pleaded with lawmakers to preserve the Wyandotte-Johnson connection.
Most of the meetings were also held before the release of Census data, leading residents to complain it was impossible to offer detailed feedback without the information necessary to draw possible maps. Despite this, they made their concerns clear.
“The Latino community in Wyandotte and Johnson County has grown and we do not want our interests diluted by separating that district,” said Ramon Murguia, a lifelong KCK resident.
Republicans emphasized that it’s early. They invited the public to continue commenting online or through the mail in the weeks and months ahead and promised to conduct their work transparently.
“Here was the nice thing about this: Right now, what we heard were the concerns of the community about their communities,” said Rep. Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican who chairs the House Redistricting Committee. “We weren’t hearing about the data and everything else, we were hearing about the communities. That’s the first step in this process.”
Data is key
While legislators said they wanted to hear about community concerns this week, hard data will play the decisive role.
County-level Census numbers confirm what many had expected: that urban centers in eastern Kansas and near Wichita gained population while many rural counties lost residents. The result is the continued shift of political power toward Johnson and Wyandotte, which are now poised to gain state House and Senate seats.
But that same consolidation also complicates the future of the 3rd Congressional District.
A decade ago, federal judges drew the 3rd to encompass both counties and a portion of Miami County. Population growth in the intervening years means the area is now too big for one district.
When combined, 778,928 people now live in Johnson and Wyandotte counties — about 44,000 over the ideal size of the congressional district, which must represent a fourth of the state’s population.
Mike O’Neal, Republican speaker of the house during the 2011 redistricting, said congressional districts are allowed little margin for error.
While lawmakers have a bit of wriggle room in forming state Legislative districts, federal law requires each Congressional district to be as close to equal as possible. For Kansas, that means four districts at or near 734,470 people.
Last time around, O’Neal said, congressional districts only strayed one or two people away from being exactly one quarter of the population.
Population growth could empower Republican lawmakers to break up Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in ways more favorable to the GOP, said Brian Amos, a political scientist at Wichita State University.
“They might use it as justification to split off Wyandotte County and merge it with counties north and to the west and then merge Johnson County to the South,” Amos said. “But Johnson County’s getting to the point where they may need to break it up if they do want a Republican district and merge it with those southern and southwestern Republican districts.”
O’Neal, however, dismissed the idea that maps will be primarily politically motivated. The math, he said, is more important than any other consideration, including the desire of Wyandotte and Johnson County residents to remain together.
“If they’re growing too fast at the expense of the rest of the state they’re going to continue to have this phenomenon where they’re going to need to lose population to other districts,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal said the plans floated 10 years ago, and again this year, to place Wyandotte County in the 1st Congressional District would help the 3rd district meet its population target with the least disruption to the 2nd and 4th districts.
Every district except the 3rd will need to gain additional residents, the Census data shows.
The 2nd District, held by Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner, which encompasses the entirety of eastern Kansas with the exception of the 3rd, is roughly 21,463 people short. The 4th district, which includes Wichita and the south central portion of the state, may be able to remain relatively stable because it’s only about 2,656 people short. The seat is held by Republican Rep. Ron Estes.
The 1st District, on the other hand, has a massive gap to make up. Called the Big First because it sweeps across much of the state’s north central region and its entire western front, the already massive district currently held by Republican Rep. Tracey Mann must find an additional 33,697 residents.
Rudensky, redistricting counsel for the Brennan Center, said Kansas follows a pattern he’s seen nationwide. But the growth of the Kansas City metro should not justify having multiple districts crossing through the community, he said.
“You have to find ways to keep certain portions of those communities together,” he said. “You look at the area, you think about the different neighborhoods, the different communities, you figure out what makes most sense to keep together and which ones you can group with other communities.”
Past comments haunt GOP
Democrats suggest a scalpel — rather than a sledgehammer — should be used to reshape the 3rd.
Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat who sits on the House Redistricting Committee, said one way would be by preserving the urban and suburban greater Kansas City core of the district.
“So there might be areas maybe outside of the 435 loop in Johnson County that don’t necessarily have the high population and dense population that are reflective of the cities and suburbs,” Clayton said.
Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican, cast doubt on the idea of keeping Wyandotte and Johnson wholly linked. He said legislators can try to keep as much of the counties together as possible, but ultimately it’s “going to be problematic to keep them entirely together.”
Republican lawmakers last week were generally reticent to discuss specifics of possible maps, saying they were deferring to the voice of voters while holding town halls. But their hesitancy also came as Wagle’s comments, nearly a year old, dogged them as they traveled across the state.
“I guarantee you we can draw four Republican congressional maps. But we can’t do it unless we have a two-thirds majority in the Senate and the House,” the former Senate president said last September.
Speaker after speaker at multiple stops made clear that they viewed the remarks by Wagle, who didn’t run for re-election in 2020, as an admission that Republicans are intent on gerrymandering.
“Politicians should not be picking voters. Voters should be picking politicians,” Prairie Village resident Angela Schieferecke said in written comments.
Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, a McPherson Republican, distanced himself from his former colleague’s remarks.
“She’s no longer in the Senate. It’s unfortunate that statement was made, but that’s all I have to say about it,” Wilborn, who chairs the Senate Redistricting Committee, told reporters. “I didn’t make the statement. No one on the committee made that statement.”
While some Wyandotte and Johnson County residents fear for the future of the 3rd, redistricting also holds potential promise for Democrats at the state legislative level. Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat on the Senate Redistricting Committee, expects Johnson County to gain two or three House seats and an additional Senate seat.
House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer doubts increased urban and suburban representation will aid Democrats in breaking the longstanding GOP supermajority in both chambers. He said new lines could, and likely would, be drawn in a manner most favorable to Republican voters.
“Obviously the rural areas will lose some Republican seats but the new areas that are gained in Johnson and Sedgwick will be from Republican parts,” Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said.
But Patrick Miller, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, said he expects expanded representation in urban and suburban parts of the state will create more districts that are competitive for Democrats, including in Johnson County.
“You have a tough time putting that seat practically anywhere in the county and not having that seat be at least competitive,” Miller said.
‘Help these people stick together’
The challenge ahead for legislators is enormous and will likely consume much of the 2021 session that begins in January.
Adam Podowitz-Thomas, senior legal strategist at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a research group that analyzes legislative maps and seeks to end gerrymandering practices, said holding town halls before the release of Census data on Thursday wasn’t a bad thing. But he stressed the need for lawmakers to continue gathering public input now that the new numbers are out.
“The focus on this process is significantly higher than it was the last cycle. I think a lot of people sort of weren’t paying attention to redistricting in 2010, 2011, where it just seems like there’s a lot of attention and energy around it this time,” Podowitz-Thomas said.
In a Thursday night town hall at Kansas City, Kansas Community College, residents were eager to list the ways their community intersects with Johnson County. “Help these people stick together,” pleaded Clarence Brown, president of the United Auto Workers union in Wyandotte County, as the audience applauded.
Speakers urged lawmakers to return to Wyandotte and “get to know the community.” Breaking apart the urban and suburban counties, they said, would only dilute the voices of the state’s most diverse communities and discourage citizens from voting.
As the town hall wrapped up, a last resident, Matt Kleinman, rose with a warning. Drawing districts based on political goals would invite lawsuits.
“Just because we voted for somebody in this district that you do not agree with does not mean you can abridge our rights as citizens to vote for who we want to represent us,” he said.
“If you abridge our rights you better believe you will hear from us again.”
Correction: an earlier version of this story misspelled Ramon Murguia’s name.
This story was originally published August 15, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
