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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — High Republicans pushed their congressional redistricting plan by way of the GOP-dominated Kansas Legislature with out a lot hassle Wednesday with an anticipated court docket battle looming over whether or not it will go too far in hurting the state’s solely Democrat in Congress.
The Home’s 79-37 vote sends Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly a invoice that might break up the Kansas Metropolis space into two congressional districts and transfer the liberal northeast Kansas metropolis of Lawrence right into a district with much more conservative central and western Kansas communities, some six hours away by automobile. The Senate authorized the measure final week.
Underneath the brand new map, Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids would lose a few of the neighborhoods in her Kansas Metropolis-area third District the place her assist is strongest. Redistricting is an enormous problem for each main events as Republicans search to regain a U.S. Home majority on this yr’s elections.
Democrats have strongly criticized the plan as partisan gerrymandering, and Kelly has mentioned a number of occasions that she needs to maintain a lot of the Kansas Metropolis space in a single district.
“It isn't a map I'd have voted for,” Kelly, a former state senator, mentioned, with out committing to a veto.
Republican leaders appeared to have the two-thirds majority essential to override a Kelly veto within the Senate. However it’s not clear whether or not they have one within the Home.
Nearly all GOP lawmakers supported the plan, even western Kansas lawmakers from areas that former President Donald Trump carried by greater than 80% of the vote. The brand new traces would make Lawrence, house to the principle College of Kansas campus, the district’s largest metropolis.
“So long as they've finished their calculations appropriate and I don’t should cope with having a Democrat characterize me within the 1st ever in my lifetime, I feel we're effective with it,” mentioned Dustin Roths, the GOP chairman for Ellis County in northwest Kansas.
Republicans mentioned the brand new traces stemmed from the necessity for the state’s 4 districts to have as near the identical variety of residents as attainable. The plan has all of them on the splendid variety of 734,470.
“The map drawn is truthful to all 4 incumbents, and every of them would have gained their district with the election totals of 2020,” mentioned Rep. Steve Huebert, a Wichita-area Republican.
Nonetheless, lawmakers in each events count on a court docket battle whether or not the GOP plan turns into regulation or not. Prior to now, three federal judges have reviewed the maps and in 2012, the judges have been compelled to attract the traces as a result of a bitter battle between average and conservative Republicans stored something from passing.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court docket declared in a 5-4 ruling that whether or not a map is simply too unfair to 1 social gathering is a political problem and never for the federal courts to resolve. However some Democrats wish to get a congressional map earlier than the Kansas Supreme Court docket — which generally doesn’t evaluate them — for a ruling on whether or not partisan gerrymandering violates the state structure.
Northern Wyandotte County within the Kansas Metropolis space could be faraway from the third District and put within the neighboring 2nd for northeast Kansas. Wyandotte County is among the many state’s few Democratic strongholds and Davids carried it 2-to-1 in 2020.
Critics of the GOP map argue it’s unacceptable as a result of it decreases the variety of Black and Hispanic voters within the third, diluting their voting energy. Republicans word that the 2nd District would grow to be extra numerous, however that hasn’t assuaged native residents’ frustrations after dozens of them advised lawmakers in hearings that the Kansas Metropolis space shouldn't be carved up.
“They have been gaslighting Wyandotte County residents into considering that they cared what they thought and wasted folks’s time to come back out and communicate their reality,” mentioned Dustin Hare, founding father of an area group that aids the poor and homeless.
The change for Lawrence, which separates it from the remainder of its house county, has additionally been extensively criticized by native residents and officers.
For even a few of the map’s backers, the change appeared to come back out of nowhere. However Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, mentioned it was partly a response to Wyandotte County residents saying they didn’t wish to go into the first District with western Kansas. Some GOP lawmakers pushed that concept in 2012 when the first District additionally needed to decide up new residents.
“It was abundantly clear they didn't wish to be within the 1st, so I needed to honor that,” mentioned Masterson, one of many map’s architects.
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.
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Andy Tsubasa Area is a corps member for the Related Press/Report for America Statehouse Information Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit nationwide service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points.
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On Twitter, comply with John Hanna at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna and Andy Tsubasa Area at https://twitter.com/AndyTsubasaF