TOPEKA, Kan. — If votes Friday were any indication, Kansas legislators have all but given up on approving proposals to redraw the state's political boundaries. Instead, Republican factions jockeyed to see that their favored maps are presented in a federal lawsuit over the redistricting process.
Kansas is the only state that hasn't passed a plan to adjust congressional districts, owing mostly to a bitter dispute among conservative and moderate Republicans. The rift also has blocked proposals for new Kansas House, Senate and State Board of Education districts, and threatens to delay the Aug. 7 primary.
A May 29 hearing is scheduled in a federal lawsuit filed by Robyn Renee Essex, a Republican precinct committee member from Olathe, over the Legislature's failure to redraw political boundaries by accounting for population shifts over the past decade.
Five individuals sought permission Friday to join the lawsuit, including House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat. They contend that neither Essex nor Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the defendant, will adequately represent their interests.
The others seeking to intervene are Overland Park business leaders Benjamin Craig and Larry Winn III; former Democratic state Rep. Bill Roy Jr., of Lenexa, and Frank Beer, a Manhattan resident. Davis said he expects more people to file similar requests.
"This is going to be the case where we deal with redistricting issues with the Legislature probably not being able to draw any maps," Davis told The Associated Press. "I want to be able to weigh in."
The litigation prompted moderate GOP leaders in the Senate to push a plan they favored to redraw the chamber's 40 districts. Their measure passed Friday 21-17 with support from Democrats. And the House gave first-round approval, 56-54, to a congressional redistricting plan favored by its conservative GOP leaders, with final action set for Saturday.
But neither proposal is expected to get serious consideration in the other chamber and exist mostly so that the three federal judges will have other plans to look at.
"We're all talking about courts, and no one — I don't care who they are — in this state knows what will happen with the courts," Senate President Steve Morris, a moderate Hugoton Republican, told The Associated Press. "So it doesn't hurt to have alternatives out there for the courts to consider."
Kobach has asked the federal court to rule on redistricting by June 4, which would allow Kansas to comply with a federal law requiring ballots to reach military personnel overseas by June 23 and hold the primary as scheduled.
The dispute over a new Senate map has been the most contentious of the redistricting battles, and is driven by a struggle between GOP conservatives and moderates for control of the chamber in this year's elections. The outcome will determine whether the Senate remains a check on conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's agenda.
The proposal approved by the Senate Friday shuttles at least three conservative candidates out of the districts of the moderate GOP incumbents they'd intended to challenge. It also put two conservative Republican senators in the same district.
Conservatives castigated their colleagues during an angry debate.
"We can't stop it, and it's sad," said Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, a Grinnell Republican.
Many legislators believe that conservatives' proposals were designed to oust GOP moderates and Democrats.
A key feature of the latest congressional map from the conservative-controlled House is how Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas, is split between two districts.
The city is now divided between the 2nd District of eastern Kansas and the 3rd District, centered on the Kansas City metropolitan area. The proposal would keep part of Lawrence in the 2nd but put heavily Democratic parts into the overwhelmingly Republican 1st District. That district includes rural communities in central and western Kansas that are 400 miles or more away.
The measure also creates slightly more Republican districts for three of the four members of the state's all GOP delegation in the U.S. House.
The redistricting lawsuit is Robyn Renee Essex v. Kansas Secretary of State, No. 12-cv04046 in the U.S. District Court for Kansas.
Online:
U.S. District Court for Kansas: https://ecf.ksd.uscourts.gov/
Kansas Legislature's redistricting site: http://redistricting.ks.gov
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