Kansas Legislature to focus on Congressional Redistricting
The main issue that the Kansas Legislature will face when its members meet for the 2022 session next month will be Congressional Redistricting. Members of the Legislative Committee learned this when they met Friday, Dec. 10 via ZOOM. The Committee is part of the Kansas City, Kansas, Area Chamber of Commerce.
There is concern that Johnson and Wyandotte counties would be severely split. One proposal would put Wyandotte County in the same district as much of Western Kansas. Political leaders in Wyandotte County are opposed to such a plan.
Kansas has four congressional districts with each district having 734,470 persons. Based on the 2020 Federal Census, Wyandotte County had 169,245 persons and Johnson County had 609, 863 persons. Add those together, you get 779,108. That is 44,638 too many persons for a Congressional District. One solution might be to put all of Wyandotte County in a district along with most of Johnson County. The rural and semi-rural parts of Johnson County could be put in another district.
Conservative Republicans want to dilute the Democratic vote, particularly in the Third Congressional District where U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids is the incumbent officeholder.
“There are leaders in the Kansas Legislature who have explicitly stated their motivation to gerrymander maps to their party’s political advantage,” she said. “I know people are tired of feeling like billionaires have more of a say than they do in our democracy, tired of having their voices taken away by partisan gerrymandering.”
Rep. Davids is encouraging the U.S. Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act that has, in part, passed the U.S. House. The bill would set national standards and end partisan gerrymanding, Rep. Davids said.
The Chamber’s Legislative Committee is working on the final draft of its 2022 Legislative Agenda. Many of the items are similar to the Agenda for 2021. Historically, the Chamber has supported Star bonds—a state mechanism that allows sales tax money to pay for infrastructure of a major economic development project such as Legends Outlet. It also has supported reasonable rates for stormwater abatement. Concerning property taxes, the Chamber has favored a plan that would allow for a “phase-in” period of any property tax increases so business and residential taxpayers could have time to budget for payments.
Murrel Bland is a former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is executive director of Business West.