Kansas Court Strikes Down Gerrymandered Congressional Map

For Immediate Release
April 25, 2022
Contact
Brooke Lillard
Lillard@redistrictingfoundation.org

Washington, D.C. — Today, a judge in the Wyandotte County District Court issued a decision to strike down the newly-enacted congressional map as a partisan gerrymander that dilutes the vote of Black and Hispanic voters in and around Kansas City, in violation of a number of provisions in the Kansas Constitution. The lawsuit, Rivera v. Schwab, was filed in February 2022 by Kansas voters and the nonprofit organization Loud Light with the support of the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF). The full opinion is available here.

“This decision is a victory for Kansans across the state, who raised their voices demanding a fair congressional map, and were ignored by their Republican-led legislature. The court rightfully halted a map that would have diminished the ability of many Kansas voters, but particularly the state’s voters of color, to participate in the democratic process and elect members of Congress who accurately represent their communities,” said Marina Jenkins, Director of Litigation and Policy for the NRF. “Republicans underestimated the tenacity of Kansans and our preparedness to fight against their extreme gerrymander.”

Key Excerpts from Wyandotte County District Court:

¶469: The Court concludes that Ad Astra 2 constitutes an intentional and effective partisan gerrymander in violation of Sections 1, 2, 3, 11, and 20 of the Kansas Bill of Rights, as well as Article V, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution.

¶470: Ad Astra 2 is also unconstitutional on the independent and distinct ground that it dilutes minority votes in violation of the Kansas Constitution’s equal rights and political power clauses. Kan. Const. Bill of Rights, §§ 1, 2.

¶496: The future of Kansas democracy rests securely in the wise, competent, strong hands of the citizens. It is not the province of the court to tell Kansans what their choice should be.

p. 6 (introduction): How strong are Kansans? Strong enough to expect nothing more than a level playing field devoid of partisan advantage for one group of Kansans. Strong enough for the merits of the issue to be the deciding factor. Strong enough to make their political decisions based upon the content of a candidate’s character rather than the color of their political party.

About the Republican gerrymandered congressional map (Ad Astra 2):

Based on the 2020 Census data, Kansas will maintain the same number of congressional seats over the next decade, and the most populous and diverse part of the state is the Kansas City metropolitan area. Instead of maintaining a largely status quo map, as supported by the trends demonstrated in the Census data as well as their own guidelines, Kansas Republicans enacted Ad Astra 2, a gerrymandered congressional map that inexplicably shifted a large number of Kansans out of their prior districts, in violation of the state’s redistricting guidelines. This practice primarily targeted Wyandotte and Douglas counties, which include predominantly Democratic voters and voters of color.

Specifically, the gerrymandered congressional map cracked the Black and Hispanic communities of Kansas City into two separate districts, and diluted the votes of those communities by lumping them into districts that are overwhelmingly white and Republican. Instead of preserving the Kansas City metro area in one congressional district, the gerrymandered map unnecessarily divided the metro area in half. By using the I-70 interstate as a dividing line that runs through the middle of Kansas City, the gerrymandered map followed a division that added insult to injury for the communities of Wyandotte County. Initially built in the 1950s as part of the Kansas Interstate, the portion of I-70 traversing Wyandotte County divided up minority communities decades ago. The gerrymandered congressional map divided that county along the same line, reinforcing those racial scars.

The gerrymandered map also split apart Douglas County, which contains the City of Lawrence and is one of the more diverse counties in Kansas, with about one in four residents identifying as a member of a minority community. It also placed Lawrence into a separate district from the rest of Douglas County in spite of a 2012 court ruling against this tactic. The 2012 court decision specifically said that the areas were “more appropriately placed entirely within” the same district. The splitting of these communities is a textbook case of “cracking.”

###