Can Congress stop the gerrymandering war? What two Kansas reps say – The Topeka Capital-Journal

As some states across the country gerrymander their congressional districts ahead of this year’s elections, two Kansas representatives have differing takes on whether Congress can stop the partisan redistricting war.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, said Congress can “absolutely” do something about it.
“I think partisan gerrymandering should not be a thing,” Davids said. “One of the first bills that I supported when I got to Congress would have banned political gerrymandering. I think that we need to do that.”
U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt, R-Kansas, said it is up to states.
“We’ll see what happens with the rest of this election cycle and then how this all turns out for folks,” Schmidt said. “I don’t particularly care for how this is unfolding, but it is unfolding.
“Ultimately, it’s a state decision. Your question is, could there be a federal law? And the reality is, under our system, it has always been the practice that states make these decisions for themselves, and that’s where we are.”
“We can’t expect people to feel like their government cares about them if we see legislatures all across the country and the President of the United States saying that politicians should be choosing their voters and not the other way around,” Davids said.
As the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, Davids was the target of a failed gerrymandering effort in the past year. Kansas Republicans said they wanted to redraw her 3rd Congressional District, but lawmakers didn’t have the votes.
“As a Kansan — and I think this is true of Kansans across the state — we want people to have a fair shot,” Davids told reporters on May 11 while in Topeka to file for reelection.
The Capital-Journal asked her whether Congress can do something about it.
“One of the first bills that I supported when I got to Congress would have disallowed or made it illegal to do partisan gerrymandering like what we’re seeing,” Davids said. “I do think that no matter which party is trying to do it, that there are real consequences for the American people when we have gerrymandering like what we’re seeing. It’s destabilizing.”
Davids said there is “a lot of frustration and anger” among her Democratic colleagues from southern states that could be targeted by gerrymandering following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
“It is an extreme thing to say that a political party should be able to maintain power by changing maps,” she said. “I think there’s probably going to be a big backlash from voters about these extreme attempts to restrict their voting rights.”
Schmidt was asked about redistricting during an April 29 telephone townhall where a caller from Pittsburg noted Republican and Democratic gerrymandering across several states.
“Seems really crazy, patently unfair,” the caller said. “It seems like a bipartisan issue. Can’t you create a bill that would nationalize a fair system that creates districts based on location and not political party?”
Schmidt said the equal protection requirements in “the Constitution requires — the courts have told us — that the overarching principle that applies here is one person, one vote.” That means redistricting is necessary “to account for population shifts.”
“In Kansas, it’s just a reality,” he said. “We’ve seen for many, many years now a trend where people tend to move out of some of our more rural communities and they move into our metro areas, like Johnson County, the Kansas City area. And so as Johnson County gets more people and some of our other areas have fewer people, we have to redraw boundaries. The states have to redraw boundaries so that you keep that one person, one vote principle.”
Johnson County is the state’s most populous and is an electoral stronghold for Davids. Had Kansas Republicans pushed forward with gerrymandering efforts this year, they likely would have had to split Johnson County into at least two if not three districts.
“Not surprisingly, typically, Republican state legislators, given a choice, would prefer districts that are more likely to elect Republican members of Congress,” Schmidt said. “Democrat state legislators, given a choice, all things being equal, are probably more likely to like districts that are going to elect more Democrat members of Congress.”
Schmidt said politics is one of many considerations during redistricting.
“Some states have decided to attempt to move away from that by having, for example, a redistricting commission that is supposed to be non-political and that doesn’t consider Republican and Democrat numbers. It looks at other factors. We’ve seen in this midterm redistricting that doesn’t always work.”
He pointed to California and Virginia, where state lawmakers and voters set aside their nonpartisan commissions in efforts to benefit Democrats. Schmidt also acknowledged the Republican efforts in Texas and Missouri, and that “Kansas considered redrawing, and ultimately our state legislators decided not to go down that path.”
“I don’t like to see this at all,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think it’s a good exercise.
“Having lived through redistricting rounds in the state, it usually is a pretty bitter pill because it tends to be such a partisan exercise. And that makes it harder for state legislators to do other things that are more important to people on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, here we are.”
Kansas last redistricted in 2022. The congressional maps drawn by Republicans sparked accusations of partisan gerrymandering, with Democrats pointing to Lawrence being scooped into the Big First and Kansas City, Kansas, being split between the 2nd and 3rd Districts. Despite the split, Davids still won reelection.
Schmidt was attorney general at the time, meaning his office was tasked with defending the maps in court. While Schmidt’s office argued that courts should not impose limits on partisan gerrymandering, Schmidt previously supported a failed effort to have nonpartisan research staff draw maps and indicated continued support for such a constitutional amendment.
The maps were initially struct down as unconstitutional by Wyandotte County District Court Judge Bill Klapper, who said they were “an intentional, effective pro-Republican gerrymander that systemically dilutes the votes of Democratic Kansans.”
A divided Kansas Supreme Court reversed that decision and upheld the maps. The justices held in-part that partisan gerrymandering is not unconstitutional in Kansas.
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.

source