TOPEKA (AP) — Big changes are in store for the Kansas Legislature, after Monday’s deadline to run in the August primary election passed with dozens of newcomers seeking seats and some incumbents pitted against others because of political redistricting.
Candidates had until noon to submit paperwork to the Kansas secretary of state’s office in Topeka and pay the necessary fees. Last-minute filers typically come from across the state to the capital.
But the hours leading up to the deadline were more hectic than usual this year because the three federal judges handling a redistricting lawsuit issued new maps for political districts late Thursday. The judges acted in response to a lawsuit over the Legislature’s failure this year to adjust congressional, legislative and state Board of Education districts to account for population shifts over the past decade.
Newcomer Stephen Muehleisen, a Great Bend forklift operator for Great Bend Industries, decided Sunday night to run for the Kansas House as a Democrat in the 112th District. He said he posted a “wisecrack” on Facebook, and saw comments urging him to run. He’s seeking an open seat, and when asked about the challenge, he said he served in the 1970s in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
“The first time out of the helicopter, I wasn’t sure I could do it until I hit the ground,” he said.
Great Bend Republican John Edmonds has already filed for the seat presently held by Bill Wolf, R-Great Bend, who has indicated that he is retiring. In 2007, Edmonds retired from the Kansas House of Representatives after 12 years.  
Three Democratic candidates for Congress filed Monday, setting up contests for the right to challenge two Republican incumbents, U.S. Reps. Lynn Jenkins and Mike Pompeo. But most of the filing activity concerned legislative races.
Six of 40 Senate districts have no incumbent, and 43 of 125 House seats are open. New political boundaries also mean that in two Senate districts and at least 10 House districts, incumbents will run against incumbents.
“To have three days to figure it out, that was kind of crazy,” said state Rep. Richard Carlson, a St. Marys Republican now in a primary race with Rep. Trent LeDoux, of Holton, after redistricting.
Several legislators disclosed Monday that they weren’t running again, and seven House members launched campaigns for the Senate, doubling the number.
One potential Senate candidate, conservative Wichita Republican Rep. Brenda Landwehr, dropped her bid to unseat moderate GOP Sen. Jean Schodorf, also from Wichita, after the judges drew her out of Schodorf’s district. Instead, Landwehr filed to challenge fellow Rep. Nile Dillmore, a Wichita Democrat, calling the race “a new adventure.”
Landwehr could have moved to challenge Schodorf, but she said, “I like living in my house.”
Some incumbents were willing to move. Rep. Clark Shultz, a Lindsborg Republican, was thrown into the same district as Rep. Steve Johnson, an Assaria Republican. He has an apartment in McPherson and plans to hunt for a home there. Shultz said his family had been thinking about a move for some time, anyway.
“This is not the timing I had in mind,” he acknowledged.
About 170 candidates filed Monday for state and congressional offices, according to a list from the secretary of state’s office, bringing the total to more than 400. Secretary of State Kris Kobach said that with the late change in political boundaries, it represented a strong showing.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties scrambled to lock down commitments from legislative candidates over the weekend. Most Senate districts feature a primary race, as do almost half the House districts.
“I haven’t had this much fun in 20 years,” said Kansas Democratic Party Chairwoman Joan Wagnon, a former Kansas House member. “We got this court decision that threw everything up in the air, and it came down in logical districts.”
Not everyone was thrilled. LeDoux wondered aloud whether the judges intentionally tried to throw incumbents together. He then rejected the option of moving to an open district to avoid a race with Carlson, saying, “I’m no carpet-bagger.”
House Majority Leader Arlen Siegfreid, an Olathe Republican, said, “This is what happens when the Legislature doesn’t do its constitutional duty (on redistricting). It will sort itself out.”
Redistricting was a factor for Lawrence attorney Bob Eye, seeking the Democratic nomination in Jenkins’ 2nd Congressional District of eastern Kansas. The judges’ lines made the district more Democratic, and Eye, who’s unhappy with Congress, said he felt he had to “come off the sidelines.”
He’ll face the Rev. Tobias Schlingensiepen, on leave as senior pastor at First Congregational Church in Topeka, in the primary. Schlingensiepen filed Monday but had announced his candidacy last month.
Filing Monday as a Democrat in the 4th Congressional District of south-central Kansas was Esau Freeman, a house painter and artist from Wichita. He’ll face retired court services officer Robert Tillman, of Wichita, for the right to face Pompeo.