To the editor:
This week the Kansas Senate and House of Representatives both passed the “Ad Astra 2” Congressional map as part of the every-10-years redistricting process that is happening across the nation. Depending on what you read or listened to, this map was either the best solution possible or a flat-out gerrymander, with little opinions in between.
The League of Women Voters of Kansas (LWVK) does not support the Ad Astra 2 Congressional map due to issues that go beyond these talking points. We believe the best and fairest districts are based on input from the people who reside in them and the process of drawing Ad Astra 2 did not take that into consideration to the extent possible. We also never learned how this map was created or why decisions were made. A map created behind closed doors should not be allowed to guide our state’s future.
During debate in the House and Senate, several referred to redistricting as a political process, which is true – politics is not inherently negative, it’s the partisanship that most people oppose. Rep. Steve Huebert even said that gerrymandering and partisan politics are “just things that happen.” We adamantly disagree. Gerrymandering and partisan politics are what happen when our elected officials consider party affiliation above the actual voices of their constituents.
As a nonpartisan organization with a 102-year history of empowering voters, LWVK wanted to create a map above the fray of partisan politics, following the legislative committee’s guidelines in addition to the traditional redistricting guiding principles of equal population, contiguousness, compactness, not diluting minority voting strength, and keeping precincts, municipalities, and counties whole to the extent possible. We did not consider partisan demographics or competitiveness, nor did we consider the incumbent’s home address or competition between two incumbents.
We also followed the League’s own position statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), to consider the racial breakdown of precincts and districts as a community of interest that may or may not be defined in a geographical boundary. Plus, we incorporated suggestions given in testimony at the Redistricting Town Halls held in August and November 2021. Further, we gathered communities of interest information and obtained consensus with League members and other community members.
The result was the Bluestem Congress map, one of several maps considered in both redistricting committees and on the floors of both chambers this week. While not perfect, it hews to the principles identified by our Legislature and best practices in redistricting. The map itself was not the only goal behind our submission; we wanted our state to see that fair maps are possible when partisanship is taken out of the equation.
We acknowledge that map drawing, and the redistricting process as a whole, is complicated. Maps can be drawn thousands of different ways and not one will be perfect or satisfactory to every legislator. Ad Astra 2, however, did not truly follow the committee’s own process by minimizing the importance of communities of interest, thus diluting the votes of many Kansans. By not “showing its work,” the proponents of this map committed an injustice to voters across our state. We implore them to do better.
Jacqueline Lightcap, Topeka and Martha Pint, Topeka
Co-Presidents League of Women Voters of Kansas
