7/21/2011
By MARY CLARKIN The Hutchinson News

Redrawn political boundaries could shift Kansas City into the traditionally rural "Big First" Congressional District.

Redistricting is in an early stage, with public hearings scheduled to start next week.

In Salina, a hearing is scheduled from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Kansas State University at Salina.

In Hutchinson, a hearing is slated from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, in Hutchinson Community College's Shears Technology Center.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, is concerned that sliding an urban eastern Kansas corner into the 1st District -- and moving some 1st District counties, including possibly McPherson and Saline counties, into the 2nd District -- is not merely "a" plan but is "the" plan.

Speaker of the House Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, though, emphasized the process is in its early stages.

"I have seen no proposed maps nor drawn any," O'Neal, chairman of the House redistricting committee, wrote in an email.

O'Neal envisions Reno County will remain in the 1st District.

Congressional districts throughout the country are supposed to have comparable population numbers. Declining population in western Kansas will require the 69-county 1st District to expand.

Hensley, who is on the Senate's redistricting committee, said he's heard Republicans want to keep Shawnee, Douglas and Wyandotte counties, where voters have elected Democrats, in separate Congressional districts.

Shawnee County is the home of U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, so she would not be redistricted out of her 2nd District. Douglas County, now partially in the 2nd and 4th districts, would go into the 3rd District.

That leaves Wyandotte County, and the 1st District. The 4th District, anchored by Sedgwick County, is too distant to be an option.

After hearing the Republican strategy, Democrats looked at the math and the map and concluded Wyandotte, Leavenworth and Atchison counties, as well as other smaller northern-tier counties now in the 2nd District, would be moved into the 1st District.

State Sen. Tim Owens, an Overland Park Republican, is chairman of the Senate redistricting committee. Asked if the 1st District could be stretched to the Kansas-Missouri border and include Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Atchison counties, he confirmed in an email that he has "heard that one consideration being discussed is one similar to what you have described."

Owens cautioned that it is "way early to be putting anything out there because anything that is proffered will cause unnecessary concern to someone."

State Sen. Chris Steineger, R-Kansas City, said he had heard the idea of moving Kansas City into the "Big First" several months ago, and he considered it "a crazy idea." It would be impossible for a representative to adequately represent the Kansas City area and western Kansas, in his view.

The needs, people and lifestyles in the regions are very different, Steineger said.

Such realignment "does a disservice to western Kansas," Hensley said. Also, Wyandotte and Johnson counties have always been together, he added.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Meade County farmer, was elected last year in the 1st District. All members of Congress, as well as state legislators and members of the Kansas State Board of Education, will run for office in 2012 in district boundaries established through redistricting.

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