Five minutes later, new state lines

2/8/2012

By MICHAEL SMITH

Insight Kansas

Apparently, the entire state of Kansas can be redistricted in only five minutes.

A brief background: The Kansas Legislature is currently redrawing the lines of the state's four congressional districts, which must be equal in population. A joint legislative committee released their proposed map on Feb. 1. The current Big First in western and central Kansas needs to gain more people, the Kansas City-area Third needs to shed people, and the Second is stuck in between them.

The obvious solution is to shift the Second eastward, gaining eastern Lawrence and Eudora from the Third while losing Manhattan to the First. However, there is intense political pressure to keep Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth together in the Second. Finally, the Wichita-area Fourth may see the least change.

For our redistricting contest, we invited readers to draw proposed maps using a free software program called Dave's Redistricting. Five readers entered the contest, and three submitted more than one map. Columnist Chapman Rackaway of Fort Hays State University and I judged. The criteria, taken from California's Voters First Act, required districts to be compact and contiguous, represent minorities fairly, keep communities of interest together whenever possible, and be drawn without regard to any incumbent or political party.

Co-winner Michael Danish claims that he drew his "Clean Lines" map in only five minutes. Yet, he managed to produce a map with compact, contiguous districts. His map keeps communities of interest together and features relatively low variation in population between districts.

He even managed to put Hutchinson together with the rest of the Wichita area in the Fourth (though Independence moved to the Second). Danish moved all of Lawrence, currently split, into the Second district. To rebalance the Third's population, he added a few precincts of southern Leavenworth County (but not the city of Leavenworth or any of the military facilities there).

Danish's proposal does move Manhattan and Fort Riley into the Big First. However, this has the advantage of putting Manhattan and Junction City together, unlike the current districts.

Co-winner Allen Shafer's districts are also clean, contiguous and compact. Furthermore, they respect communities of interest. Like Danish, Shafer moved Manhattan into the Big First. The Fourth did not gain Hutchinson, but it did retain Independence. All of Lawrence is placed in the Second district. Shafer chose to take the Third south into growing, northern Miami County. Amazingly, his map splits only two counties in the entire state.

Go to insightkansas.wordpress.com to see all of the maps. Steven Pratt and H. David Goering each submitted maps that keep Manhattan/Fort Riley in the Second. Additional maps submitted by Danish and late entrant James Hamilton do so as well. Keeping Manhattan in the Second requires either splitting up the K.C. area, or created an ungainly Big First district that "wraps around" the Second and Fourth districts. Some even took the First from Colorado to Missouri.

Pratt, Hamilton and Danish each proposed a "minority representation" district, cutting a swath along Interstate 70 through urban, northeastern Kansas. Hamilton also submitted a map featuring variations on the current districts.

Will the results of this contest affect actual redistricting this year? We figured it couldn't hurt to try, so a multimedia presentation of all of our entrants' maps is on the way to the chairs of the state's House and Senate redistricting committees right now. While Kansas does not have a nonpartisan redistricting commission like Iowa or California, Kansans can still draw the lines.

Michael Smith is an associate professor of political science at Emporia State University.