KS Legislature to hold 14 redistricting town halls in 5 days. Will that limit input?

In May, the Kansas Legislature appeared ready to delay a statewide series of town halls on redistricting until after the U.S. Census Bureau released new population data.

Though there was some disagreement about whether to delay, the Senate leader of the redistricting effort, Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, said hearing from the public and taking questions on possible new congressional and state legislative boundaries before having full information could make lawmakers look “almost inept.”

But on Friday afternoon, the state’s Legislative Research Department released a schedule that, by Wilborn’s definition, risks exactly that. All 14 town halls would be shoe-horned into five days, from August 9 to 14. All but four would be held during the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. business day, limiting opportunities to attend after work hours. Census data is not expected until Aug. 16.

Each session will be limited to one hour and 15 minutes.

Historically, the town halls offer Kansans their best chance to weigh in publicly on what their congressional and state legislative districts should look like for the next decade.

Kansas Democrats have been on high alert since Republicans began discussing plans to draw Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District to help unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids. The compressed schedule has set off alarms.

“Republicans are treating redistricting the same way they treat the legislative process: hastily, sloppily, and with as little opportunity for deliberation and public input as possible,” Senate Minority Leader Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, said in a statement.

The state Democratic party called the schedule proof that redistricting would be a “sham.”

House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, urged his colleagues to reconsider a schedule that he said would effectively silence Kansans and damage the integrity of the process .

“Where is the accountability?” he asked in a statement.

In response, the Republican leaders of the House and Senate Redistricting panels accused Democrats of partisan games.

“By attacking what amounts to a calendar, Kansas Democrats demonstrate they would have leveled criticism regardless of the schedule,” Wilborn and Rep. Chris Croft said in a joint statement.

Mike Pirner, a spokesman for Senate President Ty Masterson, said Monday the schedule would provide more, not less, opportunity for public engagement.

“Committee leaders feel it is important to hear from people all across Kansas as we start the process,” Pirner said in a statement. “The sooner we begin, the more opportunity Kansans will have to weigh in as we move forward.”

There is room in the schedule to add additional meetings, and Kansans can give written input anytime. But the short notice could prevent working Kansans, or those busy with back-to-school plans from attending the initial sessions.

House Speaker Ron Ryckman, an Olathe Republican, said Tuesday that virtual town halls will be scheduled in the fall.

“This initial schedule is just the first step. It’s important to remember that redistricting is a multi-year process that starts with these town halls to get a gauge on what Kansans want,” Ryckman said in a statement. “The next step is for census numbers to come in so we can determine what the constitutionally required district size is supposed to be. After that, additional public input will be needed.”

He added that every redistricting committee meeting will be livestreamed and open to the public. He said the process had always been open and collaborative and process, adding that it was “disappointing and disingenuous for the Democrats to make it out to be otherwise.”

Still, the schedule left Republican lawmakers surprised as well. State Rep. Jim Kelly, an Independence Republican and member of the redistricting committee, said he would be unable to attend because of previously scheduled plans.

“I’m disappointed to see that it came really the week after it was announced,” Kelly said. “The timing just didn’t work for me and I’m sure that it won’t work for a number of other people.”

Gerrymandering Concerns

Since last fall, Kansas Republicans have spoken openly about a desire to draw congressional lines in a manner that could hamper the re-election efforts of Davids, the state’s only Democratic member of Congress.

State Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, said the small amount of time alloted for town halls was disrespectful to Kansans and that the decision to seek input prior to receiving census data would help lawmakers skew maps in favor of rural, more conservative, parts of the state.

“We’re showing that honestly that we care more about rural Kansas than we do about urban and suburban Kansas and most importantly, and I keep hitting on this, the literal economic engine of the state. And that’s wrong,” Clayton said.

Dave Daley, a fellow at FairVote, an organization that advocates for nonpartisan redistricting commissions, said Kansas is likely to have congressional and Legislative maps that disproportionately favor Republicans.

Such maps are common in any state with a single party exercising near universal control over the process, regardless of the party.

“There will likely be an epidemic of cracking and packing Democratic voters, in and around Kansas City especially, on these maps,” Daley said.

Town halls, he said, are voters’ best opportunity to prevent that. In a process that unfolds largely behind closed doors, the forums are give voters a chance to to explain what parts of their communities they believe are best grouped together and where common interests lie.

“In many states public shame is the only weapon citizens have against really distorted maps,” he said.

Impact of Public Input

Compared to the last redistricting in 2011, the 2021 edition is rushed and crunched when it comes to public town halls. In 2011, Kansas held its 14 redistricting sessions over the course of four months. Each was allotted about 2-and-a-half hours.

But long hours of public hearings don’t necessarily guarantee a fair outcome. Lawmakers weren’t able to come up with a plan, and the following year a federal court had to draw the lines.

Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican who was Senate president at the time, said he believed the Legislature could have more easily reached a fair map if they’d listened to the input residents gave at town halls.

“The House speaker and the governor pretty much ignored what was said at those meetings,” Morris said.

Yurij Rudensky, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, said often states with partisan redistricting processes are not particularly responsive to public input.

However, he said, the process remains important for bringing in community considerations.

The schedule currently planned in Kansas, he said, would disadvantage lower income Kansans or others with barriers keeping them from attending a meeting in the middle of the day.

“A public input process is only as good as if it is designed to actually reach a population and really reach all the communities within a state,” he said.

“People understand this issue better than they have in decades past, people are more engaged on this and they want to make their voices heard.”

In 2011 former Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley said the public hearing process was useful in combating a proposed map that would have placed Wyandotte County in western Kansas’ First Congressional District.

Hensley drew a map to show attendees what that would mean. Kansas Republicans have discussed pursuing a similar map in 2022.

“In these town hall meetings then that transpired between the 2011 and 2012 sessions, I was able to go around the state and make a presentation. We had the Census data already. And I was able make a presentation that showed this gerrymandered map of putting Wyandotte County in the First District,” Hensley said.

“It’s actually a disservice to the people of Kansas to do this process in a hurried manner like this.”