By Gene Meyer | Kansas Reporter
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate voted Wednesday to include Manhattan, the state’s second largest university town, in the sprawling 1st Congressional District.
Some of Manhattan's leaders say they aren't pleased with the move.
Officials in Manhattan, in northeastern Kansas, say they want that city to remain in the 2nd Congressional District because the interests of Kansas State University and of a new federal
National_Bio_and_Agro-Defense_Facility— a federal animal disease research complex slated for Manhattan — are more in line with institutions east of Manhattan instead of those to the west.
Manhattan and Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas, historically have worked together for to deal with policies and programs that affect those communities. Manhattan, near the Fort Riley home of the 1st Infantry Division, and Leavenworth, home of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, similarly work together for military policies they say would benefit Kansas.
But Manhattan, the state's ninth largest community with nearly 53,800 residents, also is the largest city in what the Senate has proposed as the new 1st District.
State lawmakers need to increase the 1st District’s population by about 58,000 people to meet strict federal equal-representation guidelines, which require each Kansas congressional district to include about 713,280 residents. The state's population grew 6 percent during the past decade, to 2.85 million, the U.S. Census reported in December.
Wednesday’s vote to move Manhattan into the primarily rural and thinly populated 1st District “didn’t come as a total surprise,” said Manhattan Mayor Jim Sherow.
Manhattan leaders say they may fare better when the Kansas House debates the Senate's plan, Sherow said. “We believe the Speaker (state Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson) favors leaving Manhattan in the 2nd District.”
O’Neal could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
“Otherwise, things are going to be very different,” Sherow said. “Instead of meeting in Lawrence and Topeka to work on our common issues, we’d be going to Atwood, Ulysses or Kingman. That’s a crazy circuit for anyone from Manhattan.”
Manhattan's historic 2nd District sphere of operations are concentrated in an area that stretches roughly from Riley County to the Kansas-Missouri line, about 130 miles to the east. But shifting that sphere to the west would require trips of 300 miles or more to smaller communities that, in some cases, are closer to Denver than to Topeka.
"You're dealing with the interests of an area that's three-fifths of the state, rather than just the 2nd District," Sherow said, "That's a big difference."
The congressional redistricting plan on which the Kansas Senate voted Wednesday extends the 1st District of west and central Kansas east to include Manhattan, Kansas State University and Fort Riley. It moves all of Lawrence, and the University of Kansas, into U.S. Rep Lynn Jenkins' 2nd District. Much of eastern Lawrence and bordering Douglas County are now in the 3rd District, which also includes Kansas City and the Johnson County suburbs of Kansas City, Mo.
Jenkins, a Republican, is a member of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, which northeastern Kansans will count as an asset as the federal government begins tackling its own budget issues.
The 3rd District, which is Kansas' geographically smallest and represented by U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, a Republican, shrinks further to include Johnson, Wyandotte and the southern part of Leavenworth counties.
U.S. Rep. Tim Huelscamp, also a Republican, represents the 1st District. U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Wichita Republican, represents the 4th District, which is not squeezed as much in the new plan as the 2nd District.
"Manhattan has always looked to the east for congressional representation," said Lyle Butler, president and chief executive of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, which spearheaded the area's campaign to remain in the 2nd District.
"We have associations with Fort Leavenworth because of Fort Riley, we have the two major Regents universities, K-State and the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and now we have NBAF, the bio-defense facility," Butler said. "That is the western end of an animal health research corridor that extends all the way to Columbia, Mo."
The National Bio- and Agro Defense Facility, or NBAF, is a $650 million government-run animal disease research laboratory complex. The federal government proposes to build the complex in Manhattan to replace a 1950s-era lab in Plum Island, N.Y.
Manhattan leaders and leaders from surrounding Riley County have proposed alternative redistricting plans that would leave their homes and businesses in the 2nd Congressional District but extend other parts of the 1st District almost to Topeka.
"But we're not locked into any one map. We're just locked in to staying in the 2nd District," Butler said. "It's up to folks (legislators) in Topeka to sort out where the lines are."
The Senate plan now goes to the Kansas House for debate, and then to conference committees if the House passes a different plan. Any redistricting plans that pass the Legislature and are signed by the governor also must be validated by the Kansas Supreme Court in time to take effect by the statewide primary elections in August.
Kansas senators rejected two other congressional redistricting proposals that would have left Manhattan in the 2nd District. One stretched part of the 1st District to Topeka and the other stretched an either thinner piece of the proposed district all the way to the Missouri border.
Kansas Republican Party Chairwoman Amanda Adkins said that, of the choices available this week, Kansas Republicans could support a plan like the one proposed by state Sen. Mike Petersen, R-Wichita. It keeps Manhattan in the 2nd District, but splits Topeka between the 1st and the 2nd districts, putting the western half of the capital city in the 1st District.
"No map is perfect, but that one is acceptable from the standpoint of the Republican Party, " Adkins said.
Adkins previously complained that the plan the Senate passed Wednesday skewed Democratic voter registrations in the 2nd District.
“This is gerrymandering,” state Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said after Petersen’s plan was introduced. “It’s an effort to take a large number of Democratic votes out of western Topeka and put them in the 1st District.
“Shawnee County (of which Topeka also is the county seat) has been in the 2nd District as long as I can remember,” Hensley said.
Senators voted down Petersen’s plan, 22-17.
Senators on Wednesday also rejected a proposal by state Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan, to leave that city in the 2nd District and make up the population difference by extending the 1st District east through all of the state’s northern border counties to the Kansas-Missouri line.
