Kansas Republicans are cool to Trump’s redistricting drive : NPR

In September, Kansas Republican leaders mentioned they needed to affix the nationwide redistricting battle, initiated by President Trump, for management of the U.S. Home.

However even in a state that went for Trump by 16 proportion factors in 2024, Republicans couldn’t rally sufficient help this fall for a particular session on redistricting.

“I have never heard a great cause but to vote for it,” mentioned Mark Schreiber, one in every of 10 Republican holdouts within the Kansas state Home. “To me that is not the aim of redistricting. It is not used as a political instrument to extend your majority, it is to regulate for inhabitants modifications.”

Different Republican-led states — like Missouri, North Carolina and Texas — have heeded Trump’s name for brand spanking new congressional maps boosting the GOP. Final week, California voters permitted new districts favoring Democrats.

However Kansas’ false begin was only one instance of lawmakers pushing again towards a brand new spherical of partisan gerrymanders.

Republicans in Indiana and Democrats in Maryland have confronted scorn from celebration leaders for talking out towards proposed redraws. And in Ohio, the place many anticipated Republicans to enact a extreme gerrymander, a bipartisan deal resulted in a map that reasonably advantaged the GOP.

Why do some lawmakers oppose redistricting that might assist their celebration?

Lawmakers’ causes for bucking their celebration leaders seem to differ extensively, together with those that object to gerrymandering on philosophical grounds — and a few who merely concern the maneuvers might backfire.

“The particulars is likely to be a little bit idiosyncratic to each state,” mentioned Patrick Miller, a political science professor at Kent State College in Ohio.

Miller mentioned some states, like New York and Colorado, have submitting deadlines for congressional candidates that place an impossibly brief timeline on potential redistricting efforts, given the steps wanted within the states to craft a brand new map.

In the meantime, lawmakers in Kansas and Indiana raised eyebrows on the six-figure sums required to pay legislators outdoors of an everyday session.

Republican leaders in Kansas additionally confronted a novel problem. The state GOP would want to marshal almost the complete power of its supermajorities within the state Home and Senate to override a veto from the Democratic governor.

General, Miller mentioned, opposition to redistricting has not essentially come from a spot of righteous objection to gerrymandering.

“I am certain that there are some Republican legislators on the market who’re against Trump, who’re principled about … redistricting,” Miller mentioned. “However I do not see this as a pushback on Trump in any respect.”

Kansas state Rep. Clark Sanders mentioned gerrymandering is a “reality of life” in politics. However he opposed unexpectedly redrawing Kansas’ third District — held by the state’s lone Democrat in Congress, Sharice Davids — as a result of he thought it might backfire on Republicans.

“If we weren’t cautious, we’d find yourself redistricting and making it tough to additionally win within the 2nd District,” he mentioned.

Sanders mentioned he expressed the identical concern when he obtained a name from the White Home a number of weeks in the past, to speak about redistricting.

Final week, Republican Home Speaker Dan Hawkins stripped Sanders of a management place for refusing to log out on a particular session. He was one in every of seven committee chairs and vice chairs who had been demoted for failing to toe the celebration line on redistricting.

“It is unlucky that we misplaced our positions,” Sanders mentioned. “We simply … felt like we wanted to do what we wanted to do.”

Related objections have sparked infighting in different states. Maryland’s state Senate president, Democrat Invoice Ferguson, has stood in opposition to his governor by publicly opposing redistricting.

Ferguson has argued a authorized problem might place redistricting within the arms of the conservative-leaning state Supreme Courtroom — leading to new maps that damage Democrats, relatively than giving them a leg up.

“Able to journey”

Regardless of these setbacks, redistricting proponents in a number of states are nonetheless attempting to persuade holdouts — underneath the watchful eyes of the nationwide events.

Indiana lawmakers will weigh redistricting in December. And Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore not too long ago shaped a redistricting advisory fee, regardless of state Sen. Ferguson’s pushback.

Kansas Republican leaders have vowed to place maps earlier than lawmakers when their common session begins in January.

“I realized a very long time in the past that if you get thrown by the bull, you mud your self off and also you climb again on,” Home Speaker Hawkins wrote in a e-newsletter after his chamber rejected a particular session.

When lawmakers return to Topeka early subsequent 12 months, he mentioned, “Home Republicans might be able to journey.”

Even some holdouts in Kansas, like Republican state Rep. Adam Smith, mentioned they’d not dominated out the potential for voting to redistrict sooner or later.

“If there’s one other map that is drawn that appears a little bit bit extra consultant for my people, I might in all probability critically think about voting for that,” he mentioned.