Topeka ? A three-judge panel Tuesday promised to rule quickly on whether the state’s new congressional district boundaries are constitutional.

“We recognize that time is of the essence,” said Deanell Tacha of Lawrence, who is heading the panel and is chief judge of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “We will move as fast as we can possibly move.”

Tacha said the judges understood the importance of reaching a quick decision because of primary elections set for Aug. 6 and a July 9 filing deadline for congressional candidates.

Her comments came after a nearly two-hour hearing in which the congressional district plan approved recently by the Legislature came under scrutiny for splitting so-called “communities of interest.”

The Attorney General’s Office said the Legislature improperly placed Junction City in a different congressional district than neighboring Fort Riley, and Democratic legislators challenged the plan for splitting Lawrence between two congressional districts along Iowa Street.

The three judges Tacha and District Judges Julie Robinson and J. Thomas Marten asked numerous questions about whether splitting communities of interest was unconstitutional.

Richard Hayse, an attorney representing the Kansas Secretary of State’s office, defended the plan, saying it represented a balance among competing interests as the Legislature redrew congressional boundaries to equalize population in the districts in accordance with shifts tallied in the 2000 census.

Politics? Yes

Some of the Legislature’s decisions were political, and there was nothing wrong with that, he said.

Several times, judges asked if there had ever been a congressional redistricting plan overturned because the plan split a community of interest. The answer was no.

But attorney Robert Eye of Lawrence, representing Democrats opposed to splitting Lawrence, said the Legislature failed to make the four congressional districts as nearly identical in size as it could have. There is a deviation in district populations of 33 people. But with computer mapping capabilities, the districts could have been drawn with no deviation, he said.

The differences in district sizes, Eye said, opened the door for the judges to scrutinize lawmakers’ motives. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that if districts are not as equal as possible, the votes of people living in overpopulated districts are worth less, violating their constitutional rights.

Kansas Democrats have claimed that Republicans in control of the redistricting process split Lawrence to weaken Democratic U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore’s base. Moore is the only Democrat in the Kansas delegation.

Eye said lawmakers could have approved a congressional map that didn’t split Lawrence or Junction City from Fort Riley, and had a smaller deviation of population. In fact, he said, during public hearings on redistricting, the two most vocal groups were those opposed to splitting Lawrence and as well as Junction City with Fort Riley.

Did Lawrence ask?

But Robinson responded, “The fact that there may be a better plan doesn’t mean this one has to be shelved.”

After the hearing, state Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, and one of the chief architects of the congressional map, said he enjoyed the judges’ persistent questioning.

“This was a hot court. They were prepared to ask questions from the get-go,” he said.

At the outset, the judges persistently questioned Assistant Atty. Gen. Scott Hesse, wanting to know under what authority the office was suing the state on behalf of private citizens of Junction City. Usually, the Attorney General’s Office defends the state.

Hesse said the office had an overriding interest in defending voting rights. “We want to make sure our citizens are properly represented in the United States Congress,” he responded to a question from Tacha.

Robinson then asked Hesse why the office decided to represent Junction City interests and not those of Lawrence.

Hesse replied the office decided to represent the group “that asked us. No one else asked.”