Topeka ? The Senate gave tentative approval Wednesday to a bill redrawing Kansas House districts and discussed how to respond to Gov. Bill Graves’ veto of a proposed new Senate map.

The Senate must approve the House redistricting proposal on final action, scheduled for today, before it can go to Graves. He is expected to sign the bill.

Kansas City-area Democratic senators, from left, Mark Gilstrap, Chris Steineger and David Haley, look over a redistricting map on the floor of the Senate chamber at the Statehouse in Topeka. On Wednesday, the Senate gave initial approval to a redistricting plan for the state House of Representatives; a remapping of senatorial districts approved by both legislative chambers has been vetoed by Gov. Bill Graves.

In redrawing the 125-district House map, representatives put two incumbent Democrats in each of two districts and a Democratic incumbent against a Republican in two more districts.

The plan also accounts for population shifts over the past decade that give Johnson County and the Wichita area more representation at the expense of some rural areas.

“I think the governor is comfortable with the House bill as it is currently written,” said Graves spokesman Don Brown. “I would assume his support is likely.”

By tradition, each chamber approves the other’s map. On Tuesday, Graves vetoed a plan for redrawing the 40-Senate districts, citing a lack of committee involvement and public input into the final plan.

A coalition of 10 Democrats and 11 conservative Republicans introduced and passed its own plan during Senate on a bill, substituting it for a plan endorsed by the committee and backed by Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson.

Coalition members said their Senate plan left the cores of existing districts intact including those of most incumbent Democrats. Critics suggested the plan drew other districts, especially in Johnson County, to help conservative Republicans.

The coalition’s map placed Sens. Janis Lee, D-Kensington, and Larry Salmans, R-Hanston, in a new district. Lee and other Democrats said that would give her a better chance in 2004 than the Kerr-backed map, which paired her in a new district with a fellow coalition member Sen. Stan Clark, R-Oakley.

The Senate Reapportionment Committee plans to meet soon to consider options for a new map and will hold public hearings.

“We’ll get to work on it immediately and get it done as fast as we can,” Kerr said. “I think we will have some hearings. The right way to do it is to do it in public.”