A plan released Wednesday by leaders of the Kansas House and Senate is a worthy attempt to try to take most of the politics out of the state’s redistricting process.

The bitter 2002 redistricting battle was only the latest installment of a process that is, as House Minority Leader Paul Davis said, “the most partisan thing we do in this building.” Hard feelings over the way the districts were redrawn in 2002 had a negative impact well into the next legislative session.

According to the proposal, the districts for members of the U.S. House, the Kansas House and Senate and state school board all would be drawn by the nonpartisan Legislative Research Department. Department employees would be instructed to use most of the same “objective” criteria that legislators supposedly use in the current process. The problem is that the objective criteria of redistricting often are ignored in favor of various political agendas. In the proposed process, department employees would be specifically instructed to disregard political implications when drawing the maps.

They would be charged with drawing districts that balance population numbers as nearly as possible and consider demographic data covered by the federal Voting Rights Act. The districts would need to be compact, contiguous and follow political subdivisions.

That last issue often is referred to as preserving a “community of interest” during redistricting. Lawrence residents became aware of that term in 2002, just before the city — which clearly was a single “community of interest” — was split, for political reasons, between two U.S. House districts. Legislators balked at placing all of Lawrence, and its many Democratic voters, in the 3rd District, represented by Democrat Dennis Moore. Having two U.S. representatives hasn’t worked out all that badly for Lawrence, but the split clearly ignored the “community of interest” standard. There also were strong feelings, pro and con, relative to Lawrence being lumped into the Kansas City area or paired with Topeka.

Once the Legislative Research Department has completed its work, a “redistricting commission” appointed by legislative leaders would conduct public hearings on the plan, which then would have to be approved by both the House and Senate before going to the governor. If the Legislature votes the plan down, it goes back to Legislative Research for revisions. According to the law proposed this week, there is no limit on how many times the Legislature could send the plan back, which could be a problem if lawmakers decide to use the plan as a political football.

If passed this session, the bill would be just in time to change the process for the next redistricting cycle, which will occur after the 2010 session. The proposal was revealed Wednesday with the joint backing of Senate President Steve Morris, Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley and House Minority Leader Davis. The conspicuous absence of House Speaker Mike O’Neal from that list may be significant in assessing the bill’s chances of passage this year.

Nonetheless, we hope this bill gets a full and fair hearing this session. The proposal represents a considerable improvement over the current politicized redistricting process.