Rep. Sharon Schwartz, R-Washington, a 20-year veteran of the Kansas House and former chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, has announced she will not seek re-election to her 106th District seat this year, a move that could clear the way for former Rep. Clay Aurand of Belleville to return to the Statehouse.

Schwartz and Aurand have been longtime friends, but they were pitted against each other when their districts were combined during the 2012 reapportionment. The district stretches along the Nebraska border and now includes Marshall, Republic and Washington Counties and part of Jewell County.

Schwartz served as head of Appropriations during the 2007 and 2008 sessions, when Rep. Melvin Neufeld was Speaker of the House.

One Democrat, Beth Owens of Hanover, has already filed in the race, and it’s expected that at least one other Democrat will also file. But the district leans strongly toward Republicans. Gov. Sam Brownback carried it with more than 60 percent of the vote in 2014.

Schwartz said in a telephone interview Tuesday that Aurand has indicated he plans to file, but she said there may be as many as three Republicans in the race.

Meanwhile, competition is heating up in west Topeka, where a Democrat has filed to run in the 20th Senate District, a seat currently held by Republican Sen. Vicki Schmidt, who has already filed for re-election.

Schmidt was one of the few moderate Republicans who survived the conservative takeover of the Senate following the 2012 GOP primaries. She barely survived a primary challenge against conservative Joe Patton, winning that primary by just 160 votes out of more than 11,000 votes cast, for a margin of 1.5 percent.

Last week, Patton filed to run again in that race, and on Monday, Candace Ayars, a Topeka physician, filed as a Democrat, which would potentially give some moderate Republicans a place to go should Patton win the GOP primary this time.

The district includes the upscale portions of west Topeka and western Shawnee County, along with a big portion of the more conservative Wabaunsee County. Politically, it’s about evenly split. Democrat Paul Davis carried the district in the 2014 gubernatorial race, 55-41 percent, but Republican Mitt Romney carried it in the 2012 presidential race, 54-44 percent.

And in Sedgwick County, former U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin Poteete of Goddard, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, has filed as a Democrat to run against Republican Sen. Dan Kerschen of Garden Plain in the 26th District.

Kerschen was first elected to the House in 2008 and was one of the conservatives allied with Gov. Sam Brownback, who defeated an incumbent GOP senator, Dick Kelsey, in the 2012 primaries. He was unopposed in that year’s general election.

That district leans strongly toward Republicans. Brownback carried it with 56 percent of the vote in 2014, and Romney carried it with 69 percent in 2012. It includes part of southwest Wichita as well as the cities of Haysvile, Clearwater, Goddard, Garden Plain and Cheney.