photo by: Kansas Legislative Research Department

This map of Kansas congressional districts was drawn in 2012. Based on current population trends, the next reapportionment is done in 2022, the 3rd District around Kansas City will either have to shrink or be split.

TOPEKA — There are contested races this year in all four of the state’s congressional districts. But in just a few years, those districts will look very different from how they look today.

In 2022, the next governor and Legislature will have to redraw those district lines to balance out their populations based on the 2020 census. And since the last federal census in 2010, the population of Kansas has shifted strongly toward the Lawrence and Kansas City areas.

In fact, based on the most recent estimates, made in 2017, the growth that has occurred just in those four counties — Johnson, Wyandotte, Douglas and Leavenworth — accounts for 112 percent of all the population growth that has occurred in the state. Meanwhile, 86 mostly western and southeastern counties have lost population.

The governor Kansans elect this year, and the legislators they elect two years from now, will be the ones who redraw those district lines. And depending on whom the voters elect, those lines will be drawn to favor either Republicans or Democrats, and to either protect or threaten the sitting incumbents at that time.

No matter what, though, those lines will have to reflect the fact that the state’s population is now heavily weighted in northeast Kansas.

“Redistricting is one of the most purely political processes there is, if you don’t have a redistricting commission or a neutral body,” University of Kansas political scientist Burdett Loomis said in an interview. “It is by definition political.”

It is so political, in fact, that the last time it was done in 2012, the sharply-divided Kansas Legislature couldn’t agree on a plan, and the maps ended up being drawn by a panel of three federal district court judges.

That was the year when then-Gov. Sam Brownback was trying to push through his massive tax overhaul while, simultaneously, he and his allies were recruiting conservative candidates to run against incumbent moderate Republican senators.

The four districts of Kansas

Based on an analysis by the Journal-World of the most recent population estimates, from 2017, Kansas, with a little more than 2.9 million residents, is on track to keep all four of its congressional districts.

Under the U.S. Constitution, there are 435 seats in the U.S. House, and each of the 50 states is entitled to one seat. To apportion the remaining 385 seats, the Census Bureau uses a priority ranking formula based on each state’s population.

Based on that formula, if districts were apportioned today according to the 2017 estimates, the fourth district assigned to Kansas would rank 341st in priority out of the 385 seats available. That makes it highly unlikely that anything could happen in the next three years to cause it to fall below the cutoff line.

But the shapes of the Kansas City-based 3rd District and the 2nd District, which includes Lawrence and much of eastern Kansas, would have to change dramatically.

Currently, the 3rd District is made up of Wyandotte and Johnson Counties, plus some of the northern townships in Miami County.

But if congressional districts were drawn today, parts of the 3rd District would have to be moved into the 2nd District. That’s because Wyandotte and Johnson counties are now too large for a single district when you put them together.

That means parts of those counties would either have to be shaved off and moved into a newly reshaped 2nd District or, if the decision makers want to keep those two counties intact, the heavily Democratic Wyandotte County and the heavily Republican Johnson County would have to be split into separate districts, creating two Kansas City-based congressional seats.

Loomis said that could create one heavily Democratic district, if Wyandotte County were combined with Douglas County. Or it could result in Douglas County and the city of Lawrence being split into separate districts as they were following the 2000 census.

A lot of what happens, he said, will depend on the outcome of this year’s gubernatorial election.

“Right now, that can’t be very high on anyone’s minds except party leaders who are trying to get a governor elected — either (Secretary of State Kris) Kobach or (incumbent Gov. Jeff) Colyer or one of the Democrats,” he said. “If there’s a Democratic governor, there would have to be serious negotiations.

“But you also have to think about the three parties in the Legislature — the moderate Republicans, conservatives and the Democrats,” Loomis said. “You’ve seen in the past, sometimes, interesting bedfellows when it comes to coalitions in the Legislature. And it may not revolve much around ideology.”

Other districts and other states

The 1st District of Kansas has traditionally been considered the “western Kansas” district. But because of population losses there over the last few decades, that district now stretches to the western edge of Shawnee County and takes in the city of Emporia.

There is no doubt that will happen again following the 2020 census, but how that will affect the eastern Kansas 2nd District and the Wichita-based 4th District is yet to be determined.

Meanwhile, Wichita and Sedgwick County have grown about 3 percent since 2020, a little more than the statewide average. But most of the surrounding counties that are also part of the 4th District have lost population.

Overall, the 16 counties that make up the 4th District have grown by a combined 13,149 people, or about 1.8 percent, so its contours would not have to change greatly.

The impact of the population shift on state legislative seats is harder to predict. That’s because for those districts, Kansas adjusts its census, statistically reassigning college students and military personnel to their home counties, something that has a big impact on Lawrence and Douglas County.

Nationwide, there will also be shifts in how many representatives other states get. That not only affects the balance of power in Congress, but also in the electoral college during presidential election years.

Based on the 2017 estimates, California, the most populous state, stands to keep its 53 districts but would not gain any more.

Texas, which has added nearly 400,000 residents since the 2000 census, is on pace to add two congressional districts, taking it to 38 seats, while Florida, which has added nearly 328,000 residents, stands to gain one seat.

On the losing end, New York is on pace to lose its 27th District, while Minnesota stands to lose its 8th District.