Category: Gov. Laura Kelly

Kansas Senate overrides the governor’s veto of Republican redistricting plan

The Senate override advances the map to the House. An override in that chamber would put the controversial redistricting plan into state law.

by Stephen Koranda, Kansas News Service and KCUR

A last-ditch effort to override the governor’s veto of a controversial congressional redistricting plan succeeded in the Kansas Senate Tuesday, setting up a high-stakes vote in the House to put the map into law.

The Senate voted to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a redistricting plan that critics have said is gerrymandered to hurt Democrats and defeat U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the state’s only Democratic member of Congress.

The Senate vote came after the initial vote fell short Monday. Republicans used a procedural move to give them another day and another chance to pressure lawmakers to support the plan.

The 27-11 vote fell along party lines and was the bare minimum needed for an override in the Senate. The override initially failed Monday with 24 votes in favor. Two Republican lawmakers did not vote for or against the bill during the final override effort.

Republican Sen. Alicia Straub from Ellinwood was one of the lawmakers who faced pressure over the last day to switch from opposing to supporting an override. She switched her vote Tuesday.

“This is not about standing with the governor,” Straub said. “This is about standing for freedom.”

Another senator who switched his vote, Republican Mark Steffen from Hutchinson, supported the override while at the same time criticizing the plan because it puts Lawrence in the vast, conservative 1st District of western Kansas.

“They are dumping the Lawrence liberals in our lap,” Steffen said after voting to support an override. “Insidious redistricting will kill off the true conservative character of my beloved Big 1st.”

Steffens’ vote switched just hours after a bill he supported was advanced in the Legislature. A committee voted to support a bill that would limit investigations of physicians who prescribe unproven COVID-19 treatments. It would also allow parents to claim religious exemptions to any vaccine requirement at schools and daycares.

Steffen, a physician, has said in the past that he is under investigation by the state’s regulatory board, the Board of Healing Arts.

“We see what happens when you get 24 hours and you get to make some backroom deals to get your way,” Senate Democratic Leader Dinah Sykes, from Lenexa, said during the vote. “I am disappointed in this chamber.”

Democrats continued to criticize the map Tuesday for the way it divides the state’s congressional districts and splits the racially diverse Democratic stronghold of Wyandotte County.

“This map is a travesty,” Overland Park Democratic Sen. Cindy Holscher said. “When we do things like this, democracy dies a little bit.”

The state Republican Party wasted no time after the initial vote failed Monday, sending out an email alert urging people to call Republican senators who hadn’t supported the override.

“We cannot have Kansas Republicans voting to support Laura Kelly’s agenda,” the email read.

Kelly vetoed the bill because she said it violated redistricting rules by diluting minority votes and breaking apart communities.

“(The map) does not follow these guidelines and provides no justification for deviation from those guidelines,” Kelly said in her veto message last week.

Republicans have argued the changes are needed because of population shifts in the state.

If the House also votes to override the veto, the plan will likely still face a legal challenge.

The proposal draws districts for the state’s four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Kansas lawmakers must draw a new map every 10 years to account for population shifts documented in the U.S. Census.

Democrats have blasted the plan because they say it’s aimed at diluting the votes of left-leaning communities and people of color in an effort to defeat the state’s lone Democratic member of Congress.

Rep. Davids, a Democrat, holds the 3rd District seat in the Kansas City area. The plan would split part of Wyandotte County out of the 3rd District and replace it with Republican-leaning rural counties southwest of the Kansas City area.

The map would also move the left-leaning community of Lawrence from the 2nd District into the large, conservative 1st District that stretches west to the Colorado border.

Jim McLean of the Kansas News Service contributed to this report.
Stephen Koranda is the news editor for the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter @Stephen_Koranda or email him at stephenkoranda (at) kcur (dot) org.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-02-08/kansas-senate-overrides-the-governors-veto-of-republican-redistricting-plan

Kansas Senate fails to override governor’s veto of GOP-drawn congressional map

A map produced by Republicans in the House and Senate would place Lawrence in the 1st District, which stretches to the Colorado border, and split Wyandotte County between 2nd and 3rd districts. (Submitted)

by Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Senate President Ty Masterson found inspiration in the 1987 movie “Princess Bride” on Monday as he urged senators to override the governor’s veto of a GOP-drawn congressional map.

Then, something inconceivable happened.

Despite their GOP supermajority, Republicans failed to gather the 27 votes necessary to override the veto. They deployed a procedural maneuver to hold the chamber under lockdown for hours and force two absent senators to show up and vote. The pressure tactic failed with a 24-15 final tally.

Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican, avoided the chamber for three hours before showing up to vote in favor of the override. Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat who would have supported the governor, was at a doctor’s appointment. Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the override: Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha; John Doll, R-Garden City; Alicia Straub, R-Ellinwood; and Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson.

Masterson joined the opposition at the last moment in a procedural move that will allow him to make a motion to reconsider the override at a later date.

For now, the Senate vote kills the fast-tracked attempt to weaken Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids’ chances for reelection by dividing the Kansas City metro between two congressional districts. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly used her veto authority last week to block the effort.

Democrats in the Senate renewed their assault on the map, which is known as Ad Astra 2, calling it an obvious attempt to gerrymander districts in a way that benefits Republicans and saying it dilutes the voting power of a majority-minority community in Wyandotte County.

Masterson, an Andover Republican, dismissed those concerns: “We heard words like ‘disenfranchisement,’ ‘gerrymandering.’ I think what comes to mind actually is a quote from ‘Princess Bride’ and Inigo Montoya: You keep using those words, and I don’t think they mean what you think they mean.”

The quote refers to the 35-year-old movie and its hero’s response to a character who keeps describing developments as “inconceivable.”

Throughout the months-long redistricting process, Democrats have urged Republicans to forge a bipartisan compromise. For Democrats, the failure to override the governor’s veto was like a fairytale come true, with four Republican senators saying, effectively, “As you wish.”

Davids, the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, represents the Kansas City area’s 3rd District. The GOP-drawn map would have split Wyandotte County along Interstate 70, replacing the Democratic stronghold to the north with a swath of Republican voters in Anderson, Franklin and Miami counties.

The northern half of Wyandotte County would move into the 2nd District. That addition would be offset by carving heavily Democratic Lawrence out of Douglas County and placing it in the 1st district, which stretches to the Colorado border.

Republican leadership introduced the map early in the session and held hearings two days later, where lawmakers heard overwhelming opposition from residents in Wyandotte County and Lawrence. The Legislature sent the map to the governor in less than a week on party-line votes.

“The truth is, we did not adhere to our guidelines. We did not listen to the testimony. We did not do our best work,” said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa. “And the truth is that we can work together to pass a map that is good for all Kansans.”

Three Republicans, Doll, Steffen and Straub, flipped their votes from Jan. 21, when the Senate passed the Ad Astra 2 map on 26-9 vote. Thompson also voted in favor of the map at that time.

The Senate session ended Monday in a hostile exchange between Sykes and Masterson over the maneuver to adjourn.

GOP leadership rushed to adjourn in an attempt to avoid a motion by Democrats to reconsider the override — a second vote would permanently kill the legislation containing the Ad Astra 2 map.
“You have failed Kansans today by stopping the vote and conversation on this matter, and I am appalled,” Sykes said.

A defiant Masterson said he couldn’t “let those accusations stand.”

“I understand the games that are being played,” he said.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/02/07/kansas-senate-fails-to-override-governors-veto-of-gop-drawn-congressional-map-redistricting/.

Kansas governor vetoes GOP congressional map, calls for bipartisan compromise

A map produced by Republicans in the House and Senate would place Lawrence in the 1st District, which stretches to the Colorado border, and split Wyandotte County between 2nd and 3rd districts. (Submitted)

by Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Gov. Laura Kelly on Thursday vetoed a GOP-drawn congressional map that would divide the Kansas City metro and place Lawrence into a rural district that stretches to the Colorado border.

The Republican-dominated Legislature adopted the map, known as Ad Astra 2, along party lines and could attempt to override the governor’s veto. Democrats accused Republicans of gerrymandering congressional boundaries to make it more difficult for U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, to get re-elected.

Wyandotte County residents said the map would dilute the voting power of a community where a majority of voters are Black or Latino. The map places the northern part of the county in the 2nd District while leaving the area south of Interstate 70 in the 3rd District, where Davids has won two terms.

Republicans offset the addition of Wyandotte County voters to the 2nd District by carving Lawrence out of Douglas County and placing it in the 1st District.

Lawmakers passed the map in Senate Bill 355 by a 26-9 vote in the Senate and 79-37 vote in the House.

Kelly, a Democrat running for re-election, said the Legislature ignored its own redistricting guidelines for preserving the voting power of minority communities and protecting communities of interest.

The Democratic governor said the map “does not follow these guidelines and provides no justification for deviation from those guidelines.”

“I am ready to work with the Legislature in a bipartisan fashion to pass a new congressional map that addresses the constitutional issues in Senate Bill 355,” Kelly said. “Together, we can come to a consensus and pass a compromise that empowers all people of Kansas.”

Republican leaders refused to say who exactly drew the Ad Astra 2 map and rejected criticism by Democrats, residents and advocacy groups. Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said Davids would win re-election with the redrawn boundaries — a contested assertion based on presidential votes in Anderson, Franklin and Miami counties.

Senate Republican leaders in a statement said they were disappointed in the governor’s veto.

“All in all, the Ad Astra 2 map will serve Kansas well, and accordingly, we will work to override the governor’s veto in short order,” the statement said.

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, said the governor’s veto provides lawmakers “an opportunity to reflect on our failures.”

“A once-in-a-decade constitutional responsibility must be treated with great care,” Sykes said. “The Legislature owes it to current and future Kansas voters to be good stewards of this process, and it’s clear the Ad Astra 2 map falls short.”

The ACLU of Kansas and other advocacy groups urged the governor to exercise her veto authority.

House Republican leaders in a statement said Kelly’s action makes it clear she is “beholden to New York special interests.

“This isn’t the first time the Legislature has had to step up to protect Kansans from Laura Kelly’s partisan agenda,” the statement said. “It is no coincidence she pulled out the veto pen just hours after the ACLU told her to.”

Rep. Brandon Woodard, D-Lenexa, responded to the statement on Twitter: “What in the dogwhistle politics does this mean?!”

House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat who served from 1987-1998 and has served since 2003, said Ad Astra 2 is “the most gerrymandered map I have seen in my legislative career.”

“It was an insult to Kansans,” Sawyer said. “I sincerely hope my colleagues across the aisle are dedicated to moving forward with a fair bipartisan map without gerrymandering and ensures every Kansan’s vote counts.”

Sen. J.R. Claeys, R-Salina, tweeted: “Live look at where we are now in the Kansas #KSLeg redistricting process” with an image that reads, “I just ignore and override. Push forward.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/02/03/kansas-governor-vetoes-gop-map-that-divides-kansas-city-carves-out-lawrence/