The way Tom Burroughs sees it, the congressional redistricting map, approved by the Kansas Senate Friday, Jan. 21, soon will sail through the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.
Burroughs, is the Democratic state representative from the 33rd District, which includes southwestern Wyandotte County. He is upset that the map splits Wyandotte County into two congressional districts along I-70. The area south of I-70 would be in the 3rd District; the area north would be in the 2nd District.
Such a map would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for a Democrat to be elected to Congress from Kansas. It could mean that U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids would lose her seat. In an interview with MSNBC, Davids said of the Republican efforts, “If you can’t beat them, cheat them.”
Burroughs attended 14 hearings on redistricting throughout Kansas last summer. He said that overwhelmingly, most people at the hearings favored keeping Wyandotte County in one congressional district.
Burroughs predicted that Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, would veto map legislation. That would probably mean the lines then would be drawn by a federal judge as it was in 2012. That would mean that an unelected person would be doing the job that the Kansas Legislature should have done.
Dinah Sykes, the minority leader in the Kansas Senate, said the redistricting bill violated several redistricting guidelines agreed to by legislative leadership.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Wyandotte County was split into two Congressional Districts. Republican Larry Winn was from the 3rd District; Dr. Bill Roy and Martha Keys were both Democrats from the 2nd District. The advantage was having two people, one Republican and one Democrat, serving the same county.
There was an “alternative map” in the Kansas Senate proposed by Dennis Pyle, a senator from the 1st District, which is in far northeastern Kansas. Pyle proposed keeping Wyandotte County whole in the 2nd congressional district, which also includes Douglas, Shawnee and Riley counties.
State Sen. David Haley, who represents northeast and central Wyandotte County, said he voted for the Pyle map. He said Pyle, although a Republican, tends to be an independent thinker.
Murrel Bland is a former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is an advisory director of Business West.
Connie Brown Collins, a Wyandotte County resident, said during a news conference Monday at the Statehouse in Topeka that lawmakers awakened a sleeping lion with their proposal to divide the Kansas City metro area between congressional districts. (Photo by Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector)
by Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
Topeka — Wyandotte County resident Connie Brown Collins says new congressional boundaries passed by the state Senate appear to “literally cut through backyards” of several diverse communities.
Republicans in the Legislature have fast-tracked an effort to redraw congressional districts in a way that would divide the Kansas City metro area along Interstate 70.
As a result, Brown Collins said during a news conference Monday at the Statehouse, 39,000 Latino residents and 30,000 Black residents would be relocated from the 3rd District, the only one in Kansas currently represented by a Democrat, and into the 2nd District. This “population shuffle,” Brown Collins said, will decrease the voting power of a majority-minority vote.
“If legislators think we in Wyandotte County are snoozing through this travesty, that we are not aware or we do not care, think again,” Brown Collins said. “You have awakened a sleeping lion.”
Kansans for Fair Maps, a coalition of advocacy groups, organized the news conference to elevate the voices of residents in the Kansas City metro area who are upset about the proposed new map. They spoke in front of the Brown v. Board mural on the third floor, a tribute to the landmark civil rights case that ended segregation in public schools.
Senate and House redistricting panels introduced the Ad Astra map favored by Republicans during a hearing last week and heard overwhelming opposition in testimony. The Senate panel proceeded to pass a version of the map that corrected the oversight of splitting the Kickapoo Indian reservation between districts. On Friday, the full Senate endorsed Ad Astra 2.
The House panel held additional hearings Monday.
“The House process is still ongoing. It has been fair, deliberate and transparent,” the House Republican leadership said in a statement for this story. ” We look forward to seeing the results of the committee’s work.”
Under current lines drawn by courts a decade ago, the 3rd District currently includes the Kansas City metro area that sprawls across Wyandotte and Johnson counties. U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat, American Indian, and the first openly LGBTQ member of Congress from Kansas, won election there in 2018 and retained the seat in 2020.
Republicans redrew her district to eliminate Democrats’ votes in the northern half of Wyandotte County and move Republican strongholds from Anderson, Miami and Franklin counties into the district.
“The way this map is drawn really diminishes her chance of being reelected,” said Tom Witt, of Equality Kansas. “The voters chose her, and they chose her twice. And now Senate leadership is trying to choose different voters for her. I don’t know how the rest of you grew up, but I grew up in America where democracy matters.”
Thomas Alonzo said he has lived in Wyandotte County his entire life, except for when he served in the military. He said his Kansas City, Kansas, community’s interests are deeply tied to their neighbors to the south.
The Ad Astra map “demonstrates a lack of competent, moral and ethical leadership,” Alonzo said.
“There is nothing democratic or patriotic about deliberately cutting up a district to prevent its voters from having the ability to select individuals to represent us that will protect our interests,” Alonzo said.
Liz Meitl lives in Johnson County and works for the Kansas City, Kansas, public school district in Wyandotte County. She said there are thousands of others who work in one county and live in the other. Their lives are interconnected, she said.
“When you divide us by congressional districts, you are creating schisms, unnatural schisms that both perpetuate racist and systemic institutionalized inequalities and perpetuate a system in which the elites disenfranchise voters,” Meitl said.
Senate Republican leaders have dismissed concerns about the way the map affects the voting power of Democrats and communities of color. The map also moves heavily Democratic Lawrence from the 2nd District to the rural 1st District.
Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said all four members of congress would retain their seats based on 2020 election results, although Witt said that claim hasn’t been verified since underlying data was made available late Thursday.
“On balance,” Senate Republicans said in explaining their vote, “this map will serve the state well for the next decade.”
A map proposed 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)
STAR bond success: $150M MLS stadium debt retired in less than seven years
by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
Topeka — The Overland Park retail, office, hotel and residential development attached to the Prairiefire museum struggles to attract out-of-state tourists and could default on $64.8 million in bond debt issued through a state economic development program under scrutiny by the Legislature.
Auditors with the Legislature said their analysis of the PrairieFire project built with capital raised through issuance in 2012 of Sales Tax Revenue Bonds, or STAR bonds, indicated the project wasn’t generating enough sales tax revenue to repay debts in the required 20-year period. Originally, $64.9 million in bonds were issued for the project. Debt remaining to be paid: $64.8 million.
Auditors predicted it could take until 2046 or 2104 to produce sufficient sales tax revenue to retire the PrairieFire obligations held by the city of Overland Park.
“They are in danger of default,” said Andy Brienzo, of the Legislature’s audit division. “We can’t say that definitively. There is some additional development that is slated to happen.”
Bob North, general counsel with the Kansas Department of Commerce, said he didn’t share skepticism of auditors but also couldn’t guarantee success of Prairiefire, which includes a museum for traveling natural history exhibits. The commerce department has approved 19 STAR bond projects since the 1990s for Atchison, Garden City, Salina, Wichita, Topeka, Goddard, Manhattan and other cities.
He said museums, racetracks, sports facilities and other venues build with of $1.1 billion in bond proceeds were intended to raise the quality of life for benefit of Kansans and to attract tourists to the state. He said the objective of STAR bonds wasn’t simply generation of tax revenue.
“If they were, we’d take our money and build a bunch of Walmarts,” North said. “The goal of STAR bonds is to create attractions that are going to bring visitors to the state.”
The House and Senate commerce committees this week invited the Kansas Division of Legislative Post Audit to outline findings of a 2021 audit of STAR bond initiatives. Auditors discovered only three projects outside of the mega-development at Village West in Wyandotte County that fulfilled the objective of elevating tourism.
“STAR bonds are a very, very effective and strong economic development tool,” North said. “They’ve worked well in most instances. I’m not going to tell you every project is perfect.”
Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican, said she was disappointed with the quality of information submitted to the state by STAR bond recipients.
“As we look at the annual reports that were submitted to the Department of Commerce,” she said, “some of it doesn’t give real data. It might say visitation went up 30%. Well, 30% from what number?”
Sen. Jeff Pittman, D-Leavenworth, said the assessment of STAR bonds by legislative auditors was “a particularly narrow evaluation.” It was based on estimates of out-of-state visitors and documentation of sales tax revenue but didn’t take into account other evidence of economic development such as the multiplier effect of those new businesses, he said.
“I have some issues with some of this,” Pittman said.
The latest STAR bond annual report submitted to the Legislature by the Department of Commerce pointed to success of Children’s Mercy Park where the Sporting Kansas City professional soccer team plays. It’s become one of the state’s top tourist destinations.
To build the MLS soccer complex, $150 million in STAR bonds were issued in 2010. That debt was paid off in less than seven years.
Jake Reid, president and chief executive officer of Sporting Kansas City, said the franchise derived significant benefit from the STAR bond law and the private-public partnership with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and the state of Kansas.
“We’re the second-smallest market in our league, yet we often times consistently punch above our weight class in terms of on-field results as well as the business results,” Reid said. “On average, we drive over 600,000 per year through Children’s Mercy Park.”
