U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the Democrat serving the 3rd District, is the target of Republicans who want to redraw congressional district maps to make it easier to defeat Davids in 2026. In this image, Davids speaks to supporters Nov. 5, 2024, in Overland Park while winning reelection to a new two-year term. (Chloe Anderson for Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Maneuvering by Republicans to convene a special legislative session in November to realign the state’s four congressional districts prompted U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids to dust off her 2022 playbook to fend off the GOP’s last attempt to gerrymander her out of office.
Davids was elected in 2018 by Republicans, Democrats and independents in a 3rd District dominated by voters in Wyandotte and Johnson counties. She won reelection by double digits in 2022 and 2024, despite efforts by Kansas GOP legislators to undercut Davids by removing the northern half of Wyandotte County from the 3rd District and adding three rural counties.
Davids, who is the only woman, Native American and Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, denounced the new gerrymandering campaign under development by Kansas Republicans. She said advance work on a legislative session to transform the state’s 3-1 partisan split into a 4-0 GOP monolith was designed to appease President Donald Trump.
“Let’s be clear. Kansans deserve fair representation. Not backroom deals,” Davids said. “Republicans in Topeka know their politically motivated plan to once again silence Kansans and gerrymander the state isn’t popular, which is why they’re trying to do it in secret.”
She said sprinkling Johnson County voters across multiple GOP-controlled districts would require Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins to break commitments to a map keeping Johnson County united as a community of interest. In 2022, Masterson and Hawkins said it was fair to have Johnson County as the core of the Kansas City-area’s 3rd District.
“They are breaking their promise to not split up Johnson County and putting their political futures and Donald Trump’s demands ahead of Kansans’ voices,” Davids said. “Voters, not politicians, should choose their representatives.”
Sarnecki 100% on board
Philip Sarnecki, a Johnson County businessman and Republican candidate for governor, said there should be no hesitation by the Legislature to deliver for Trump.
“I met with President Trump’s political team at the White House … and discussed redistricting in Kansas,” Sarnecki said. “I am 100% in favor of redrawing the congressional map and adding a Republican seat in Congress.”
Masterson, an Andover Republican and also a candidate for governor, told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday that work of organizing a special session in Topeka — likely Saturday, Nov. 8 — to engage in reapportionment was a matter of “working out the details.” He told the Topeka Capital-Journal it was “disingenuous at best” for Gov. Laura Kelly to demand the Legislature convene public meetings to gather input on how congressional maps might be redrawn ahead of 2026 elections.
“If our congressional delegation, particularly our Republican delegation, is united behind it, I don’t see why we wouldn’t take it up,” Masterson told Fox4 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Hawkins, a Wichita lawmaker seeking the Republican nomination for state insurance commissioner, said “we’re not there” yet on formally adopting a framework for a special session on reapportionment. Hawkins, as well as Masterson, would be better positioned to earn Trump’s endorsement if they delivered on redistricting in Kansas to undermine Davids.
Typically, Kansas governors would call the Legislature into special session. The House and Senate leadership could bypass tradition by gathering petition signatures from two-thirds of the Senate and House.
If the Legislature were to produce a map improving odds of a Republican sweep of the four U.S. House districts, the legislation would likely be vetoed by Kelly. The Legislature would need two-thirds majorities for an override — 84 of 125 members of the House and 27 of 40 members of the Senate. The GOP leadership in both chambers could afford to lose no more than four Republican members to complete an override and implement a new map — pending an inevitable lawsuit.
Reapportionment skeptics
Rep. Mark Schreiber, a Republican from Emporia, said he wouldn’t be among GOP lawmakers backing a new map. He said redrawing Kansas’ congressional boundaries outside the regular 10-year cycle tied to the U.S. Census couldn’t be justified.
“I’ve not heard a good reason yet to go back and redistrict. What we’re doing now is playing with the rules of the game. I just don’t see there’s wide (public) support for it,” Schreiber said.
Sen. Brenda Dietrich, a Topeka Republican, said remapping could regrettably make Republican U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt more vulnerable to a challenge in the 2nd District.
“I always worry about unintended consequences,” she said.
She said diluting influence of moderates in Johnson County also could trigger a backlash against Republican candidates in Kansas House races in 2026.
Sen. Cindy Holscher, a Johnson County Democrat campaigning for governor, said the public should contact state representatives or senators to register opposition to this unique round of congressional redistricting. She said the GOP’s strategy was about “making it easier for extremists to take control.”
“This proposal aims to dilute the votes of the hundreds of thousands of Kansans. There is no reason to redistrict mid-decade except to rig the system in one party’s favor over another. That’s not democracy. That’s cheating,” she said.
Kansans haven’t been clamoring for a new congressional map, said Sen. Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa. She said hypothetical maps for Kansas illustrate GOP electoral goals could be achieved by splitting the 3rd District into two or three sections.
“Why redraw the map the Republicans celebrated as fair just three years ago?” Sykes said.
In a Kansas City Star story, Rep. Bill Sutton, R-Gardner, said “it’s a questionable decision to redesign the districts anytime there’s a change in president.”
Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican, told the Star that breaking up Johnson County to shift political power “might end up maybe giving a court challenge a little bit more chance of succeeding.”
The Supreme Court
Legal challenges of a Kansas congressional map could wind up in front of the Kansas Supreme Court. It would be a near repeat of a battle leading to a 4-3 decision in 2022 upholding constitutionality of the GOP’s gerrymandered congressional map, which cut Wyandotte County in half and placed Lawrence in the 1st District.
Justice Caleb Stegall said in the majority opinion that lack of direction in the Kansas Constitution or Kansas law forbidding use of partisan political reasoning to shape congressional districts left the state’s highest court no alternative than approving the 2022 map.
“The use of partisan factors in district line drawing is not constitutionally prohibited,” Stegall wrote. “If the redistricting process is intended to have ‘substantial political consequences’ it is no surprise that our court has consistently rejected pleas to establish a bright line prohibition on politics in the redistricting process.”
He said the Legislature was free to adopt clear standards limiting partisan gerrymandering in Kansas. Such clear standards would provide the judiciary with tools to adjudicate claims of excessive partisan gerrymandering, he added.
There were two minority opinions from state Supreme Court justices. One was written by Justice Eric Rosen and the second by Justice Dan Biles. Biles’ dissent was joined by Rosen and Justice Melissa Standridge.
“The majority denies Kansans the very thing our founders envisioned: A people’s government that fervently guards the people’s equal benefit from and access to the law — regardless of what the narrower-in-scope center power has to say about it,” Rosen said.
Biles, with Rosen and Standridge concurring, said a judicial retreat wasn’t the answer when state actions crossed constitutional boundaries.
“Courts must intervene because a desire to harm politically disfavored groups is not a legitimate government interest,” Biles said.
Stegall’s majority opinion in 2022 was joined by Chief Justice Marla Luckert and Justices K.J. Wall and Evelyn Wilson. It could be significant, if there were a fresh challenge to a new congressional map, that Wilson retired from the Supreme Court. On Sept. 16, she was replaced by Justice Larkin Walsh.