Kansas House speaker drops push to split KC area in Congress map

[proud2BlibKansan]

TOPEKA -- The speaker of the Kansas House on Wednesday dropped his push for a redistricting plan that would split the Kansas City area between two congressional districts.

Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican, said the emergence of an alternative plan — even though it was defeated — showed that too many legislators want to keep the Kansas City area together.

O’Neal is abandoning a plan would have moved urban Wyandotte County neighborhoods into a district with rural communities more than 400 miles west. It has drawn criticsm from both sides of the state.

Earlier, the House rejected the alternative plan that kept the Kansas City area in one district, but O’Neal attributed its defeat to other issues.




Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/21/3505885/kansas-house-speaker-drops-push.html#storylink=cpy

[rurallib]

1. doesn't a congressional district have to be contiguous?

[Cracklin Charlie]

2. I think so, but

This knucklehead was trying to draw a district that stretched the width of Kansas, 400 miles, and something like 4 miles north to south.

I can't believe he finally gave up.

[rurallib]

3. wow - I remember seeing one like that in North Carolina

IIRC it made a nearly all black district and looked like a serpent.

[beyurslf]

4. They could solve most of the problems by putting Hutch back in Wichita

and giving the rural counties we inherited in 1992 back to D1. That will never happen of course.