KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The trial over Kansas' newly drawn congressional maps began and ended with the words of former Senate President Susan Wagle.
In 2020, Wagle urged a gathering of GOP donors to elect a state legislative supermajority that could draw Republican-friendly lines for all four congressional districts, ousting Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids.
Attorneys defending the map brushed off the early references to Wagle, emphasizing that she was no longer in the Legislature and played no role in drawing the challenged map. In closing arguments, attorneys for the group of voters suing to overturn the new district boundaries returned to Wagle, arguing the Wichita Republican "laid the foundation" for the map, which split racially and ethnically diverse Wyandotte County along Interstate 70 and combined liberal-leaning Lawrence with central and western Kansas.
"She passed the baton and her colleagues carried it across the finish line," Sharon Brett, chief legal counsel for the ACLU of Kansas, said.
Brett was one of several attorneys representing Kansas voters who brought three lawsuits, now consolidated, seeking to block implementation of congressional maps passed earlier this year as part of the decennial redistricting process.
Over the course of a four-day trial, which concluded Monday, the plaintiffs argued Kansas's Republican supermajority in the Legislature had intentionally diluted the voting power of minority residents and Democratic voters. The objective, they said, was to "entrench their own power" and "fulfill the promise Susan Wagle made." Doing so, they said, denied voters in Wyandotte County and Lawrence rights ensured in the Kansas Constitution.
But attorneys defending the maps argued that no proof existed of political or racial gerrymandering. Instead, attorney Anthony Rupp argued, lawmakers were placed in an impossible position when 2020 census data showed Johnson and Wyandotte Counties combined would be too large for a single congressional district.
"The tension that is created is not a racial one, not a partisan one but rather the extraordinary decision of legislative judgment," Rupp said.
Lawmakers made mathematical decisions, Rupp said, and the 3rd Congressional District in the Kansas City area would not still be competitive if it was politically gerrymandered.
"It is a map that is part of our representative democracy," Rupp said. "It does not disenfranchise anyone."
Wyandotte County District Court Judge Bill Klapper will decide within the next two weeks whether the map was a legitimate act of the Legislature or an unconstitutional gerrymander.
Here are four takeaways from four days of arguments:
Several experts said the map isn't normal ...
Political scientists testified for the plaintiffs that the map didn't align with traditional redistricting criteria, such as preserving "communities of interest" — the cultural, social and economic ties that bind places together but can be hard to define.
Some used models and other analytic methods to argue that the map is an outlier. Jowei Chen, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, had a computer draw 1,000 versions of Kansas congressional maps, using nonpartisan and traditional guidelines. In a written report, he said the approved map goes "beyond any 'natural' level of electoral bias" caused by state's political geography or the political composition of the state's voters.
Nearly 99% of computer simulations Chen ran created fewer Republican-leaning districts than the map passed by lawmakers. The map, Chen testified, makes the 3rd District "as invulnerable as possible for Republicans."
The defense called its own experts to testify, critiquing the methods used by Chen and others. None of the defense experts produced their own independent analysis of the map, however.
John Alford, a political scientist at Rice University said the Ad Astra 2 map made "modest" adjustments on the existing congressional map drawn by the court in 2012.
... but the defense said Kansas law lacks map standards
The defense has maintained that Kansas law doesn't provide a way for Klapper — or any other judge — to decide when a map is unconstitutional. There is no Kansas law regarding racial gerrymandering, for instance (though there is a federal law against it).
"There is no guidance as to what the standard of proof is," Rupp said in his closing arguments. "That is a fatal flaw."
At its core, redistricting involves legislative judgment, the defense argued. Because of that, they contend a single court shouldn't overturn the actions of an entire branch of government.
Kansas voters elected a GOP supermajority to draw the congressional maps and overturning the map would "disenfranchise" those voters, Rupp said in his closing arguments.
In explaining their rationale for the map, GOP lawmakers pointed to a desire to keep Johnson County whole and unite Kansas' two major college towns in Lawrence and Manhattan. The Defense argued the court should take their word at face value rather than buying into "attacks by folks who, frankly, lost."
Plaintiffs consistently criticized Kansas lawmakers for undertaking a rushed process and ignoring a set of self-imposed guidelines for drawing congressional maps. Those guidelines, however, are not formal law and legislators had no legal obligation to follow them.
Furthermore, there were no set measurements of how to follow guidelines like compactness and maintaining communities of interest.
The trial failed to go behind the scenes
Court documents filed before the trial suggested the plaintiffs would attempt to reveal the sausage-making that went into drafting and passing the map.
The plaintiffs filed subpoenas to several Republican lawmakers, both leadership and rank-and-file members, seeking information. They also sought information from Mark Dugan and David Kensinger, two Republican consultants and lobbyists who may have had insight into how the map was drawn.
But Republican lawmakers appear to have rebuffed the subpoenas. They pointed to a provision of the Kansas Constitution that shields them from being served in civil lawsuits during the legislative session. And neither Dugan nor Kensinger was called to the witness stand.
In her closing arguments Brett of the ACLU argued this allowed lawmakers to "avoid having to answer questions about their true intent."
Trial outcome just one step
Throughout the trial Judge Klapper referred to the proceedings as a "waystation" as the challenges to the maps made their way to the state supreme court.
Plaintiffs and Defendants must file their final briefs by the end of the day on April 18. After that, Klapper will have five business days to make his ruling in the case.
Regardless of his decision the case is almost certain to be appealed. The case could be litigated first in the Kansas Court of Appeals or be brought straight to the Kansas Supreme Court.
