KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sixteen Kansas residents are suing to block the state’s new congressional map, alleging that its redrawn district boundaries are a racial and partisan gerrymander.
The ACLU of Kansas and Campaign Legal Center, a national nonprofit good-government group, jointly filed a lawsuit Monday in Wyandotte County District Court on behalf of Kansans from Wyandotte County, Johnson County and Lawrence. A separate lawsuit from the national group Democracy Docket and the Kansas-based civic engagement group Loud Light was also filed Monday in Wyandotte County.
The lawsuits kick off a widely anticipated legal battle over the Republican-drawn map, which is based on population shifts recorded by the 2020 Census. The new district lines divide Wyandotte County, the state’s most racially and ethnically diverse area, in half. The ACLU suit says the map is an “extreme and intentional” gerrymander.