Kansas’s top Republicans had been poised to join President Trump’s nationwide push to redraw congressional maps — a move aimed at securing another Republican seat in Congress. Democrats braced for what seemed like an inevitable special session to approve new district lines.
Then, unexpectedly, some Republicans said no.
Their resistance has, for now, preserved the state’s lone Democratic-leaning congressional district. The Kansas revolt mirrors a growing trend across the country, where lawmakers from both parties have begun to push back against efforts to reshape political maps for partisan gain ahead of the midterm elections.
The redistricting wave began this summer when Texas Republicans, encouraged by Mr. Trump, approved a new map. But as the idea spread, lawmakers in several states balked. In Indiana, a special redistricting session collapsed when Senate Republicans refused to back it. Maryland Democrats are also split. And in Kansas, plans for a November 7 special session fell apart when House leaders couldn’t rally enough support.
While redistricting could resurface during the regular legislative session in January, its path forward looks rocky. Some Kansas Republicans who opposed the plan were stripped of their committee leadership roles — a clear sign of the internal tension. Yet the opposition, which includes both conservative and moderate members from across the state, suggests that even mounting pressure may not be enough to revive the effort.
“I’d rather stand on principle and my morals,” said State Representative Brett Fairchild, a conservative Republican. “Redistricting goes against what our founders intended, and it could come back to hurt us later. I want to be able to look in the mirror and sleep at night. It’s not just about getting re-elected.”
“Be Expecting a Call”
State Representative Clarke Sanders recalled first hearing about the redistricting plan at a Republican retreat in Wichita in September. House Speaker Daniel Hawkins, he said, presented a draft letter calling for a special session and told colleagues he had met with President Trump at the White House, where the president personally urged Kansas Republicans to redraw the map.
To move forward, two-thirds of both the Kansas House and Senate had to approve the request. With Democrats firmly opposed, even a handful of GOP defections could block the session.
According to Sanders, Speaker Hawkins warned members: “If you don’t sign on to this, expect a call from the White House.” Sanders declined to sign — and soon after, he received that call.
He says the conversation, lasting about half an hour, was with a White House staffer whose name he couldn’t recall. “They said it was really important that we get this done,” Sanders remembered. He explained that he believed redrawing the map would be politically risky. “I just thought it would give Democrats a club to beat us over the head with if we went forward,” he said.
The White House did not respond to questions about its involvement in the Kansas effort.
On Friday, Sanders said, Speaker Hawkins called again — this time to inform him he was being removed as vice chair of the Higher Education Budget Committee for refusing to support the special session.
Internal memos obtained by The New York Times show that at least six Republican committee chairs and vice chairs lost their leadership positions that day, and other assignments were reshuffled. Hawkins later confirmed that ten GOP lawmakers had declined to sign the special session letter.
In a weekend interview on Wichita’s John Whitmer Show, Hawkins defended his decision. “Any leader who isn’t working with the team to make things happen doesn’t deserve to be a chair anymore,” he said. “That’s why I made the move.”
Mr. Hawkins, who is currently running for state insurance commissioner, declined an interview request but issued a written statement defending his stance. “Democrats have been gerrymandering for years, and now folks want to clutch their pearls that Republicans are finally fighting back. That’s rich,” he wrote.
Traditionally, redistricting occurs once every decade following the census. But that convention began to crumble this summer after Texas Republicans, encouraged by President Trump, pushed through a new congressional map. Their move triggered a chain reaction: California Democrats crafted their own plan, approved by voters this month, while Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina and Democrats in Virginia advanced redistricting efforts of their own. Party leaders across the country have urged more states to join the wave.
In Kansas, however, skepticism runs deeper than the ten House Republicans who refused to sign the letter calling for a special session. Representative Brett Fairchild said he added his signature only because he wanted lawmakers to discuss unrelated issues — not to endorse redrawing district lines. And while Senate Republicans gathered enough support to authorize a special session, several who signed admitted they weren’t fully convinced.
“I worry that if we go in and try to redraw now without a solid reason, there could be a backlash,” said State Senator Mike Thompson, a Republican from the Kansas City suburbs who signed the letter but remains undecided on the redistricting question.
“It’s Hard to Wrangle Us”
Kansas is a reliably Republican state in national elections — former President Trump won it by 16 points — but its electorate has shown an independent streak. In 2022, voters rejected a ballot measure to strip abortion rights from the state constitution, and they have twice elected Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, whose veto power complicates Republican redistricting ambitions.
That same independent spirit has also helped Representative Sharice Davids, the state’s lone Democrat in Congress. Despite Republicans making her district more conservative in the last redistricting cycle, Davids has continued to win comfortably, defeating recent GOP challengers by double-digit margins.
When talk of another redistricting session heated up in late September, Davids didn’t hide her frustration. “I was legitimately livid that this is happening,” she said, calling the idea both infuriating and misguided. “It’s simple — voters should be choosing their representatives, not the other way around.”
While many Kansas Democrats assumed a special session was inevitable, several Republican lawmakers insist that was never the case.
“It wasn’t just Trump snaps his fingers and we redistrict,” Senator Thompson said. “If that were true, it would have been done weeks ago.”
State Representative Pat Proctor, a redistricting supporter from Leavenworth, framed the effort as vital to advancing President Trump’s broader political agenda. Still, he acknowledged that within the Kansas GOP, opinions on the issue vary widely.
“We’re a big, big tent,” said Mr. Proctor, who is running for secretary of state. “And it’s hard to wrangle us.”
The Fight Isn’t Over
The redistricting battle in Kansas is far from resolved. Mr. Proctor said he expects the issue to return when lawmakers reconvene in January. Representative Sharice Davids, meanwhile, warned that “their plan to cheat the system isn’t over.” Both House Speaker Daniel Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson signaled in statements that they still hope to produce a new congressional map.
Republicans have also pointed out that Gov. Laura Kelly — a Democrat who chairs the Democratic Governors Association — has publicly supported Democratic-led states that passed their own maps in response to GOP gerrymandering efforts.
“President Trump asked Republicans to fight for fair maps and for America’s future,” said Mr. Masterson, who is among several candidates eyeing the Republican nomination for governor in 2026. “We did our part — and we’ll keep leading the charge here in Kansas.”
To override a likely veto from Governor Kelly, Republicans would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers — the same threshold the House failed to meet for a special session. Several Republican holdouts have said they remain unmoved.
State Representative Mark Schreiber, a moderate Republican from Emporia, said he opposed redistricting because he believes it would “erode public trust in our political system.”
“I’m very comfortable with my reasoning,” Mr. Schreiber said. “If the president called, I’d tell him the same thing. And if he tried to run a primary challenger against me, I’d say, ‘Bring it on.’”
0 Comments