Let’s Get Back to Common Sense
20 February 2012
It’s been quite discouraging for us here in Wyandotte County to see the pure partisan politics of Topeka play out with respect to Congressional redistricting.
The latest map to emerge is one that Senator Hensley and others warned us about months ago: To move Wyandotte County out of the 3rd Congressional District and into the 1st Congressional District.
Wyandotte County, more than ever, is intimately connected to the Kansas City Region. Our economy is tied to the region. Our citizens dwell within the region. Our entire County is physically located within and around the 435 corridor, the loop highway that encircles the Kansas City Region.
It makes good common sense to be represented by a member of Congress whose district encompasses the Kansas side of the Kansas City Region. That’s the way it is now as the 3rd Congressional District encompasses all of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties.
However, a move is underfoot to not only remove Wyandotte County from the 3rd District but to place it in the 1st District which primarily represents the most Western stretches of Kansas. Worse than that, the latest map splits Wyandotte County in two, with part of the County remaining in the 3rd and the other part off to the 1st. Such a move would dilute the voice of one of the state’s most populous counties. Instead, this move is a bold faced one to support political desires at the expense of good representation.
It simply defies any good government logic to make such a move. Worse, it feeds into the skepticism so many people have about government operating not for the people but for the politicians. It is my hope that the Kansas Legislature will use logic and common sense and keep Wyandotte County in the 3rd Congressional District.
