LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has ended an unusual practice for redrawing the lines of legislative districts that has cost university communities political clout.
Voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution eliminating a requirement for the state to adjust federal census figures when the Legislature redistricts itself every 10 years.
The adjustment counts college students and military personnel not where they’re living but in a “permanent” home elsewhere. For thousands of people, that’s outside Kansas.
Kansas is among only a few states that adjust federal census figures for redistricting, and before the practice started in the 1990s, the state did its own census for decades.
Secretary of State Scott Schwab called the adjustment archaic and said it would have cost the state $835,000 ahead of redistricting in 2022.
