The one brazenly LGBTQ particular person ever elected to Congress from Kansas is liable to dropping her seat below a Republican redistricting plan that critics say would dilute the voting energy of the state's minority populations.
Kansas Democratic Consultant Sharice Davids faces a troublesome reelection path below the GOP's redistricting map that may cut up her Kansas Metropolis-based district with extra rural and conservative areas. Like different redistricting plans in Republican-controlled states, the map is being challenged in court docket. The result of this authorized combat and others may decide what Congress appears to be like like following the 2022 midterm elections.
"We're seeing these anti-LGBTQ forces making an attempt to erase out illustration," Cesar Toledo, deputy political director of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, informed LGBTQ Nation.
Earlier this month, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the redrawn districts permitted by the GOP-controlled Legislature following the 2020 Census. Kelly, a Democrat, mentioned the maps ignored longstanding "communities of curiosity" whereas violating authorized pointers guaranteeing that the redistricting course of would not dilute "minority communities' voting power."
After the Republican Legislature overrode her veto, the redrawn maps have been challenged in court docket by the ACLU of Kansas. The lawsuit, filed in state district court docket, factors out that the GOP's map would put the northern half of Kansas Metropolis, a Democratic stronghold, in Kansas' second congressional district and the southern half within the state's third congressional district.
Wyandotte County, the state's solely majority-minority county that features a massive portion of Kansas Metropolis can be cut up in two for the primary time in 40 years, in keeping with the lawsuit.
"If we wish to protect our democracy, we can't permit the voices of Black and Brown voters to be silenced by the Kansas GOP," Davids mentioned in a fundraising electronic mail earlier this month that was obtained by The Kansas Metropolis Star.
Ben Meers, government director of the Kansas Democratic Occasion, informed Newsweek in an electronic mail that the map is "textbook gerrymandering."
However Kansas Home Speaker Ron Ryckman informed Newsweek in a press release that the map handed by the Legislature "ensures that each county is pretty represented."
"Democrats solely wish to speak about one county," he mentioned. "The reality is there are 16 racially various counties in Kansas. The Republican map - identical to the map proposed by Democrats - retains 15 of these counties entire and divides 1 to accommodate for inhabitants will increase."
First elected to Kansas' third congressional district in 2018, Davids is the state's first brazenly homosexual member of Congress. Together with Deb Haaland, she is the primary Native American lady elected to Congress. She's additionally presently the one Democratic member of the state's congressional delegation.
Beforehand, Davids voted for election reform laws meant to forestall state lawmakers from drawing electoral maps for partisan achieve. Nevertheless, the laws stalled within the Senate after Republicans filibustered it.
Tom Alonzo, state board chairman of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Kansas, signed on to the lawsuit final week. An announcement from the group saying it was becoming a member of the lawsuit referenced Davids' election.
"Illustration issues," the group mentioned within the assertion. "All through our nation's historical past, minority and marginalized populations have struggled to assert their locations on the tables of governance. Via their participation, they've helped pave the best way for these they signify to extra totally combine into American society and to share within the American dream."
Newsweek has reached out to Davids and state Republican legislative leaders for remark.
Replace (2/24, 9:45 p.m.): This story has been up to date to incorporate remark from Kansas Home Speaker Ron Ryckman and the state Democratic Occasion.
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