Details from day one of the redistricting trial can be found here and here.
Tuesday, April 5th 9:00AM
Day two starts with a motion from plaintiffs about excluding a Kansas Research staff member and Director of Elections. Motion withdrawn and witnesses if called will be subject to cross.
Plaintiffs call House Representative and previous Minority Leader Tom Burroughs (D) of KCK, who has represented Wyandotte County for 26 years as an elected official. This is his third redistricting cycle in the House (2002, 2012, 2022). He was the ranking member of the House Redistricting Committee in the current process. He attended the listening tour and committee meetings. He never heard members saying they need to disregard the guidelines. He still doesn’t know who actually drew the Ad Astra map that was submitted and passed so quickly. When the map was introduced in committee for hearings, both the House and Senate scheduled at the same time. Some conferees had to bounce between the two hearings. Others had to just pick one to attend and testify. What was his reaction to the Ad Astra map? Disappointed, but not surprised.
Representative Burroughs submitted his own map, named Buffalo 2, which was based on the League of Women Voters submitted map named Bluestem. The difference between his Buffalo 2 and LOWV Bluestem map was the population deviations were taken down to 0 in two CDs and deviation of 1 in the remaining two CDs. The map drew the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th CD as compactly as possible by keeping urban and suburban areas together. Rural areas are linked together in the “Big 1st” CD. It was not taken up in committee.
There were multiple maps introduced directly to the House floor. Democratic backed maps all failed. Representative Stephanie Clayton (D) also on the Redistricting Committee, introduced Mushroom Rock for a vote. It was offered to the GOP who had been adamant that keeping Johnson County whole was paramount in the final map. Mushroom Rock accomplished that without adding rural Anderson, Franklin and Miami Counties to CD-3 and keeping more of Wyandotte together (although it was still split). The GOP rejected it. In closing, Representative Clayton summarized that the GOP talking point of keeping Johnson County whole must not really be that important. The final vote on Mushroom Rock proved that GOP concerns about keeping Johnson County together was a sham.
He characterized the introduction and passing of Ad Astra as “greased to go”. In the past, Representative Burroughs said he only recalled a single disaster funding bill passing this fast.
On cross, Burroughs was thanked for his public service and asked if GOP members should be given the same consideration. Why are you speculating to GOP motives if you weren’t involved in the drawing process of Ad Astra? Burroughs did get along personally with GOP Redistricting House Chair Chris Croft, but he just can’t trust a process that was hidden. Q — If people in Lawrence are upset by drawing them into a district reaching the Colorado border, how do you think the people of SE Kansas feel about your map, which creates a district that spans the state from the Missouri border to Colorado border. A — At least they will have a congressional representative that would represent their rural interests, which share critical problems and are the areas that are rapidly losing population. Q — Didn’t you just pack rural voters into a single district. A — I didn’t draw the map. It was based on the LOWV map that used their criteria for communities of interest.
Redirect. Is SE Rural? Yes. Is Lawrence rural? No. Would COI guidelines move rural SE Kansas into CD-1 with rural western Kansas, before or instead of Lawrence? Yes.
10:00AM: Next up, Dr. Mildred Edwards, chief of staff for Tyrone Garner, mayor of KCK & CEO of Wyandotte Unified Government. Dr. Edwards testifies to the unique nature of Wyandotte. It is geography the smallest county in Kansas. It has the only unified county government in the state, where the mayor is also CEO that overseas Edwardsville and Bonner Springs, in addition to the core of Kansas City, Kansas. That allows economies of scale and reduces duplication of provided services for these cities. Splitting congressional representation for the unified government is a bad decision.
Wyandotte is the most diverse county in the state. Areas in northern Wyandotte County are poorer than the southern area. Median income is only $35K. Northern Wyandotte is also even more diverse than southern areas. Splitting northern Wyandotte into a much more rural CD-2 is especially harmful. The unified government now works with Congresswoman Sharice Davids in securing millions of dollars in grants, projects, and other funding. That will be in danger if people in northern Wyandotte do not have a dedicated congressional representative. Their representative would no longer be a Democrat, a huge problem when considering their health care, transportation, and infrastructure needs. There is a single large diverse school district that will have split representation, which his also harmful. Q — What does north Wyandotte have in common with the rural CD-2? A — Nothing. Cross examination is limited to asking if Dr. Edwards is aware that it’s not possible to keep both Wyandotte and Johnson Counties whole and together. Yes, I think we are all aware of the census results.
10:40AM. Expert witness Dr. Christopher Warshaw called. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and taught at MIT. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and was a research fellow at Stanford's Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD). He has also worked as an environmental economics analyst. His expertise specifically involves statistics and use of the Efficiency gap (EG).
Dr. Warshaw explains the concept and formula of EG. It calculates the amount of wasted votes to determine the extent of packing and cracking gerrymanders. It is the accepted scientific standard used in this field. The formula is EG% = (Wasted GOP votes / total votes) — (Wasted Democrat votes / total votes). Wasted votes on the winning side is defined as every vote over 50% + 1. Wasted votes on the losing side is all votes.
How does it identify packed districts? Consider these three districts. The 1st district is a packed 75%-25% Democratic district. (The EG calculates it packed with 24% of those Democratic votes not needed to win and are “wasted” votes). The 2nd and 3rd districts are 60%-40% GOP controlled. In a statewide election, the Democrats can win 52%-48% in total, but still lose 2 of the 3 districts and be in the minority.
The judge understands and thanks the expert for the simple explanation.
What are the weaknesses? EG doesn’t measure voter turnabout which is variable. There are adjusted formulas, but still that is an issue. It can’t accurately work in extremely lopsided districts, defined as over 75% for one political party. However, no congressional district in any state is over 75%. EG doesn’t work in uncontested elections. A candidate may get 95% of the vote, but if there was an opposing candidate that could easily drop to 70%. Those have to be excluded or manually adjusted. EG doesn’t work in states with only one district. There is nothing to draw. The border is defined by the state. It doesn’t work in states with two districts. Even in states with three districts, the calculations would be problematic. Only when states have four districts, do the results start to act correctly. Even with four districts, caution is in order. EG works very well in states with seven CDs and above. The expert is candid about strengths and weakness in using EG.
When comparing the existing 2012 congressional map to Ad Astra by running several Kansas statewide election results from the last 10 years, there is a shift the EG from 9% to 16%. In total, the new Ad Astra map is a 95% to 98% pro-GOP map.
After lunch, the cross examination and another expert.