Judges' ruling scrambles landscape for Kansas House
A federal court ruling has scrambled the political landscape for Kansas House members as it sets new district boundaries to account for population changes over the past decade.
Three federal judges ruled late Thursday in a lawsuit over the Legislature's failure to redraw the state's political boundaries. The House achieved a bipartisan consensus on its members' 125 districts, but the judges decided they weren't bound to any plan because nothing was approved by the entire Legislature.
The resulting map creates 25 House districts with no incumbents - with the state's candidate filing deadline Monday.
The new map also creates 20 districts with a pair of incumbents.
And the court also created two House districts that have three incumbents each. One is in Topeka and the other, in east-central Kansas.