Kansas House speaker drops push to split KC area in Congress map [View all]

TOPEKA -- The speaker of the Kansas House on Wednesday dropped his push for a redistricting plan that would split the Kansas City area between two congressional districts.

Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican, said the emergence of an alternative plan — even though it was defeated — showed that too many legislators want to keep the Kansas City area together.

O’Neal is abandoning a plan would have moved urban Wyandotte County neighborhoods into a district with rural communities more than 400 miles west. It has drawn criticsm from both sides of the state.

Earlier, the House rejected the alternative plan that kept the Kansas City area in one district, but O’Neal attributed its defeat to other issues.




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