Print edition: 
TOPEKA — Wichita’s 4th Congressional District would add McPherson County and jettison Montgomery County under a proposed redistricting map presented Tuesday.
The map, pitched by Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, is aimed at keeping rural Pratt, Barber, Comanche, Kiowa, Edward and Stafford counties in the 1st District, now represented by Congressman Tim Huelskamp.
Vratil said those counties have less population density and more in common with rural western Kansas and that McPherson identifies more with the Wichita area.
Sen. Ruth Teichman, R-Stafford, agreed.
“We do have a lot in common with the big 1st District where we’ve always been,” she said.
Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, said she thought the I-135 corridor connects Wichita and McPherson.
But it’s unclear how much consideration the new map will get.
Several lawmakers have said a proposal by Sen. Tim Owens, known as Map 9c, has significant support. It would move Montgomery County into the 2nd District and add the six rural counties to the 4th District. It would shift Manhattan into the 1st District.
Owens, R-Overland Park and chairman of the Senate Committee on Reapportionment, said his committee will likely vote on a map Wednesday. He said the debate would start with his proposal.
Manhattan officials said they'd prefer to remain in the 2nd District with other northeast Kansas communities, arguing that their community has more in common with them than western Kansas. U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, the Republican who represents the 2nd District, also wants to keep Manhattan.
But Owens said he won't support an alternative congressional redistricting plan that keeps Manhattan in the 2nd District. The alternative extends the 1st District through the counties that border Nebraska, down the state's northeast corner and splitting Kansas City. Such changes would put urban neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kan., in a district with rural towns more than 400 miles away.
The 1st District is almost 58,000 residents short of the ideal population for a congressional district of 713,000, and Riley County, the home of Manhattan, is on the border of the 1st and 2nd districts, though officials there identify with eastern Kansas.
Besides Jenkins, Manhattan officials have a powerful ally in House Speaker Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, who's named himself chairman of the House Redistricting Committee. O'Neal has said publicly that legislators must consider Manhattan officials' desire to stay in the 2nd District, and he dislikes Owens' plan.
Legislators are redrawing congressional districts this year, as well as state House, state Senate and State Board of Education districts. On Monday, the House Redistricting Committee reviewed a plan for redrawing the 125 state representatives' districts.
