Here’s who will represent Democrats as Sedgwick County redraws political districts
Sedgwick County Democrats have picked their slate of representatives to the county’s redistricting committee that will recommend a map to guide our elections for the next decade.
The five Democrats include a pair of political consultants who were instrumental in gaining their party a majority on the Wichita City Council, two attorneys and a community activist who works as a director at Wichita State University.
Also, the Sedgwick County election commissioner confirmed that Lamont Anderson — Commissioner David Dennis’ appointee who has been a Republican and a Democrat in the past — is currently registered as an independent voter, giving the 15-member panel a 7-7 balance between Republicans and Democrats.
The committee will hold its first meeting at 1 p.m. Tuesday, on the third floor of the main courthouse, 525 N. Main.
This meeting will be streamed live on the Sedgwick County YouTube and Facebook pages.
Two of the five Democrats appointed by party Chairman Joseph Shepard are Casey Yingling and Levi Henry, partners in the Ad Astra Group, a Democratic campaign consulting firm that has been successful at the local level in Wichita.
Ad Astra managed the 2019 campaign in which then-state legislator Brandon Whipple, a Democrat, unseated incumbent Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell, a Republican.
This year, they handled campaign matters for Democrats Maggie Ballard and Mike Hoheisel, who beat incumbents Cindy Claycomb and Jared Cerullo to flip the council majority to the Democrats.
Ad Astra was also involved with the campaigns of both Democrats on the County Commission, Lacey Cruse in 2018 and Sarah Lopez in 2020.
The three other Democratic appointees to the redistricting committee:
▪ Randy Rathbun, a former U.S. attorney for Kansas. He is representing Whipple in a lawsuit over a false campaign smear ad masterminded by former commissioner Michael O’Donnell, former City Council member James Clendenin and former state lawmaker Michael Capps, all Republicans who lost their seats amid the backlash over the ad and their attempt to frame former county Republican Chairman Dalton Glasscock for it.
▪ Kelly Schodorf, a lawyer who practices business and family law. She’s the daughter of former Republican state Sen. Jean Schodorf, who switched parties after the Republicans recruited O’Donnell to take her seat in a bid to purge the GOP of legislative moderates.
▪ Naquela Pack, director of engagement for the Wichita State University office of Strategic Engagement and Planning. She has been active in food access issues and training mentors for the Department of Corrections and was a field director in City Council member Brandon Johnson’s campaign.
The five appointees selected by the Democratic Party over the weekend are the last to join the hastily convened committee, created after Commissioner Lacey Cruse questioned whether the first round of redistricting maps were fair to her and her minority constituents.
The committee will advise the County Commission in the redistricting process, a once-a-decade occurrence to balance the populations of districts so that all voters receive roughly fair and equal representation.
The committee’s tasks will include evaluating the 11 redistricting plans proposed so far for political and racial fairness and possibly creating their own map or maps to address those issues.
The final decision on which map to accept will be up to the elected commissioners.
The city and state governments will also have to redraw their political district boundaries this year, but the county is expected to be the first to get its new lines in place with a Dec. 15 vote scheduled.
The redistricting committee was originally formed with five members to be appointed by the county commission, one for each member, plus 10 members to be selected by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters.
But on Friday, the commission reworked the panel’s makeup to drop the League role and allow the two major political parties to appoint five members each to join the five appointed by commissioners.
Commission appointees in addition to Anderson:
▪ District 1: Republican Pete Meitzner appointed state Rep. Patrick Penn, who will chair the redistricting committee.
▪ District 2: Democrat Sarah Lopez appointed Martha Pint, co-president of the Sedgwick County and Kansas chapters of the League of Women Voters.
▪ District 4: Democrat Lacey Cruse appointed Melody Miller, a former county commissioner and Democratic state legislator.
▪ District 5: Republican Jim Howell appointed Elizabeth Stanton, who recently won a race for City Council in Derby and will take office in January.
The five party-appointed Republicans:
▪ Keith Dater, a former aide to U.S. Sen Pat Roberts.
▪ Leann Moore, a leader of a group called Stand Up Kansas that has been campaigning against COVID vaccine mandates.
▪ Vail Fruechting, who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic state Sen. Mary Ware in 2020.
▪ Con Howerton, the husband of state Rep. Cyndi Howerton.
▪ Joseph “Tex” Dozier, a Republican campaign and public relations consultant.
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 2:31 PM.
