Ty Masterson’s un-American (and, for now, failed) argument for redistricting | Opinion
With the failure of Republican leadership’s push to call a special redistricting session, Kansas has now joined states including Indiana and New Hampshire, where a critical number of GOP legislators were unmoved by President Donald Trump’s unprecedented demand that states redraw their congressional districts in the middle of the decade to make them more Republican-friendly.
Why didn’t the Republican caucus in Topeka quickly acquiesce to the president’s insistence on creating a map that will supposedly increase the odds of the GOP maintaining control over the U.S. House of Representatives?
There are many reasons, and the fact that the Republican leadership plans to try again during the regular session in January suggests that they think those reasons can be overcome, and the votes will be there eventually.
But one reason that may not go away is a pretty profound one — that the theory of representation employed as a justification for the redistricting push is, historically speaking, un-American.
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson’s enthusiasm for redistricting was clear from the start.
He quickly rounded up sufficient votes for a special session from his Republican Senate colleagues, and talked broadly about how redistricting was essential to the success of Trump’s agenda.
If Kansas couldn’t push through a highly unpopular division of Johnson County, and thus hopefully make it harder for Rep. Sharice Davids, the sole Democrat in the Kansas congressional delegation, to once again win re-election, then “all the good things we’re doing will stop,” which means that it is “all hands on deck to try to keep the movement moving forward.”
Note that the movement he mentions is centered in Washington D.C. — not Topeka.
This means he understands representation as being keyed to national ideological concerns, not to actual Kansas constituents.
Masterson might disagree, insisting that, as Republican voters in Kansas outnumber Democratic voters by almost two to one, it’s fair to provide those constituents with, as he put it, “an aligned voice in DC.”
But that puts the ideological cart before the Constitutional horse.
To believe, like Masterson, that “all four of Kansas’s U.S. House districts should basically represent the breakdown of Kansas,” is to privilege ideological representation over local needs. Yet that localism was key to the formation of the House of Representatives in the first place.
Yes, more Kansans consider themselves conservative than liberal.
But the Kansans that live in Johnson County aren’t the same as those that live in Masterson’s Butler County.
In fact, given how often Davis has been re-elected, their ideological breakdown is likely the reverse of what is typical for the state overall.
And part of the point of having a House and Senate in Congress was so House districts could enable different constituent-based representatives to bring forward entirely local concerns, which the more deliberation-based Senate would have to balance out — and thus, through compromise, presumably achieve some kind of common good.
Debates over forms representation aren’t new; they play out constantly, with real consequences.
For example, changes in the rules for school board elections in Wichita, Kansas’s largest school district, empowered local voters over city-wide majorities, and the results were dramatic in last week’s elections.
Typically, politicians pay close attention to such debates. Thus far in Kansas, enough Republicans have — for perhaps this as well as other reason— have resisted Trump’s redistricting stampede.
Of course, in a polarized era, with constitutional norms being disregarded left and right, it might be quaint to think that a mere argument about the historical need for different systems of representation might actually change anyone’s mind, much less Sen. Masterson’s.
But one can always hope— as well as keep up the pressure into January.
— Russell Arben Fox is a professor of political science at Friends University in Wichita.
