Kansas has ended an unusual practice for redrawing the lines of legislative districts that has cost university communities political clout. Voters yesterday approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution eliminating a requirement for the state to adjust federal census figures when the legislature redistricts itself every 10 years. The adjustment counts college students and military personnel not where they’re living but in a permanent home elsewhere. For thousands of people, that’s outside Kansas.
Kansas was the only state that did it, and before the practice started in the 1990s the state did its own census for decades. Secretary of State Scott Schwab says it would have cost the state nearly $1 million this time.
