The Kansas Supreme Court roundly rejected a motion by the state’s Republican administration to dismiss three lawsuits challenging the GOP legislature’s redistricting maps, election lawyer Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket announced.
Republican Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt falsely claimed that Kansas courts did not have the authority to determine the fairness of redistricting maps. “Neither that provision nor Kansas law gives courts any role in the lawmaking process by which congressional maps are drawn,” the state’s motion claimed.
The court acknowledged that the “validity of a legislatively enacted congressional reapportionment scheme is a matter of great public concern and statewide importance” and time “is of the essence in resolving the issues presented in this case as the 2022 election cycle is fast approaching.”