Of the 125-members in the Kansas House of Representatives, 76 were elected in five metropolitan counties. The count:
Johnson County ‒ 27 members: 11 Republicans, 16 Democrats;
Shawnee ‒ Eight members: three Republicans, five Democrats;
Douglas ‒ Nine members: five Republicans, four Democrats;
Wyandotte ‒ Eight members: two Republicans, six Democrats;
Sedgwick ‒ 24 members: 17 Republicans, seven Democrats.
The metro numbers by political party: 38 Republicans, 38 Democrats.
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The other 100 counties elect 49 House members: 47 Republicans and two Democrats. With the urban counties split evenly Democrat and Republican, rural Kansas and the farm cities turn a large House majority to Republicans, 85-40.
House members are elected every two years. The 40 Senators hold four-year terms; their next election is in 2024.
The pattern holds for the senate. Democrats are elected in the metropolitan counties. Republicans hold a large majority 29-11 with ten rural Republicans tilting the senate’s power balance.
The legislative bosses are from the cities. House Speaker Dan Hawkins is from Wichita; Senate President Ty Masterson is from Andover in Butler County and, shoulder-to-shoulder, a Wichita suburb. In the leadership elections last month, the runners-up were from Johnson or Sedgwick Counties.
The House majority leader, Chris Croft, is from Johnson County (Overland Park). The minority leader is Vic Miller, a veteran Topeka Democrat.
The Senate majority leader, Larry Alley, is from Winfield, rural enough but a southern step sister to Wichita. Senate minority leader Dina Sykes is from Lenexa in Johnson County.
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The allocation of seats and power in the legislature may be seen as an odd mingling of rural votes and urban power. Republicans prevail in Topeka only because Kansans elect so many of them in farm country. In the cities and suburbs, Democrats have drawn even and are preparing to move ahead.
This is not a surge of persuasion left or right, but an urge to be practical, especially among Democrats.
“We’re mostly calm, middle-of-the-road, pro-education people who just want to make sure women have a right to choose and that our kids don’t get shot at school,” said Rep. Stephanie Clayton of Overland Park. Ten years ago she was elected to the Kansas House as a Republican. She changed parties in 2018 and has been reelected three times as a Democrat.
Others, like Clayton, have switched parties. Many have stayed put and were whip-sawed. “I’ve always believed in practical, inclusive and somewhat conservative politics,” the late Sen. Bud Burke once said. “I look around on the stage and the party scenery behind me has shifted.” That was 25 years ago.
Burke was a Republican from Olathe, a former Naval aviator (rank: Captain) and, at the time, majority leader and then president of the Senate. Politics had begun to change, but Burke never changed parties.
Nor did Steve Morris, a Senate president later. Morris was a wheat farmer from Hugoton, a pragmatic Republican, a budget expert. Ten years ago he was among six incumbents purged from the Senate because they were deemed “disloyal” to the party’s vitriolic governor, Sam Brownback.
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Rural and urban Kansans, unlike their legislators, are moved by local concerns and common hopes. They aren’t really consumed with a desire to sue Joe Biden or search for dirty books in the library or jail immigrants, or make voting even more difficult.
The people worry about interest rates and inflation, about health care, about their schools ‒ and the weather, what it means for the crop fields, or for the freeway commute to work.
They want a bright future for their children, for their communities. They want vigorous employment, friendly streets, good schools, a healthy economy, clean air and safe water. They lead separate lives, hold common dreams.
Our rural and urban cultures and landscapes are distinct and separate. So what? Real legislating is not about balance of power, but balance of purpose.
“We’re one state,” Burke said long ago. “We must remember that they (Democrats) represent the same kind of people out there that we Republicans do…every inch of Kansas soil is important and the people who walk on any part of it are equally important.”
