Redistricting process draws to a close as last state gets its map

A federal court imposed a new congressional map for Kansas on Friday, bringing the national once-per-decade process to redraw political lines to a close.

Kansas had been the last holdout, completing a process that most states finished up in 2011, following the 2010 U.S. Census that determined which states gained or lost seats in the House.

Republicans and Democrats have squabbled over which party more effectively shored up their members and opened up new pickup opportunities through redistricting, but most observers have said that redistricting on a national level was essentially a wash.

In Kansas, where bickering among GOP state lawmakers prevented them from reaching agreement on a new map, a court intervened in May and prepared its own map.

The new map keeps the old lines mostly intact, with few major changes. All four of the state’s congressional seats are currently held by Republicans. Kansas did not gain or lose any seats in redistricting, so the new maps needed merely to ensure that each district held roughly the same number of residents.

- This post was updated at 11:29 a.m.

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