By Gene Meyer

The Kansas Senate voted Feb. 8 to include Manhattan, the state’s second largest university town, in the sprawling 1st Congressional District.

Some of Manhattan’s leaders say they aren’t pleased with the move. 

Officials in Manhattan, in northeastern Kansas, say they want that city to remain in the 2nd Congressional District because the interests of Kansas State University and of a new federal National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility – a federal animal disease research complex slated for Manhattan – are more in line with institutions east of Manhattan instead of those to the west.

Manhattan and Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas, historically have worked together to deal with policies and programs that affect those communities. Manhattan, near the Fort Riley home of the 1st Infantry Division, and Leavenworth, home of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, similarly work together for military policies they say would benefit Kansas.

But Manhattan, the state’s ninth largest community with nearly 53,800 residents, also is the largest city in what the Senate has proposed as the new 1st District.

State lawmakers need to increase the 1st District’s population by about 58,000 people to meet strict federal equal-representation guidelines, which require each Kansas congressional district to include about 713,280 residents. The state’s population grew 6 percent during the past decade, to 2.85 million, the U.S. Census reported in December.

The vote to move Manhattan into the primarily rural and thinly populated 1st District “didn’t come as a total surprise,” said Manhattan Mayor Jim Sherow.

Manhattan leaders say they may fare better when the Kansas House debates the Senate’s plan, Sherow said

“We believe the Speaker favors leaving Manhattan in the 2nd District,” he said. 

House Speaker, State Rep. Mike O’Neal (R-Hutchinson) could not be reached for comment.

“Otherwise, things are going to be very different,” Sherow said. “Instead of meeting in Lawrence and Topeka to work on our common issues, we’d be going to Atwood, Ulysses or Kingman. That’s a crazy circuit for anyone from Manhattan.” 

Manhattan’s historic 2nd District sphere of operations are concentrated in an area that stretches roughly from Riley County to the Kansas-Missouri line, about 130 miles to the east. But shifting that sphere to the west would require trips of 300 miles or more to smaller communities that, in some cases, are closer to Denver than to Topeka.

“You’re dealing with the interests of an area that’s three-fifths of the state, rather than just the 2nd District,” Sherow said, “That’s a big difference.”

The congressional redistricting plan on which the Kansas Senate voted Feb. 8 extends the 1st District of west and central Kansas east to include Manhattan, Kansas State University and Fort Riley.