The congressional redistricting proposal going before the senate today could run into opposition from some outstate senators including one who has the strangest district of them all.
Backers of the plan say it’s all just a matter of mathematics—piecing districts together with nearly identical population counts. But critics say those maps should represent more than numbers.
The numbers add up in the proposed Fifth Congressional District that includes part of Jackson County, and then snakes south of an intrusion from the north Missouri district and spreads through three rural counties. One of those counties is represented in the Senate by Bill Stouffer of Napton.
Stouffer says the people in his home county are pretty worked up over a plan that would have a farming county represented by a Congressman from Kansas City. He won’t say he’ll filibuster a bill that doesn’t have a better design for the counties of his district, but he has said there will a “thorough discussion” to get to the “fairest map that’s possible.”
Interview with Sen. Stouffer 2:54 mp3
