Washington, D.C. —  President Trump called Kansas politicians to the White House today, part of his ongoing attempt to extort and bribe GOP lawmakers into gerrymandering their states. Last week, Vice President J.D. Vance made another taxpayer-funded trip to Indiana to pressure politicians there to gerrymander. Earlier, GOP operatives admitted to POLITICO that Trump and Vance have been bribing and extorting lawmakers, coercing them to gerrymander their states’ congressional maps. 

In 2022, following the 2020 Census, Kansas lawmakers—including Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson—promised not to split Johnson County and to keep it within the Third Congressional District.  Now, they are backtracking on their commitment to the voters, and it’s drawing skepticism even from local GOP officials. 

“Donald Trump created a national gerrymandering crisis to cheat America’s voters out of their rightful voice in the next election. In state after state, Republican politicians are facing fierce opposition from voters as they consider further gerrymandering their maps, and Kansas is no different,” said  John Bisognano, President of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). “This week’s actions by Kansas Republicans show that they are terrified of their own constituents. After pledging to spend nearly half a million taxpayer dollars without any public input, Republican legislators are now jetting off to Washington to get marching orders from President Trump instead of Kansans. 

“Kansas Republicans can put an end to this brazen scheme to unfairly rig the midterm elections. But right now, they are choosing to play with fire. If they continue Donald Trump’s gerrymandering crisis by forcing an even more egregious gerrymander onto Kansans, Americans across the nation will not roll over, and we expect even more states—in addition to California—and more voters to join the growing movement to fight back,” Bisognano concluded. 

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