Profile of a District
Congressman Bob Dole's predominantly rural constituents were concerned about poverty, both domestic and foreign; they were forced to contemplate, like never before, issues of race in America; and education, which had long been a very personal and local concern, became increasingly a state and national issue.
Like many Americans across the nation, they also worried about far off threats, real and perceived: the spread of communism throughout the world and the undeclared war in Southeast Asia.
Increasingly troubled by the accelerating rural to urban migration that continued to depopulate the countryside and small towns, Western Kansans reflected concern about the U.S. Supreme Court's "one man, one vote" rulings.
During the mid-1960s, it was Congressman Dole's "conviction" that "no more important issue has ever confronted the citizens of Kansas, or for that matter the people of all other rural areas, than this."
Population Trends
In the post-World War II era, rural to urban migration, which had been a reality in Kansas and the nation for decades, accelerated. In 1940, Kansas' rural population was still dominant with urban communities making up just 41.9% of the state's total, but a decade later the scales had been tipped: 52.1% of Kansas' 1.9 million residents were members of urban populations.
By 1960, Kansas counted 1,328,741 urban residents - 61% of the state's total population. And in 1970 urban folk outnumbered rural 1,484,870 to 761,708 - in other words, 66% of all Kansans lived in cities and towns over 2,500.
One Man, One Vote
Traditionally, in Kansas and many other states, state legislatures with two chambers used geography, as well as population, to determine representation. In 1964, two years after Kansas' Sixth and Fifth Congressional Districts were combined due to statewide population loss reflected in the 1960 census, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. Sims that electoral districts, for both houses of state legislatures has to be "apportioned" - or allocated - as equally as possible, based on population alone.
"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres" wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren for the 8-1 majority.
"At a time when there has been an all out effort to emphasize constitutional protection for racial, religious and other minorities we find the court setting up the machinery for large scale discrimination against rural minorities." - Garden City, March 1966
Big First constituents lamented the intrusion of the federal court into state and local affairs. Others, realizing the reduction of their political influence, likened their situation to marginalized urban minorities and opposed policies that they believed showed preference to one over another.
For their part, the Wichita-based Kansas Civil Liberties Union responded to these arguments: "The principle of equal representation in the state legislatures is designed not only to guarantee all citizens of the state 'equal protections of the laws' but also to guarantee all persons equal participation in the process whereby those laws are made and established."
"If we are forced to reapportion in Kansas, you will see our state legislature dominated by the cities, and even more important, by labor unions and labor leaders which, in my opinion, will not be in the best interests of anyone in the Big First District." - Congressman Bob Dole, June 1964