House Speaker Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, cast the tie-breaking vote as the House Redistricting Committee passed 12-11 a congressional map that would split Wyandotte County.

Currently Wyandotte County — heavily Democratic — is entirely in the state's 3rd Congressional District. The map passed by the House would put most of the county with western Kansas in the 1st District, while shifting Douglas County from the 2nd District to the 3rd.

Only the southeast corner of Wyandotte County around The University of Kansas Medical Center would remain in the 3rd District.

Democratic leaders quickly blasted the map, which they said was an attempt to protect Republican incumbents.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said he warned about such a map months ago, only to have O'Neal laugh it off as a "conspiracy theory."

"For nearly a year, Mike O’Neal has insinuated that I’m a liar, both to the media and in front of our colleagues in the Kansas Legislature," Hensley said in a prepared statement. "It’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black."

O'Neal, who introduced the map that was voted on Wednesday, didn’t immediately respond to a message left at his office. He has said his map is different than the one Hensley was warning about.

House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, blasted O'Neal's map as "the epitome of gerrymandering" in a prepared statement.

Davis cried foul on the House's congressional map on the same day Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, accused a Senate committee of gerrymandering the state Senate maps.

Landwehr told the Senate Reapportionment Committee that a map it is considering improperly merges her home district with one more laden with minorities.

Landwehr, who has announced her intention to run for the Senate in the fall, said the map breaks rules about splitting "communities of interest" by bleeding her district into one represented by Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, D-Wichita.

"Gerrymandering an area of Wichita where primarily Caucasian voters reside in homes that are upwards of $800,000 in price violates committee rules and federal redistricting guidelines," said Landwehr, who is white. "Any map that draws my home into Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau's district is a violation of two communities' interest."

Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, commended Landwehr on her "principled stand" on protecting communities of interest and asked if she would take a similar stance on congressional redistricting maps in the House, including those that include racially diverse Wyandotte County with mostly white western Kansas.

"I hope I can cut and paste some of your testimony as we argue that sometimes contentious process for congressional maps," said Haley, who is black.

About an hour later Landwehr voted against O'Neal's map in the House committee.