The Kansas House has given first-round approval to a congressional redistricting bill keeping the Kansas City area in a single district rather than splitting it between two.

House members advanced the measure on a voice vote Tuesday after substituting their favored plan for one drafted by House Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican.

The House expects to take final action Wednesday.

The measure would cut southeast Kansas in half, putting Pittsburg in the 4th District with Wichita, about 150 miles away.

The O’Neal plan would have split the Kansas City area between two districts. It would have put much of Wyandotte County, with urban Kansas City neighborhoods, into the 1st Congressional District of western and central Kansas with rural communities more than 400 miles away.