Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a new map of the US home on Sunday as part of President Trump’s plan to protect a narrow Republican majority in next year’s midterm elections.
Kehoe’s signature will put redrawn districts into state law with the goal of helping Republicans win additional seats. But that may not be the final action. Opponents are pursuing a referendum petition to force a statewide vote on the new map if successful. They also filed several lawsuits against it.
To explain population changes, U.S. residential areas were redrawn nationwide after the 2020 census. But Missouri will try to redraw the district this year for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering, following Texas, which sparked responses from California.
Republican lawmakers in Texas last month passed a new US House Map aimed at helping their party win five seats. California Democrats have rebutted their own constituency change plan aimed at winning five more seats, but still require voter approval. Other states are also considering changing their districts.
Each seat can be important as Democrats need to win just three to win control of the house. Trump is trying to stop the historic trend of presidential parties losing seats in midterm elections.
Republicans currently own six of the eight US house seats in Missouri. The new map targets seats held by Democrat Ep. Emmanuel Cleaver by shaving parts of the Kansas City area and extending the rest into a heavily Republican-heavy rural area. After serving as Kansas City’s first black mayor, he will reduce the number of black and minority residents in the Cleaver area he has represented for 20 years.
Cleaver denounced a gerrymandering plan to use True Store Avenue in Kansas City, a long-separated street, as one of the new district’s divisions.
Kehoe has defended the new map as a way to boost Missouri’s “conservative and common sense values” in the country’s capital, ignoring Trump’s shy partisan justification.
“Missouri people are more similar than we are different, and our values on either side of the aisle are closer to each other than representatives of states such as New York, California, and Illinois. We believe this map best represents the Missouri people.
Kehoe signed a new law during an event that was closed to the public.
Opponents are gathering petition signatures attempting to enforce a statewide referendum on a new map. They will be required to submit approximately 110,000 valid signatures until December 11th.
Meanwhile, opponents are also pursuing a variety of legal challenges. Several lawsuits by voters argue that medium-term constituency changes are not permitted under Missouri’s constitution, including a new lawsuit issued Sunday by a group related to the Democratic Party.
“It wasn’t urged by law or court orders. It was the result of Republican lawmakers in Missouri following partisan orders from politicians in Washington, D.C.,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Constituency Foundation, a nonprofit organization for the National Democratic Researth Committee.
The lawsuit filed previously by the NAACP alleges that there was no “extraordinary opportunity” for Kehoe to call lawmakers into the session for rezoning.
The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit also argues that the new Kansas City Regional District is compact and includes an equal group in violation of the state’s constitutional requirements. Please note that the Rezoning Act lists “KC 811” voting districts in both the 4th and 5th Assembly districts.
However, Kehoe’s office said there were no errors. He said other government agencies assigned the same name to two different voting locations.
Lieb writes for the Associated Press. Houston AP writer Juan A. Lozano contributed to this report.
