Blistering lawsuit filed against GOP's new 'slapdash' gerrymander

The ink is barely dry on the Missouri Republican Party's mid-decade gerrymander, and it has received its first lawsuit, filed in the state circuit court of Jackson County by the elections watchdog group Campaign Legal Center and the ACLU of Missouri.

The map in question, passed after President Donald Trump ordered Republican-controlled states to redraw their maps to try to block a Democratic election wave next year, chops up a Democratic district in Kansas City, likely eliminating longtime Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in favor of a Republican.

"Today we sued Missouri for its unconstitutional gerrymandered congressional map and filed for an injunction," wrote CLC redistricting strategist Mark Gaber on X. "The map's got a lot of problems, its primary one being the Missouri Constitution."

"The state constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting," wrote Gaber. "In 1955 the state supreme court held that 'only one valid apportionment is intended for each decennial period. This must be true because the decennial census is made the basis of reapportionment.'"

Furthermore, he continued, "The state constitution requires compact districts comprised of closely united territory. The prior map drew a compact near-rectangle around Kansas City metro ... The new map fragments the Kansas City metro area into three districts stretching into far flung regions of the state. This is not 'closely united territory.'"

It gets worse, though, he wrote, because the new map is racially discriminatory: "they created a giraffe neck like appendage in CD 4 that divides CD 4 from CD 5 strictly along racial lines with no basis in law to do so."

Even more absurd, Gaber continued, "The process was so slapdash and rushed that the Legislature assigned one Kansas City precinct to TWO congressional districts. So they actually passed two maps, creating malapportioned and noncontiguous districts."

This lawsuit, which would ultimately have to be heard by the state's Republican appointee-dominated Supreme Court, is not the only potential legal hurdle to the Missouri gerrymander. A group of activists is already moving to gather signatures for a process that, if successful, would force the new map to be put to a vote on the ballot, suspending its implementation until and unless voters approve it.