If a new Missouri congressional map endorsed by President Donald Trump is put into place, voters living on Kansas City’s east side will share a congressional district with people living nearly four hours away in Osage County.
Anyone living in downtown Kansas City would be in a district stretching south nearly to Springfield. And Kansas Citians living north of the Missouri River would be in a district running to the border of Iowa and Illinois.
All of those voters currently reside in the 5th Congressional District and are represented by 11-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
But under the proposed new map, which was approved Thursday by a Missouri House committee after more than five hours of public testimony, that district would be carved up in hopes of creating another Republican-leaning seat.
“This is a superior map than the one we have today,” said state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican sponsoring the redistricting legislation.
Missouri has eight congressional districts, with Democrats holding two.
Trump, facing a potentially difficult midterm election cycle next year, has instructed GOP-controlled states to redraw maps to add more Republican seats.
Even though mid-decade redistricting in Missouri is nearly unheard of — it hasn’t happened in six decades, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision — Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers back into session this week to redraw the map so the GOP would hold nearly seven of the state’s seats in the U.S. House.
Republicans Thursday downplayed any role Trump’s demands had on the gerrymandering push. And they insisted the map was drawn by the governor’s staff, not the White House.
Democrats didn’t buy it, denouncing the map as unconstitutional and the push to split up Kansas City for partisan gain as “morally corrupt and inexcusable.”
“Every Missourian deserves fair representation, not these political tricks,” said state Rep. Mark Sharp, a Kansas City Democrat. “My city, Kansas City, hangs in the balance right here, right now.”
The Missouri Constitution calls for the legislature to draw new congressional districts every 10 years after new census numbers are certified to the governor. That happened in 2022, and Democrats argue it violates the state constitution to draw another map before the next census is complete.
There are also questions about whether relying on old population data could also violate the state and federal constitutions.
The Missouri NAACP filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Cole County arguing the governor’s decision to call a special session was unconstitutional. Cleaver has also promised to go to court to challenge any gerrymandered map lawmakers approve.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat, on Thursday demanded demographic information about the map be made available to the public before the committee took a vote.
“I’m asking for information for the public and for this committee,” Aune said. “We deserve to have that information, and if you are not willing to provide it, what are you hiding?"
She also pressed Deaton on whether the governor’s office actually drew the map, or whether it was crafted by the Trump administration. She noted Trump last week praised the map and instructed Missouri lawmakers to approve it “AS IS.”
The proposed new map meets constitutional requirements of districts with equal population as precisely as possible, Deaton said, and is more compact and contiguous, and divides fewer communities, than the current map.
He said the governor was clear that his staff drew the proposed map.
“Gov. Kehoe has never lied to me,” Deaton said, “so I take him at his word.”
The only person to testify in favor of the proposed new map was Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right to Life. She said her organization is committed to helping pass anti-abortion legislation and supporting anti-abortion elected officials.
“We support the process that would increase those numbers,” she said.
A parade of critics testified against the map, including the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, the Missouri NAACP, the League of Women Voters and several residents of the 5th District.
Shannon Cooper, a lobbyist for the city of Kansas City and former Republican lawmaker, said the proposed map “chops our region into three different pieces.” The needs of downtown Kansas City, he said, are different than the needs of rural Henry County.
“I have gone through three redistricting processes in my time here, and what is sorely lacking in this is the amount of public input and the time where, in the past, the committees have traveled across the state and gone into communities and taken the local input from citizens, businesses as well as elected local officials to see what they care about and how they want to be put into those districts,” he said. “And we’re going to do this in six or eight hours and vote it out Monday and Tuesday.”
Phil Scaglia, testifying on behalf of Cleaver, who could not attend Thursday’s hearing, said the map violates the “one person, one vote” principle by relying on old census data. It is also unconstitutional, Scaglia argued, because it “fails to be compact and divides communities of interest.”
The new map could still be redrawn in a way that includes all of Kansas City south of the river in the 5th District, Scaglia said, and still give Republicans the electoral advantage in the district they are seeking.
State Rep. Don Mayhew, a Republican from Crocker, countered that he believes Kansas City would benefit by being represented by three members of Congress instead of only one.
The proposed new map leaves two districts untouched — the 7th District in southwest Missouri and 8th District in southeast Missouri, both represented by Republicans. It only tinkers with the 1st District, based in St. Louis and represented by Democrat Wesley Bell.
The 2nd District, represented by Republican Ann Wagner, moves south of the Missouri River, taking in southern St. Louis suburbs along with Gasconade, Crawford, Jefferson and Washington counties.
The 3rd District, represented by Republican Bob Onder, swaps territory with the 2nd, taking over all of St. Charles and Warren counties, adding Audrain, Lincoln, Monroe, Pike and Ralls counties as it stretches north to Hannabil and encompasses nearly all of Columbia.
The 4th and 6th Districts are where the Kansas City voters who previously all lived in the 5th will be moved.
The 4th District loses parts of Columbia, along with Sedalia and Warrensburg to the 5th District in order to pick up downtown Kansas City. It is represented by Republican Mark Alford.
The 6th District runs across the entire northern half of the state, picking up a piece of Kansas City north of the Missouri River.
It’s the 5th District that sees the most substantial changes. Previously encompassing nearly all of Kansas City, the district now only includes the city’s east side, then stretches east to encompass Jefferson City all the way to Phelps County. It also includes the northern portion of Boone County, but not the Democrat-leaning areas of Columbia.
The 5th District also picks up six counties from the 3rd District — Cole, Cooper, Howard, Maries, Moniteau and Miller counties as well as Morgan County from the 4th District.
Sharp asked Deaton on Thursday whether he would be open to changing the map, even in small ways. Deaton said the map was produced and requested by the governor, and he “can’t imagine myself at this time supporting any changes.”
“You move one line to make one person happy,” Deaton said, “and you have to move seven other lines and you’ve got seven new enemies… this is the map I’m supporting.”
As the committee was preparing to vote on the proposed map, Sharp offered an amendment moving a small portion of south Kansas City in the Hickman Mills area — around 12,000 voters — back into the 5th District. The change would be balanced out by moving voters near Grain Valley to the 4th District.
Republicans opposed the change, and Sharp withdrew the amendment.
Aune said the entire process “reeks of an authoritarian power grab.”
State Rep. Richard West, a Wentzville Republican and chair of the committee, praised the map for moving all of St. Charles County into the same district.
“My county is currently split up,” he said. “This is going to make us whole.”
State Rep. Bill Hardwick, a Republican from Dixon, pushed back on the idea that what Republicans are doing by redrawing the map is out of the ordinary in American politics.
“I’m not saying we should gerrymander or we shouldn’t,” he said, adding: “I’m just saying it’s been part of the republic from the beginning.”
The Missouri House is expected to debate the proposed new map on Monday and send it to the Senate on Tuesday.
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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
