Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent

Red state GOP goes scorched earth in effort to silence voters

Missouri Republicans have been doing everything they can to block a referendum to put the state’s gerrymandered congressional map on the 2026 ballot. The latest twist came late last month when Attorney General Catherine Hanaway accused a company hired to collect signatures for the campaign of human trafficking.

You read that right: Human trafficking.

If true, it would be a massive scandal — and a grave tragedy. But so far, the only evidence Hanaway has cited are “reports.”

After she made the initial accusation on social media, we sought clarification from her office on where she heard these allegations, what “reports” she was referring to and what led her to believe they were credible enough to seek assistance from ICE, the federal agency that enforces immigration laws.

Her office didn’t respond.

A few days later, Hanaway issued a statement announcing she had launched a formal investigation into the allegations. So we asked again for any information about the source of these claims. And this time, Hanaway’s office was quick to respond to tell us that because there is now an active investigation, no information can legally be released.

Welp…

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee seized on the news, using it in a Black Friday-themed text blast to warn Missourians not to sign petitions from a group being investigated for “improper conduct.”

At the center of the accusation is Advanced Micro Targeting — the Dallas-based firm hired by a PAC called People Not Politicians to collect signatures. The allegation is that AMT is bringing undocumented immigrants into the state to assist with the campaign.

To put it another way, at a time when many immigrants — regardless of their legal status — live in fear of being detained and deported, AMT has allegedly been able to convince some to stand outside of government buildings with clipboards.

AMT has strongly denied the accusations. According to the company, all signature gatherers are vetted through the federal E-Verify system. Every petition form lists the name of the signature gatherer, and all forms are reviewed by a notary who checks the signature gatherer’s ID.

Adding to the drama, AMT filed a federal lawsuit alleging four consulting firms are involved in an effort to pay AMT employees to abandon their work, turn over any signatures they gathered and badmouth the company — all to sabotage the petition drive.

Some employees, according to the lawsuit, were offered up to $30,000 to quit and provide “intelligence” to opponents of the referendum.

In a recording provided to The Independent by a supporter of the referendum, an individual who approached signature gatherers in Kansas City is heard identifying himself as an employee of one of the firms named in the lawsuit, Let the Voters Decide.

Let the Voters Decide, which is based in Florida, called AMT’s litigation a “bogus lawsuit” full of “absurd claims.”

And so here we are: an alleged sabotage campaign; an immigration investigation; a federal lawsuit; and a litany of procedural roadblocks.

The GOP is pulling out all the stops to keep the gerrymandered map off the 2026 ballot.

It’s understandable. Of the 27 times a referendum has been placed on the Missouri ballot, voters have rejected the General Assembly’s actions all but twice — including overturning a congressional map in 1922.

The fight over Missouri’s gerrymandered map seems destined to spiral deeper into political intrigue. What began as a dispute over lines on a map has now become a test of the state’s democratic backbone.

Jason Hancock has spent two decades covering politics and policy for news organizations across the Midwest, with most of that time focused on the Missouri statehouse as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. A three-time National Headliner Award winner, he helped launch The Missouri Independent in October 2020. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This GOP plot may hand Dems a massive red state win

In American politics, we’re familiar with gerrymandering — when a political party redraws district lines to gain an electoral advantage.

But what happens when that plan backfires and accidentally benefits the opposing party instead? Enter what politicos call the “dummymander.”

Republicans in several states, including Missouri, followed President Donald Trump’s orders to redraw congressional maps to protect the GOP’s House majority. To do it, they carved up blue seats and dispersed those Democratic voters into deep red districts, making many hue more towards pink.

Earlier this month, Democrats scored massive wins across the country — seen by many as a rebuke of the president and the prelude to a blue wave in next year’s midterms. Could that wave be large enough to turn carefully constructed GOP maps into a dummymander?

Republicans worried about that very scenario in Missouri two years ago, when state senators rejected a map that would have given the GOP seven of the state’s eight congressional seats. They feared a 7-1 map could swing to a 5-3 map if political winds shifted.

Those concerns were set aside in September when the legislature redrew the map to break up the Kansas City-based 5th District represented by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

So does this make Missouri a prime candidate for a dummymander?

Probably not.

The key difference between 2022, when the 7-1 map was deemed too risky, and 2025, when it was approved, is the retirement of Republican U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer. His rural St. Elizabeth home made it difficult to keep him in his district while maintaining a GOP advantage everywhere else.

Luetkemeyer’s replacement, Bob Onder, lives in the St. Louis suburbs, making a gerrymander easier.

Under the new lines, the previously Democratic 5th District would have voted for Trump by 18 points last year, said Erin Covey of Cook Political Report, a national nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes election trends. And Trump would have won the new 4th District — which now includes more Democratic voters from Kansas City — by 21 points.

Even the 2nd District, long targeted by Democrats, became redder under the new map. Covey said the new 2nd District would have voted for Trump by 11 points, compared to eight points before.

She notes that the last time the U.S. saw a blue wave — in 2018 — the reddest seat Democrats flipped was in a New York district Trump won by 15 points.

Now, all this could ultimately be moot. A referendum campaign is raising millions to put the new map on the 2026 ballot, which could freeze the current districts in place until an up-or-down statewide vote.

But if the new map stands, Missouri Democrats shouldn’t be so discouraged that they don’t recruit and run strong candidates, said Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which also provides nonpartisan political analysis at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“If the wave comes,” Kondik said, “you want as many surfboards in the water as possible.”

Look no further than Tennessee, where Democrats are contesting a special election for a U.S. House seat Trump carried by 22 points. Despite the district’s deep red tilt, Democrats are making a play, hoping an anti-Trump electorate is ready to rebuke the party in power.

As both parties brace for the chaos of 2026, one thing’s clear: in the game of gerrymandering, the only certainty is that the lines will always keep shifting.

Jason Hancock has spent two decades covering politics and policy for news organizations across the Midwest, with most of that time focused on the Missouri statehouse as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. A three-time National Headliner Award winner, he helped launch The Missouri Independent in October 2020.

As Nazi sympathizer roils GOP, one MAGA senator's silence grows more telling by the day

For several weeks now, the American right has been embroiled in a bitter internal fight about Nazis and antisemitism.

Specifically, the fight has centered on a Nazi sympathizer who keeps finding his way into the orbit of influential conservatives: Nick Fuentes.

Fuentes, a far-right activist and Holocaust denier, has summed up his political worldview as “hating women, being racist, being antisemitic.” He once proclaimed that Jews “are responsible for every war in the world. It’s not even debatable at this point.”

Yet that repugnant belief system hasn’t blocked his access to a who’s who of the conservative movement — including Donald Trump, who dined with Fuentes and fellow anti-semite Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

More recently, Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show for a two-hour softball interview that featured a call for a “pro-white” movement to oppose the “organized Jewry” Fuentes believes is undermining American cohesion. Carlson’s interview elevated Fuentes’ profile, giving his extremist views an audience far beyond his usual following.

The interview also roiled the American right, setting off an ugly debate about who should be allowed inside the tent of the conservative movement. Among those warning against the mainstreaming of Fuentes was Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

“Listen, this is America. He can have whatever views he wants,” Hawley told Jewish Insider.

“But the question for us as conservatives is: Are those views going to define who we are? And I think we need to say, ‘No, they’re not. No. Just no, no, no.’”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz went even further, saying: “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in that evil.”

The public condemnation of Fuentes and his beliefs from Hawley and other high-profile Republicans stands in stark contrast to Missouri’s other U.S. senator, Eric Schmitt.

Schmitt has yet to make any public comments about Fuentes, and his office did not respond to requests for comment.

There’s certainly no obligation for elected officials to speak out on every controversy, but Schmitt’s silence in particular is raising eyebrows.

First, he has never hesitated to attack antisemitism when it emanates from the left. Why the sudden reticence when it comes from the right?

Second, Schmitt is only a few weeks removed from a speech at the National Conservatism Conference where he argued the United States is not a nation built on ideas but on the legacy of “settlers and their descendants.”

Critics heard echoes in Schmitt’s speech of the old “blood and soil” nationalism that underpinned European fascist movements.

And third, over the summer Schmitt hired a staffer who was fired from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign for circulating a video featuring Nazi imagery. That same staffer previously praised Fuentes’ influence on young men, though he later apologized.

Silence doesn’t equal agreement, and Schmitt’s defenders might argue he shouldn’t dignify Fuentes with attention. Why give an extremist more oxygen?

That might be a persuasive if Schmitt had not already brushed shoulders with the ideological world Fuentes inhabits. Once those lines blur, clarity becomes a duty, not an option. Avoiding the issue allows extremists to imagine their views are tolerated within mainstream conservatism.

When the loudest message a leader sends is silence, it can be heard as permission.

Or maybe it’s just cowardice.

Jason Hancock has spent two decades covering politics and policy for news organizations across the Midwest, with most of that time focused on the Missouri statehouse as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. A three-time National Headliner Award winner, he helped launch The Missouri Independent in October 2020. The Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

MAGA senator’s rampages go far beyond mere defensiveness

Let’s talk about what happens when Josh Hawley gets angry.

Missouri’s senior U.S. senator doesn’t take criticism lightly — whether from the press, his colleagues or anyone he perceives as an enemy. His approach? If you get hit, hit back harder.

It’s not just a defense mechanism. It’s a political strategy. All criticism draws a counterattack, and the conflict itself becomes the story.

Case in point: A few weeks ago, Hawley blasted Ameren Missouri over utility shut-offs and rate hikes, blaming the surge in electricity use from new data centers for “sucking up the electricity off the grid, taking it away from hard-working Missourians.”

That didn’t land well with Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a fellow Republican. In a letter to Hawley’s office, she called his claims “misleading” and warned his rhetoric could “unnecessarily alarm the very people we both serve.”

Instead of a debate on energy policy, Hawley mocked O’Laughlin on social media as a mere “state politician” doing the bidding of her campaign donors.

It’s a familiar pattern that repeats throughout Hawley’s career with almost mathematical precision.

Shortly after Hawley was sworn in as Missouri attorney general in 2017, consultants from his political campaign began working out of his official office, directing government staff and using private email accounts to dodge Missouri’s open-records laws.

When the arrangement was revealed in the run-up to Hawley’s 2018 Senate election, he attacked the media, called the story “absurdly false,” and painted himself in the campaign’s homestretch as the victim of left-wing attacks.

It wasn’t until four years into his first Senate term that a judge eventually determined Hawley’s attorney general’s office had, in fact, “knowingly and purposefully” violated open records laws to protect his campaign from public scrutiny, ordering the state to pay $240,000 in legal fees. A state audit also concluded Hawley may have misused state resources to boost his Senate campaign.

In 2020, the Kansas City Star reported Hawley was registered to vote at his sister’s home in Ozark. At the time, the Hawleys only owned property in the D.C. suburbs, though they were building a house in Missouri.

Facing questions about his ties to Missouri, Hawley called the Star a “dumping ground for Democrat BS” while his allies dug up the reporter’s years-old stories from college to suggest he was biased.

Republican U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner questioned the cost of expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act — a bill Hawley championed to aid St. Louis-area residents harmed by Cold War nuclear testing. Hawley called Wagner’s comments “shameful” and said she was turning her back on her constituents.

Hawley labeled conservative columnist George Will an out-of-touch elitist (“Dont’ you have a country club to go to?”) over a critical newspaper column and demanded Wal-Mart “apologize for using slave labor” over a critical social media post.

In today’s political marketplace, anger is currency. Outrage drives clicks, donations and loyalty.

Hawley thrives in that arena, turning every criticism into proof of persecution that mobilizes his political base and feeds the image he hopes to convey of a warrior fighting the political establishment.

But to Hawley’s detractors, it’s all theater, his outrage little more than a tactic used to distract from tough questions and avoid accountability.

The recent flare-up with O’Laughlin has cooled, but not because of reconciliation. When asked recently by a reporter from Nexstar if he’d reached out to her, Hawley replied simply: “No, I don’t know her.”

For Hawley, the fight isn’t a byproduct of politics — it is politics.

Jason Hancock has spent two decades covering politics and policy for news organizations across the Midwest, with most of that time focused on the Missouri statehouse as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. A three-time National Headliner Award winner, he helped launch The Missouri Independent in October 2020. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

'Betrayal': Outrage as red state lawmakers pass gerrymandered congressional map

A newly-gerrymandered congressional map and limits on voters’ ability to amend the state constitution cleared the Missouri Senate Friday, capping two weeks of contentious debate that drew national attention.

The changes to the initiative petition process will appear on the statewide ballot next year.

The new map, designed to give Republicans control of seven of Missouri’s eight seats in Congress, now heads to Gov. Mike Kehoe for his signature. It may ultimately end up on next year’s ballot as well, with a group called People NOT Politicians Missouri announcing Friday that it will file a referendum with the secretary of state’s office to “put this deeply flawed map before Missouri voters.”

The legislature reconvened last week at the urging of President Donald Trump, who has demanded Republican-led states rework congressional districts so the party holds on to its slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm election.

The White House started pressuring Missouri Republicans to get in on the act in July, and this week phoned in to the state Senate GOP caucus meeting. The initiative petition changes were added to the agenda by Kehoe, with Republicans arguing the current system makes it too easy to change the Missouri Constitution.

The Missouri House passed both measures Tuesday. The Senate gave them final approval Friday morning 21-11 after moving to shut down a Democratic filibuster following four hours of debate. Republican Sens. Lincoln Hough of Springfield and Mike Moon of Ash Grove joined nine Democrats in opposition to the new maps and the initiative petition changes.

Democrats say both proposals are a power grab by the Republican supermajority and a Trump-inspired assault on democracy. And they’ve denounced changes to the Senate’s rules this week designed to undermine any possible opposition.

“This is a cynical maneuver designed to put a thumb on the scale of democracy, to ensure a predetermined outcome regardless of the will of the people,” said state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat. “It is a betrayal of our duty to represent the people, and not a political party.”

Congressional map

Missouri has eight congressional districts, with six currently represented by Republicans. Cleaver represents the 5th District, which includes most of Kansas City and Jackson County.

The 5th District, which has been represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver since 2005, would be carved up, with portions attached to the 4th and 6th Districts. Heavily Republican areas stretching along the Missouri River to Boone County, would be added to the remaining Kansas City portions.

The intended result is a map where Republicans hold seven of the state’s eight seats.

Revising congressional district lines occurs every 10 years, after the allocation of seats following the federal census. The Missouri Constitution mandates it but is silent on whether lawmakers have the power to do so at other times.

Democrats argue it is unconstitutional to draw another map before the next census is complete.

The Missouri NAACP filed a lawsuit 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 the new map.

Republicans say critics are misreading the constitution and are confident the new map will survive any legal challenge.

State Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat, said Friday that the map undermines decades of work to reunite a community divided at Troost Avenue, the line separating Black and white sections of Kansas City when housing segregation was legal.

The GOP-backed map, Nurrenbern noted, splits Kansas City down Troost once again.

“Somebody in D.C. sought to resurrect the Mason Dixon Line of Kansas City,” she said. “Somebody in D.C. decided to split the 4th and the 5th congressional districts down Troost.”

Moon, one of only a handful of Republicans who have publicly opposed the new map, expressed concern Friday about legislators not being allowed to have any input in the process.

“I ask myself what President Trump would do if he were in this body,” Moon said, “and someone told him, ‘this is all you’re going to get, and you vote yes, sit down and shut up.’”

For those seeking to repeal the map through the referendum process, they must collect 100,000 signatures in 90 days to put the map on the November 2026 ballot. Of the 27 times a referendum has been placed on the Missouri ballot, voters have rejected actions by the General Assembly all but twice.

“This fight is not over,” Elsa Rainey, a spokeswoman for People NOT Politicians Missouri, said in an emailed statement. “Missouri voters — not politicians — will have the final say.”

If they collect enough signatures, the legislature would have to move the referendum election to another date. That’s because local election officials say congressional districts must be finalized by May 26 for ballots to be ready in time for the August primary.

The last time the referendum process was successfully deployed was in 2018, when labor unions successfully repealed a right-to-work law. The Missouri AFL-CIO has signaled it is likely to assist in a referendum over the maps.

In 2019, the secretary of state’s office used procedural maneuvers to derail a referendum campaign that sought to overturn newly-passed restrictions on abortion. The move sparked a lawsuit, and in 2022 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled the laws the secretary of state used to obstruct the citizen-initiated referendum process were unconstitutional.

A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Denny Hoskins noted that the 2022 court ruling means signatures can be counted as valid even if they are collected prior to the certification of a ballot title, “since otherwise the full process could eat up over half of their available gathering time.”

But while People NOT Politicians Missouri planned to file a referendum soon after the Senate gave final passage to the map Friday, Hoskins believes they must wait until the governor signs the bill.

“Based on review of recent referendum submittals, our inclination is that the petitioners would need to at least wait for the governor’s signature,” Rachael Dunn, communications director for the secretary of state, said in an email. “Until he signs it, there is the notional possibility (however unrealistic) that he could veto it and so it would not formally be considered law pre-signature.”

The governor has 45 days to sign the bill.

Chuck Hatfield, a veteran Democratic attorney from Jefferson City, said the constitution reserves the right for citizens to reject by referendum “any act of the General Assembly.” The governor is not involved in the process at all.

“The referendum is on the act of the General Assembly, not on a law signed by the governor,” Hatfield said. “It is appropriate to start a referendum process as soon as the General Assembly acts. If the governor later vetoes the measure, the referendum will, of course, not be necessary.”

The secretary of state, Hatfield said, has no right to make decisions on when a referendum may be started.

Initiative Petition

Missouri is one of 24 states that allow citizen initiative petitions. They can be used to either amend the constitution or change state law, though the path to successfully doing so is often arduous and expensive, requiring tens of thousands of signatures to even land on the ballot.

In recent years, Missourians have used the initiative petition process to legalize abortion and recreational marijuana use, as well as expand Medicaid eligibility.

Republicans have fumed at the success of progressive ballot initiatives for years, arguing they are bankrolled by out-of-state special interests.

When the bill cleared the Missouri House, Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis said amending the state constitution has become too easy. Any changes, he said, should have “broad consensus across the state.”

The legislation approved Friday would require constitutional amendments put on the ballot by Missouri voters to attain both a simple majority statewide and a majority in all eight congressional districts in order to pass.

Based on last year’s election results, that change would mean as few as 5% of voters could defeat any ballot measure. The new requirements would only apply to citizen-led initiative petitions, not amendments placed on the ballot by the legislature.

“If you’re a politician in Jefferson City, you become more powerful after this passes,” said state Sen. Stephen Webber, a Columbia Democrat.

The question will go on the 2026 ballot and require a simple majority to approve.

Sam Licklider, a lobbyist for the Missouri Association of Realtors, told lawmakers this week that his organization will oppose the proposal on the ballot.

In 2010, the realtors raised $4.4 million to amend the Missouri Constitution to prohibit sales taxes on real estate transfers. That was followed in 2016 by a $5.6 million campaign to prevent lawmakers from extending the sales tax to services.

“We are well positioned,” Licklider said, “to ensure our arguments reach the public.”

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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.

'Inexcusable'! Outrage as another GOP-led state advances Trump-backed gerrymandered map

Legislative push to gerrymander Missouri congressional map advances

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
September 4, 2025

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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Fury erupts as red state GOP repeals voter-approved laws: 'Kicked a hornet’s nest'

Republican lawmakers’ decision to overturn a voter-approved expansion of paid sick leave means benefits Missouri workers accrued in recent months will disappear on Aug. 28.

They also placed a question on the 2026 ballot rolling back abortion rights that voters enshrined in the state constitution in November.

It’s not the first time the GOP-dominated legislature overturned voter-approved laws in recent years. But this time, the backlash could have long-lasting consequences.

In the short term, proponents of the paid sick leave law are eyeing a new initiative petition to reinstate the benefit in the state constitution, while abortion-rights supporters expect to raise millions to fend off a new ban.

But another coalition hopes to go even further.

Respect Missouri Voters, a bipartisan constellation of organizations, this month submitted 38 versions of a new initiative petition seeking to undermine the legislature’s ability to overturn voter-approved measures.

Most would require 80% of the legislature to agree before a law or constitutional amendment enacted by initiative petition could be revised or repealed. They also would prohibit the legislature from making the initiative and referendum process more difficult.

The group’s PAC reported $200,000 cash on hand on July 1, with another $170,000 in large donations since then. That includes $10,000 from former Republican U.S. Sen. John Danforth.

“This is our one shot,” said Benjamin Singer, CEO of one of the coalition’s members, Show Me Integrity. “If we don’t act now, they’ll succeed in silencing us forever.”

Missouri Gov. Kehoe signs bill repealing paid sick leave

Republicans have taken notice, with some pondering a preemptive strike to change the initiative petition process before any campaign gets off the ground. But others worry it may already be too late and wonder if the GOP overplayed its hand with its recent moves.

“The legislature doesn’t really seem to understand, they’ve kicked the hornet’s nest,” said James Harris, a veteran Republican consultant in Missouri. “We may be about to cross the rubicon… where the legislature loses a lot of its power.”

The showdown is decades in the making.

After Missourians approved a constitutional amendment to limit taxes in the 1980s, the Democratic-led legislature tried to make changes to the initiative petition process that were criticized at the time by GOP Gov. John Ashcroft as an attempt to silence voters. He ultimately vetoed the bill.

In 1999, Missouri voters rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed concealed carry of firearms. Despite the defeat, the legislature revisited the issue after Republicans took the majority and ultimately passed a concealed carry bill in 2003.

Voters passed a ballot measure in 2010 called the “Puppy Mill Cruelty and Prevention Act” that specified appropriate living conditions for breeding operations with at least 10 female breeding dogs. It also capped the number of animals that a business could use for breeding at 50.

Soon after, lawmakers passed a bill that peeled back key parts of the new law, including the cap on the number of breeding dogs.

The puppy mill vote inspired advocates to forgo changes to state law and instead put their focus on putting policy changes in the state constitution — making it much harder for lawmakers to make changes because it would require another statewide vote.

In subsequent years, voters approved constitutional amendments legalizing marijuana, expanding Medicaid eligibility, creating a nonpartisan redistricting plan and repealing a ban on abortion.

But the GOP supermajority wasn’t ready to quit without a fight.

Lawmakers refused to fund Medicaid expansion until the Missouri Supreme Court said they had no choice. They pushed through a ballot measure of their own, approved by voters, that repealed the nonpartisan redistricting plan.

Next year, voters will weigh in on an amendment passed by the legislature putting the state’s abortion ban back in place. The paid sick leave expansion was not a constitutional amendment, allowing lawmakers to repeal it without a new statewide vote.

“I don’t understand the legislature’s strategy at all,” said Sean Nicholson, a progressive strategist who has worked on numerous initiative petition campaigns in Missouri. “A very pro-Trump electorate spoke very clearly on abortion rights and paid sick leave in November. And now we head into a midterm, and we’ve seen in Missouri and other states that shenanigans from politicians become part of the story. The legislature has given voters plenty of motivation to double down on what they’ve already said.”

Missouri Republicans shut down Senate debate to pass abortion ban, repeal sick leave law

Republicans, who held legislative super majorities as these progressive ballot measures have been approved by voters, have long complained that out-of-state money from anonymous sources have largely fueled these initiative petition campaigns.

They’ve vowed for years to make it harder to change the constitution through the initiative petition process, but the push always fizzled amidst GOP infighting or other legislative priorities.

The threat of an initiative petition that would weaken the legislature’s hand in the process has reignited calls for Republicans to take action quickly. The Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing legislators who regularly quarrel with GOP leadership, is calling on Gov. Mike Kehoe to convene a special legislative session to change the initiative petition process.

“Missouri’s Constitution should not be up for sale to the highest left-wing bidder,” the group said in a statement last week. “Without immediate reform, left-wing activists will continue to use this loophole to force their unpopular agenda on Missouri citizens with a mere 51% of the vote.”

Whether Missourians will get another chance to vote on paid sick leave is still up in the air.

Missouri’s law allowed employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting May 1. By the time it’s officially repealed, 17 weeks will have elapsed. That means someone working 40 hours a week could have earned 22 hours of paid sick leave.

If workers don’t use their paid sick leave before Aug. 28, there’s no legal guarantee they can do so afterward.

The sick leave expansion was a “job killer,” said Kara Corches, president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that “one-size-fits-all mandates threaten growth.”

Richard Von Glahn, policy director of Missouri Jobs with Justice, which advocated for the paid sick leave ballot measure, noted 58% of voters approved the proposal. It was also upheld unanimously by the Missouri Supreme Court.

“Now workers may again face the reality of having no paid sick time to take care of their families without losing out on a check,” Von Glahn said shortly after the governor signed the paid sick leave repeal earlier this month. “This move by the Missouri legislature sets a dangerous precedent for democratic processes in our state.”

'Lost all credibility': Red state Republicans ripped apart by football spat

A group of renegade GOP state lawmakers whose quarrels with party leaders defined years of Missouri legislative inaction appears to be ripping apart over a plan to fund stadiums for the Chiefs and Royals.

On Friday, state Sen. Rick Brattin stepped down as chairman of the Missouri Freedom Caucus just days after voting in favor of $1.5 billion in tax incentives to finance new or renovated stadiums. He noted the stadium vote in the statement announcing his resignation.

The group had vowed to oppose the funding scheme, which it decried as a “handout to billionaire sports team owners.” But Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, and state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Cape Fair Republican who is also a Freedom Caucus member, voted in support of the plan after a provision was added making changes to local property tax bills.

The response from conservative activists was swift.

Some accused Brattin of betrayal, while others argued he was duped by the inclusion of language allowing the stadium funding to survive even if a court tosses out the property tax provisions.

“For several years, discussion in (Jefferson City) revolved around conservatives exposing moderate and liberal Republicans by getting them on bad votes that showed who they were,” Bill Eigel, a former Missouri Senate Freedom Caucus leader who is running for St. Charles County executive, posted on social media. “Gov. Mike Kehoe changed this dynamic. He is getting conservatives to vote as badly as the moderates.”

Jim Lembke, a former GOP state senator and adviser to the Freedom Caucus, said the group is “void of any leadership and has lost all credibility. They should disband and join the uniparty that runs Jefferson City.”

Missouri governor allows more spending, property tax cap as he pursues stadium deal

Tim Jones, state director for the Missouri Freedom Caucus, said during a radio appearance on Friday that he advised senators to vote against the stadium bill and was surprised when two members of the caucus ended up supporting it.

“In the light of day, there’s some buyer’s remorse. There’s some regret,” Jones said, though he later added: “To his defense, (Sen. Brattin) thought he was doing the right thing to protect the interest of his constituents.”

Brattin defended his vote on social media, posting a video saying that while the deal wasn’t perfect, he was determined that “if we’re going to be giving handouts to millionaires and billionaires, we need broad-based tax relief for people.”

“To me,” he said, “this was a massive win. On the stadium, they were going to get the votes, whatever it took. So I tried to weigh this out and make lemonade from the lemons we were given.”

Brattin’s chief of staff was less diplomatic, accusing Eigel of treating politics like a game.

“He’d rather chase likes on social media than deliver real wins,” Tom Estes, Brattin’s top legislative staffer, wrote in a now-deleted social media post. “It’s pathetic, and just one more reason he’s never been an effective leader.”

The war between the Freedom Caucus and Missouri Senate leadership raged for years, creating so much gridlock that fewer bills passed last year than any session in living memory — despite Republicans holding a legislative super majority.

Tensions cooled this year, with term limits pushing key figures on both sides of the fight out of the Senate. The detente led to a much more productive session, marked more by partisan squabbling than GOP infighting.

But the Freedom Caucus’ history of using procedural hijinks to upend legislative business made its opposition to the stadium bill an existential threat to its success, forcing Republican leaders to take demands for some form of tax cut seriously.

If approved by the House and signed by Kehoe, the legislation passed by the Senate would allocate state taxes collected from economic activity at Arrowhead and Kauffman to bond payments for renovations at Arrowhead and a new stadium for the Royals in Jackson or Clay counties.

The cost is estimated at close to $1.5 billion over 30 years.

Both teams have expressed interest in leaving Missouri when the lease on their current stadiums expire in 2030, and Kansas lawmakers have put a deal on the table that would use state incentives to pay for up to 70% of the costs of new stadiums.

The Kansas deal expires on June 30.In order to win over Democrats, who were skeptical of the plan and still upset with how the regular legislative session ended last month, Kehoe agreed to increase the size of a disaster relief package for St. Louis from $25 billion to $100 billion.

To quell any possible Freedom Caucus uprising, Kehoe allowed the inclusion of a provision in the stadium funding bill requiring most counties to put a hard cap on increases in property tax bills.

In 75 counties, tax bills would not increase more than 5% per year from a base amount, or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. In 22 others, including Brattin’s home county of Cass and Hudson’s entire seven-county district of southwest Missouri, no increase in the basic bill would be allowed.

The bill includes exceptions for newly voted levies and the additional value from improvements.

Many of the larger counties of the state, including Boone, Greene, Jackson, St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis, were excluded from the cap provisions. Franklin, Jefferson and St. Charles counties were put under the zero percent cap.

With the concessions, Kehoe stitched together a bipartisan coalition to get the stadium bill out of the Senate. There were 12 Republicans and seven Democrats voting to send it to the House on the 19-13 vote. Three of the chamber’s 10 Democrats joined 10 Republicans in opposition.

Eigel, who fell short to Kehoe in last year’s GOP primary for governor, poured cold water on the deal, arguing residents will never see any tax relief.

He points to language added to the bill after it cleared committee stating it is the “intent of the General Assembly” that if any piece of the legislation is eventually ruled invalid, “that provision shall be severed from the act and all remaining provisions shall be valid.”

“Kehoe’s guys snuck in a clause that will allow the property tax provisions of the bill to be stripped out by courts while the billionaire stadium bailout remains whole,” Eigel said. “When conservatives missed it in the final reading after being assured by the sponsor it wasn’t in there, the disaster was complete.”

A spokeswoman for the governor’s office didn’t respond to a question about the severability clause.

Brattin keeps hearing from people who say he “sold out,” he said, but he still believes the bill that passed the Senate was a win for Missourians.

“I just wanted to give some clarity to this,” Brattin said in his social media video. “Whether you agree or disagree, this is where my heart is on this.”

TV reporter injured by bullet fragment at Democrat's campaign event

A reporter for a Kansas City television station was struck by a bullet fragment Tuesday while covering a shooting range campaign event for Democrat Lucas Kunce.

Kunce, a Marine veteran hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, provided first aid to KSHB reporter Ryan Gamboa after a bullet fragment ricocheted off a target and struck him in the arm.

KSHB reports Gamboa’s injuries were minor and he was released from the hospital on Tuesday.

Kunce was holding an event at a shooting range near Kansas City with former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican. After the event, Kunce released a statement on social media reminding shooters to “always have your first aid kit handy.”

“Shrapnel can always fly when you hit a target like today,” Kunce said, “and you’ve got to be ready to go. We had four first aid kits, so we were able to take care of the situation, and I’m glad Ryan is okay and was able to continue reporting.”

Hawley was quick to mock Kunce for the shooting range incident, jokingly posting on social media: “I condemn all acts of violence against reporters and call on Kunce never to shoot another one.”

He added: “I know the Kunce campaign needed a shot in the arm, but this is taking it a little far.”

Kunce later responded by sharing video footage of Hawley fleeing from a mob of rioters after they breached the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

“The last time Josh Hawley saw a gun,” Kunce wrote, garnering a response from Hawley’s spokeswoman: “You just shot someone, relax.”

Every public poll of the race has shown Hawley in the lead, with most putting the Republican up by double digits. And Missouri hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2018.

But Kunce has consistently outraised Hawley, including in the last quarter where he reported raising $7.6 million compared to around $4 million for Hawley and a supportive political action committee. But Hawley ended the quarter with more cash on hand, finishing September with $2.6 million for the campaign’s homestretch compared with $1.5 million for Kunce.

Josh Hawley busted over use of private jets for Missouri Senate campaign

One of Josh Hawley’s favorite lines of attack during his first run for U.S. Senate in 2018 was to lambaste his Democratic opponent for using a private jet to travel the state.

“I say, ‘Look, I’m driving everywhere, why don’t you drive?’ She can’t do it,” Hawley told Politico during the 2018 campaign about then-Sen. Claire McCaskill. “She’s totally addicted to her luxury lifestyle.”

Six years later, as Hawley seeks a second term, the attack is being turned back against him.

Lucas Kunce, the Democratic candidate for Senate, is pouncing on videos being circulated by his campaign of Hawley boarding a Gulfstream IV SP to hopscotch the state last week for rallies with Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker.

The three-stop tour with Butker, Kunce said, was the senator’s first event in Missouri in weeks.

“Missouri’s flyover country for this guy,” Kunce said at a campaign rally in Jefferson City on Saturday. By contrast, Kunce says he’s traveling to campaign events in a minivan with his wife and 16-month-old son.

Lucas Kunce, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks with supporters at a rally on Saturday at the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).

It’s a familiar knock on Hawley, who even as he was hammering McCaskill in 2018 over private planes still accepted a $6,000 charter jet flight as an in-kind donation from a Jefferson City lobbyist.

But Hawley’s use of chartered jets began to increase last December, according to his most recent disclosure filed with the Federal Elections Commission in July. Hawley’s campaign spent more than $132,000 on chartered flights between mid-December and June. The largest expenses were $23,000 on March 19 and $21,000 on Feb. 6 to Air Charter Advisors.

The next round of campaign disclosure reports are due this week.

Responding to the criticism, Hawley’s campaign pivoted to its attack on an essay Kunce wrote in 2021 making the case that the U.S. needed to end its reliance on fossil fuels for the sake of national security.

“We get it,” Abigail Jackson, Hawley’s spokeswoman, said in an email to The Independent. “Kunce has made it clear he hates all vehicles that run on gas and diesel.”

Hawley and Kunce are entering the final weeks of a contentious fight for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat.

Every public poll has shown Hawley in the lead, and national Democrats have largely ignored the race. But Kunce has run a populist campaign fueled by millions of small-dollar donations that have allowed him to go toe-to-toe with Hawley in television ad spending.

Since the August primary, Kunce’s campaign has spent more than $6 million on television advertising, according to FEC records analyzed by The Independent.

Hawley’s campaign has spent $3.9 million, while an independent PAC supporting his re-election, Show Me Strong, has spent roughly $1.9 million.

Kunce, a Marine veteran, paints Hawley as an out-of-touch plutocrat that’s he’s dubbed “Posh Josh” who only is running for Senate to benefit himself and his future political aspirations.

“While I spent 13 years in and out of war zones overseas, Josh Hawley and his political buddies were literally waging war on the people I’d signed up to serve right here at home,” Kunce told a rally of supporters at the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City Saturday. “And that’s not a hyperbole.”

Hawley, who served as Missouri attorney general for two years before joining the Senate, has portrayed Kunce as a radical on issues like immigration and LGBTQ rights. And he’s worked to tie Kunce to national Democrats in a state where Republicans have won every statewide election since 2018.

“We have to save our country,” Hawley told a crowd of supporters in Parkville on Thursday. “We are in crisis. This country is in crisis. It’s in chaos. And you and I know why that’s true. It’s in crisis because of the policies of my opponent, Lucas Kunce.”

Hawley’s campaign has repeatedly demanded Kunce state who he supports in the upcoming presidential election, something he has steadfastly refused to do.

“Now will he answer a simple question on the presidential election?” said Jackson, Hawley’s spokeswoman. “Is he voting for Trump or Kamala?”

Kunce says he won’t answer the question because it’s an effort by Hawley to distract voters and nationalize the race.

And he claims Hawley’s motivation is fear.

“He sees us coming for him,” Kunce said. “He knows he’s unlikable and he knows he is on the wrong side of every single issue.”

The Independent’s Anna Spoerre contributed to this story.

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Federal court declares Missouri’s ‘Second Amendment Preservation Act’ unconstitutional

A Missouri law declaring some federal gun regulations “invalid” is unconstitutional because it violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, a federal appeals court in St. Louis unanimously ruled on Monday.

A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a district court ruling from last year that blocked Missouri from enforcing the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a law passed in 2021 that penalizes police for enforcing certain federal gun laws.

Among the law’s provisions is a $50,000 fine for law enforcement agencies that“infringe” on Missourians’ Second Amendment rights.

Some of the gun regulations deemed invalid by the law include imposing certain taxes on firearms, requiring gun owners to register their weapons and laws prohibiting “law-abiding” residents from possessing or transferring their guns.

“Because the (Second Amendment Preservation) Act purports to invalidate federal law in violation of the Supremacy Clause, we affirm the (district court’s) judgment,” Chief Judge Steven Colloton, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the unanimous opinion.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed the lawsuit challenging the law arguing it has undermined federal drug and weapons investigations. Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by Attorney General Andrew Bailey to allow Missouri to enforce the Second Amendment Preservation Act while its appeal is ongoing.

In a statement through his spokeswoman, Bailey said he is reviewing the decision. He added: “I will always fight for Missourians’ Second Amendment rights.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas released a statement Monday afternoon praising the court’s decision.

“Two years ago, Missouri enacted an unconstitutional law, claiming to invalidate federal gun laws,” Lucas wrote. “The law was rejected in federal appeals court today… I am saddened that our state expended the time and energy of many in our legal system in service of this clearly unconstitutional effort.”

Lawsuit seeks to knock Missouri abortion-rights amendment off Nov. 5 ballot

A pair of Republican state legislators and an anti-abortion activist filed a lawsuit Thursday asking a judge to block an abortion-rights constitutional amendment from appearing on the Nov. 5 ballot.

State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, state Rep. Hannah Kelly and Kathy Forck sued last year challenging the cost estimate for a proposed constitutional amendment rolling back Missouri’s ban on abortion.

The campaign behind the proposal ultimately turned in enough signatures to earn a spot on the November ballot, where it is set to appear as Amendment 3.

Missouri voters will decide whether to legalize abortion in November

On Thursday, Coleman, Kelly, Forck and Marguerite Forrest, the operator of a shelter for homeless pregnant women in St. Louis County, filed a new lawsuit in Cole Circuit Court arguing that the decision to place the amendment on the ballot should be reversed.

The amendment violates the Missouri Constitution, the lawsuit argues, because it illegally includes more than one subject. It also fails to specify the laws and constitutional provisions that would be repealed if it were approved by voters, the lawsuit argues.

In a joint statement released to the media, the plaintiffs said Amendment 3 is a “direct threat to the lives of Missouri women by erasing the will of voters who chose to protect the safety of women and the child by electing strong pro-life leaders.”

Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, which is supporting Amendment 3, called Thursday’s lawsuit “yet another baseless and desperate attempt from politicians to silence Missouri voters and prevent them from being heard. We will not let that happen.”

Sweet said she is confident the courts will “see through this thinly veiled effort to block Missouri voters and dismiss it swiftly.”

Missouri was the first state to ban abortion after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the constitutional right to the procedure. Since then, abortion has been virtually illegal, with limited exceptions only in cases of medical emergencies. There are no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.

If approved by voters, Amendment 3 would legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability, an undefined period of time generally seen as the point in which the fetus could survive outside the womb on its own, generally around 24 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Such an amendment would return Missouri to the standard of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which also legalized abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Missouri’s amendment also includes exceptions after viability “to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

Missouri’s amendment also states that women and those performing or assisting in abortions cannot be prosecuted. Under current Missouri law, doctors who perform abortions deemed unnecessary can be charged with a class B felony and face up to 15 years in prison. Their medical license can also be suspended or revoked.

The lawsuit filed Thursday argues that Amendment 3 illegally includes more than one subject, in part because of its use of the phrase “fundamental right to reproductive freedom.”

The lawsuit argues this phrase is “unlimited in scope” and is “systematically neutralizing all laws, existing or future, that attempt to limit this new, limitless ‘right to reproductive freedom.’” It lays out numerous restrictions on abortion and other laws that could be repealed by Amendment 3 if it were approved by voters, including restrictions on when abortions can be performed and bans on certain stem cell research.

This story was updated at 2:35 p.m. with a comment from Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and at 3:11 p.m. to correct the spelling of Kathy Forck’s name.

Wesley Bell defeats Cori Bush in Democratic primary for St. Louis seat in Congress

St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated U.S. Rep. Cori Bush in the Democratic primary for the 1st District Congressional seat on Tuesday, capping a showdown between the highest profile political figures to emerge from the Ferguson uprising 10 years ago.

The Associated Press called the at 10 p.m. with Bell holding 51% of the vote, Bush at 46% and former state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal at 3%.

“I am deeply honored and humbled by the trust the people of this district have placed in me,” Bell said. “This victory belongs to every volunteer, every supporter, and every voter who believes in our vision for a better future.”

Bell shocked the Missouri political establishment in 2018 by defeating a seven-term incumbent to become St. Louis County prosecutor. Yet his win Tuesday was considered a victory for the political establishment, who have long been disenchanted with Bush.

Bush lost her initial run for Congress in 2018, then rebounded two years later to defeat 10-term incumbent William Lacy Clay in the heavily Democratic district.

She easily won re-election in 2022, defeating state Sen. Steve Roberts by more than 30 percentage points in the Democratic primary. During her time in Congress, she has been a high-profile member of a group of progressive Democrats nicknamed “The Squad.”

But it was her comments following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that drew Bell into the race and laid the groundwork for his victory. She condemned the attack but called for an end to “Israeli military occupation and apartheid.”

That earned her opposition from groups like the United Democracy Project, the political arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which dominated the airwaves in the district with millions of dollars worth of ads praising Bell and attacking Bush.

Bell’s election in 2018 as the first Black prosecutor in St. Louis County’s history was part of a wave of progressive wins in prosecutor races around the country seeking to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Before that, Bell worked as a public defender and served as a member of the Ferguson City Council.

The 1st Congressional District includes all of the City of St. Louis and North St. Louis County, along with pieces of the central corridor such as Clayton and Webster Groves.

Missouri Supreme Court halts release of Christopher Dunn after conviction was overturned

The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the release of Christopher Dunn, days after a St. Louis judge ruled he has been wrongfully incarcerated for 33 years.

The one-page order came at the request of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser ruled Dunn was wrongfully convicted of murder and assault in 1991 and should be immediately released, finding that “in light of the new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Dunn was convicted largely on the testimony of two boys, aged 12 and 14, who later recanted, saying they were coerced by police and prosecutors.

But instead of being released, prison officials agreed to keep Dunn in prison at the request of Bailey.

Sengheiser said Bailey overstepped his authority and was ready to hold him in contempt if Dunn was not released.

Bailey continued to try to block Dunn’s release, falling short with the Missouri Court of Appeals before getting an order keeping Dunn behind bars Wednesday evening.

“Two courts have now found that no juror would convict Mr. Dunn after reviewing the credible evidence of his innocence,” Midwest Innocence Project, which is representing Dunn, said in a statement to the media. “And yet, with no remaining conviction, an innocent person remains behind bars. That is not justice. We will continue to pursue every avenue to secure Mr. Dunn’s freedom.”

Police orgs denounce ad accusing Missouri AG of going ‘easy on a violent career felon’

A new ad targeting Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey from a group backing his rival in the GOP primary places the blame for the shooting death of a police officer last year on Bailey’s tenure as a local prosecutor.

To deliver the message, the Defend Missouri PAC enlisted Ray County Sheriff Scott Childers, who Bailey is seeking to oust from office on allegations he allowed prisoners to leave jail and smuggle in drugs and alcohol on their return.

The ad garnered a sharp rebuke Friday from a pair of law enforcement organizations, who said it was exploitative of the officer’s death.

At the heart of the issue is Bailey’s time working in the Warren County prosecutor’s office, where in the fall of 2017 he filed criminal charges against a man named Kenneth Lee Simpson.

Simpson was no stranger to local law enforcement, having spent the better part of the previous decade in and out of jail on myriad felony and misdemeanor charges.

He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges filed by Bailey, with a different assistant prosecutor handling the case in 2018 when Simpson received six month sentences for fourth-degree assault and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Nearly seven years later, Bailey is Missouri’s attorney general and once again prosecuting Simpson. This time, it’s for the shooting death of Hermann Police Det. Sgt. Mason Griffith, who was killed last year while trying to arrest Simpson for outstanding warrants outside of a Casey’s General Store.

Another officer was injured in the shooting.

The 30-second TV ad launched this week by Defend Missouri — a PAC formed to support the man challenging Bailey in the Aug. 6 primary, Will Scharf — focuses on those misdemeanor charges from 2017 and accuses Bailey of going easy on a “violent career felon.”

“The same felon Bailey slapped on the wrist allegedly used that wrist to shoot two cops,” Childers says in the ad.

The Missouri Fraternal Order of Police and the Law Enforcement Legislative Coalition denounced the ad in similar statements released to the media on Friday, arguing it politicizes Griffith’s death and jeopardizes Bailey’s prosecution of Simpson.

“The ad demonstrates a complete and utter disregard for Dt. Sgt. Griffith’s family, including his wife and two young sons,” the FOP, which endorsed Bailey last year, said in its statement. “They have been through enough pain and trauma over the past year and should not be subjected to images of their loved one’s murderer on television.”

Both groups are calling for the ad to be taken off the air and for Scharf to apologize.

Scharf, who is prohibited from coordinating with Defend Missouri on messaging or strategy, declined comment Friday afternoon. Kristen Sanocki, president of Defend Missouri, did not respond to a request for comment.

Bailey’s campaign called the ad a “last-ditch attempt to score cheap political points” that “demonstrates a complete disregard for the victims.”

“If Will Scharf truly supports law enforcement, he would demand the ad be taken down immediately and issue a personal apology to the families traumatized by these events,” said Michael Hafner, a spokesman for Bailey’s campaign.

Long criminal history

Missouri’s online court records system shows Simpson has faced criminal charges at least 20 times since 2004, when he turned 17.

That year, Simpson faced 11 felonies after he drove a truck down while a friend shot a BB gun at car windows, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He received probation that was revoked months later when he shot out the window of Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy’s vehicle as it drove down the highway.

After Simpson’s 2023 arrest, the Post-Dispatch interviewed his neighbors, who were not surprised to find out about his involvement in the Hermann shooting. One told the newspaper: “He’s always had problems. That officer should not be dead.”

Kelly King, who served as Warren County prosecuting attorney starting in 2014, told the Post-Dispatch last year that Simpson even threatened to blow up her car.

King now serves as deputy attorney general under Bailey, overseeing the day-to-day management of the office and serving as senior advisor.

After his 2023 arrest, Simpson told the police he was on the run for several warrants. When officers arrived at the Casey’s, Simpson said he believed he was going to die and decided to commit “suicide by cop,” according to the probable cause statement filed after his arrest.

Simpson said he didn’t originally intend to kill anyone but himself.

Ray County Sheriff

The anti-Bailey ad, which is airing on television around the state and was pushed out Friday evening through text message by Defend Missouri, is narrated by Childers.

In March, Bailey filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Childers from office, alleging he unlawfully allowed prisoners to leave jail, perform work for friends and smuggle drugs, alcohol and other contraband into the jail.

Childers is on paid administrative leave while the suit works through the courts. He has denied any wrongdoing, alleging in a court filing last month that Bailey’s efforts to oust him are retaliation for Childers threatening to go to the media with accusations the attorney general refused to take action on a sexual assault case.

There’s no mention of Childers’ legal tussle with Bailey in the ad, though he opens it by saying, “as Ray County sheriff, I worked with Andrew Bailey. I can tell you he’s no friend of law enforcement.”