The Republican-led effort to redraw Missouri’s congressional map — a move that would eliminate the Kansas City district held by the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver — is likely headed for a statewide vote. Despite that, GOP leaders are pressing ahead.
On Tuesday morning, People Over Politics delivered 305,000 petition signatures to the office of Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. Later that day, Cole County Circuit Judge Chris Limbaugh ruled that lawmakers had the constitutional authority to pass the revised map.
Republican leaders said the legislation, approved during a September special session of the Missouri Legislature, would take effect Thursday.
Hoskins told the Missouri Independent he is relying on an opinion from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway in deciding whether the law can take effect immediately — a departure from past practice.
According to Hanaway, Hoskins said Limbaugh’s ruling means provisions that suspend a law while a referendum is pending only apply after petition signatures are verified as sufficient.
“I’m going to follow my attorney’s opinion and the attorney general’s opinion that explicitly states that the referendum does not take place until those signatures are verified by the secretary of state,” Hoskins said in a Tuesday interview with The Independent.
The newly drawn map splits Kansas City’s 5th Congressional District, dividing Black neighborhoods and shifting them into distant, Republican-leaning districts. Critics say the change could weaken the political influence of Black and urban voters.
Unlike Missouri, where the redistricting law appears likely to go before voters, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld Texas’ right to enact its own redistricting plan.
According to the Missouri Independent, “dark money groups” poured millions of dollars into Missouri’s legal battles over redistricting in September, including $2 million from two Republican nonprofits.
The developments raise a central question: .Do massive donations and a favorable Supreme Court ruling mean Missouri Republicans are assured a favorable outcome in court?
Michael A. Wolff, a retired chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, said the Missouri lawsuits differ sharply from the Texas case, where the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that race likely did not play a role in drawing district lines.
“There are four lawsuits in Missouri, with only one referring to the racial component or the voting rights act,” Wolff explained, noting that one case is being handled by nationally known voting rights and election attorney Marc Elias.
“The Supreme Court hasn’t said it in full yet. but they’re basically on the verge of saying ‘race doesn’t matter anymore.’ The three other cases,” Wolff said, mostly “focuses on three issues. The first is mid-decade redistricting because the Missouri constitution says, ‘when you get the census, then you do the redistricting.’ Well, you don’t have a census, so that case is in state court.”
In November, Hanaway’s office filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block People Not Politicians, the group behind the petition drive.
Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, said the group’s effort to gather more than 110,000 signatures from registered voters reflects democracy at work.
“For me, People Not Politicians’ (case) is just a referendum that says, ‘people should have final say.’ We’re not asking that this be thrown out judicially or anything. All we are seeking is an opportunity for voters to have final say on this.”
Hanaway’s lawsuit argued that the U.S. Constitution bars states from using voter referendums to decide congressional district plans. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Zachary Bluestone dismissed the case, saying he lacked authority to rule on the issue.
Wolff said the roughly 300,000 petition signatures, if upheld, would all but guarantee the measure appears on the ballot.
“Citizen veto has been used about 27 times (nationwide) and, in 25 of those times, voters have said ‘no’ to a general assembly bid. The Republicans are terrified of that one because it’s not very popular to do just because Trump said so.”
The court victory has drawn the attention of President Trump’s allies, including his son, Donald Trump Jr. On social media, Trump Jr. labeled von Glahn a “leftist nut job…trying to STEAL a GOP house seat in Missouri through an unlawful referendum.” He also shared a link to a website calling von Glahn “a communist.”
Von Glahn said Trump’s post “is meant to be sort of psychological warfare, to make me and my family feel isolated and feel threatened.”
“I have gotten more messages of love and support across this state and across the country this week that I could have possibly imagined.”
Referring to the Supreme Court’s recent Texas ruling that questioned the role of “race” in map drawing, Wolff warned of sweeping consequences.
“If ‘race’ cannot be considered in districting decisions … or, in other words if you take out Section II of the Voting Rights act and say ‘well, it’s not a good law anymore,’ what you’ll end up doing is assigning things where you can’t take into account the racial impact and so forth so…
“You conceivably end up with all eight of (Missouri’s) districts being white with maybe seven of them being Republican.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.
I’m a Democrat with a Republican Representative. From what I am hearing and the response I get when I call, I have no representation. I wasn’t a Democrat until the Republicans chose not to represent all of their constituents. That isn’t how it works! Don’t violate my rights because you can’t compromise. If you can’t do the job you agree to do, bow out gracefully. Or just step aside and let someone else step up! People have lives! Please!