kansas city district

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a new U.S. House map into law Sunday as part of President Trump’s plan to try to hold on to a narrow Republican majority in next year’s midterm elections.

Kehoe’s signature puts the redrawn districts into state law with a goal of helping Republicans win one additional seat. But it may not be the final action. Opponents are pursuing a referendum petition that, if successful, would force a statewide vote on the new map. They also have brought several lawsuits against it.

U.S. House districts were redrawn across the country after the 2020 census to account for population changes. But Missouri is the third state this year — following Texas, which then triggered a response from California — to try to redraw its districts for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering.

Republican lawmakers in Texas passed a new U.S. House map last month aimed at helping their party win five additional seats. Democratic lawmakers in California countered with their own redistricting plan aimed at winning five more seats, though it still needs voter approval. Other states also are considering redistricting.

Each seat could be critical, because Democrats need to gain just three to win control of the House, which would allow them to check Trump’s agenda and carry out oversight investigations. Trump is trying to stave off a historical trend in which a president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections.

Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats. The new map targets a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas. It reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver’s district, which he has represented for two decades after serving as Kansas City’s first Black mayor.

Cleaver has denounced the gerrymandering plan for using Kansas City’s Troost Avenue — a street that has long segregated Black and white residents — as one of the dividing lines for the new districts.

Kehoe has defended the new map as a means of boosting Missouri’s “conservative, common-sense values” in the nation’s capital, ignoring Trump’s unabashedly partisan justification for it.

“Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the congressional representation of states like New York, California, and Illinois. We believe this map best represents Missourians, and I appreciate the support and efforts of state legislators, our congressional delegation, and President Trump in getting this map to my desk,” Kehoe said in a statement.

Kehoe signed the new law during an event that was closed to the public.

Opponents are gathering petition signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum on the new map. They have until Dec. 11 to submit around 110,000 valid signatures, which would put the map on hold until a public vote can occur sometime next year.

Meanwhile, opponents also are pursuing a variety of legal challenges. Several lawsuits by voters, including a new one announced Sunday by a Democratic-affiliated group, contend that mid-decade redistricting isn’t allowed under Missouri’s Constitution.

“It was not prompted by the law or a court order; it was the result of Republican lawmakers in Missouri following partisan directives from politicians in Washington, D.C.,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

A previously filed lawsuit by the NAACP contends that no “extraordinary occasion” existed for Kehoe to call lawmakers into session for redistricting.

A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union also asserts that the new Kansas City-area districts violate state constitutional requirements to be compact and contain equal populations. It notes that the redistricting legislation lists a “KC 811” voting precinct in both the 4th and 5th congressional districts, which it asserts is grounds to invalidate the new map.

But Kehoe’s office said there is no error. It said other government agencies had assigned the same name to two distinct voting locations.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Juan A. Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Republicans handed President Trump a political victory Friday, giving final legislative approval to a redistricting plan that could help Republicans win an additional U.S. House seat in next year’s elections.

The Senate vote sends the redistricting plan to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe for his expected signature to make it law. But opponents immediately announced a referendum petition that, if successful, could force a statewide vote on the new map.

“This fight is not over. Missouri voters — not politicians — will have the final say,” said Elsa Rainey, a spokesperson for People Not Politicians, which is leading the referendum effort.

U.S. House districts were redrawn across the country after the 2020 census to account for population changes. But Missouri is the third state to take up mid-decade redistricting this year in an emerging national battle for partisan advantage ahead of the midterm elections.

Republican lawmakers in Texas passed a new U.S. House map last month aimed at helping their party win five additional seats. Democratic lawmakers in California countered with their own redistricting plan aimed at winning five more seats, but it still needs voter approval. Other states could follow with their own redistricting.

Each seat could be critical, because Democrats need to gain just three seats to win control of the House, which would allow them to obstruct Trump’s agenda and launch investigations into him. Trump is trying to stave off a historic trend in which the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections.

Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats. The revised map passed the Republican-led state House earlier this week as the focal point of a special session called by Kehoe that also includes a proposal making it harder for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to win voter approval.

The Republican-led Senate passed both measures Friday after changing the chamber’s rules, then shutting off Democratic opponents.

Kehoe promoted the reshaped districts as a way to amplify “Missouri’s conservative, common-sense values” in Washington.

Trump had pressed Missouri officials to act, asserting on his social media site earlier this week that the Senate “must pass this Map now, AS IS, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans.”

Missouri’s revised map targets a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas. The plan reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver’s district, partly by creating a dividing line along a street that has served as a historical segregation line between Black and white residents.

Cleaver, who was Kansas City’s first Black mayor, has served in Congress for over 20 years. He won reelection with over 60% of the vote in both 2024 and 2022 under districts adopted by the Republican-led state Legislature after the 2020 census.

Cleaver has said he plans to challenge the new map in court and seek reelection in 2026, regardless of the shape of his district.

Cleaver’s revised Kansas City district would stretch from near the city’s St. James United Methodist Church — which Cleaver once led — 180 miles southeast to include another United Methodist church in rural Vienna. In the neighborhood around Cleaver’s hometown church, where his son is now pastor, about 60% of the residents are Black or a mix of Black and another race, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. By contrast, the area around Vienna has just 11 Black residents out of nearly 2,500 people.

Democratic state Sen. Barbara Washington of Kansas City, who described Cleaver as her longtime pastor, said the new map “erases the voice of my community.”

“Carving up Kansas City and silencing our constituents is terrible,” Washington said.

Kansas City resident Roger C. Williams Jr., a 79-year-old former middle-school principal, said the effort to reshape congressional districts reminds him of the discrimination he witnessed against Black residents while growing up in Arkansas.

“What Republicans are doing now in the state of Missouri is they’re taking me back to a time when I, or people that looked like me, would not have an opportunity, because they wouldn’t have a voice,” he said.

Republican lawmakers said little during Senate debate. But sponsoring state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Republican, has said the new congressional map splits fewer overall counties and municipalities into multiple districts than the current one.

“It is a better map for the state of Missouri,” Deaton told a Senate committee Thursday. “By really every metric I look at, I feel that way.”

Lieb writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Republican-led House turned aside Democratic objections Tuesday and passed a plan backed by President Trump to redraw the state’s congressional districts so that Republicans could win almost all of them.

The rare mid-decade redistricting plan, which now heads to the state Senate, is aimed at bolstering Republicans’ national prospects in next year’s U.S. House elections. It comes after a similar move by Republican-led Texas and a counteroffensive in Democratic-led California, which still needs voter approval.

Other states, including Republican-led Indiana and Florida and Democratic-led Maryland and New York, could follow with their own revisions in what’s emerging as a national redistricting battle.

U.S. House districts were redrawn across the country after the 2020 census to account for population changes. The current redistricting push is being done for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering.

“This is cheating,” said state Rep. Yolonda Fountain Henderson, one of many Democrats who denounced the measure. “It’s like when President Trump says, we jump.”

Trump wants to retain a congressional majority to advance his agenda. But historically, the party opposing the president has gained seats in the midterm elections, as Democrats did during Trump’s first term and then proceeded to impeach him.

Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a two-prong special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe.

The House on Tuesday also passed a measure that — if approved by the Senate and statewide voters — would make it harder to pass citizen-led initiatives amending the state constitution by requiring a majority vote from each congressional district instead of a simple statewide majority. That comes after Missouri’s initiative process has been used in recent years to win voter approval of amendments on abortion rights, marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion.

Revised Missouri map could help Republicans gain a House seat

Missouri’s redistricting plan would give Republicans an improved chance to win seven of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, which is one more than they currently hold.

The plan targets a Kansas City district held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by stretching it eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas and reducing the number of Black and minority voters in the district. Other parts of Kansas City would be added to two predominantly rural districts represented by Republicans.

Cleaver, who turns 81 in October, is a Methodist pastor who served as Kansas City’s first Black mayor from 1991-1999 and won election to the U.S. House in 2004. He asserted that Republicans are creating an atmosphere of “intimidation” and “division” and pledged to challenge the new map in court.

“It’s one of those moments that, frankly, I never thought I would experience,” Cleaver said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

Although the primary Kansas City district would expand significantly, the state’s congressional districts overall would be more compact — and competitive — under the revised map, Republican lawmakers said. Kehoe has defended the revised map as a means of amplifying conservative voices in Congress.

It’s “a congressional map that will better represent Missouri in Washington, D.C.,” said sponsoring state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Republican.

Some Republicans join Democrats in opposing new districts

The Missouri House passed the revised districts on a 90-65 vote. Thirteen Republicans, including House Speaker Jon Patterson of suburban Kansas City, joined Democrats in voting against the revised map. But only a couple spoke against it during two days of debate.

“Using our raw political power to tilt the playing field to our side, regardless of the party, is wrong,” Republican state Rep. Bryant Wolfin said.

Leading up to the House vote, three Democratic state lawmakers staged a sit-in in the House chamber for several days and nights to protest that the special session began while most members were absent. Former Vice President Kamala Harris ordered pizza and chicken wings delivered to them in a show of support.

Republicans are “bending a knee to Donald Trump and pushing through these racist, gerrymandered districts,” said Rep. Ray Reed of St. Louis, one of those who slept in the chamber.

The Missouri NAACP has sued seeking to invalidate the special session. The state lawsuit asserts that there is no extraordinary circumstance to justify the session and that the state constitution prohibits redistricting without new census data or a ruling invalidating the current districts.

Missouri Atty. Gen. Catherine Hanaway, who took office Monday, said she doesn’t think there is any constitutional prohibition on mid-decade redistricting.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.