Missouris

Then-Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., talked to constituents at the St. Louis St. Patricks Day Downtown Parade in 2024. Friday, she announced her bid to take back her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 3 (UPI) — Cori Bush announced her comeback bid for the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday.

Bush, who represents St. Louis and is a former member of the progressive ‘squad,’ was defeated in her primary by well-funded Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo.

“I ran for Congress because I know what it feels like to be a working-class St. Louisan. Too often unseen, unheard, left out,” Bush said in an ad. “I promised to fight for St. Louis, and we delivered.”

She posted on X: “We need a fighter who will lower costs, protect our communities, and make life fairer. I’ll be that fighter.”

The funding for Bell came from a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Bush had been an outspoken critic of Israel over the war in Gaza. The PAC spent more than $8.6 million to oust her.

In June 2024, another squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost his primary to George Latimer, 70, who joined the race to support local Jewish leaders who didn’t like Bowman’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

Bush mentioned her defeat, saying, “Because I spoke truth, they pushed back, attacked my name, my motives, spread lies and hate.”

On X, Bell responded: “Today my former opponent, Cori Bush, entered the race for Congress. That’s her right, and in our democracy, everyone gets a say. But here’s the simple truth: Missouri voters already rendered their verdict when they voted her out of office last year and chose to move on.”

While Bush has been an outspoken critic of Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023, start of the war, other Democrats are growing weary as the war lingers.

Bell has also wavered.

“I’ve always supported Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. That hasn’t changed,” Bell said in July on X. “But supporting this government’s actions – allowing children to starve and firing on civilians seeking food — is something I can’t stand by.”

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Kehow ordered a special legislative session to redraw the congressional map for its eight U.S. House seats, mirroring efforts by other governors to gain seats for their parties in the 2026 midterms.

Redistricting may face a legal challenge because the state constitution requires new borders to be determined after new census numbers come out at the beginning of each decade, with the next scheduled for 2030.

On Friday, Kehow said the state General Assembly will return to the capital in Jefferson City on Wednesday to look at changing the maps. There are now six Republicans and two Democrats representing Missouri.

Both chambers hold super-majorities. The Missouri Senate will consider the map during its annual veto session on Sept. 10.

“Today, I am calling on the General Assembly to take action on congressional redistricting and initiative petition reform to ensure our districts and Constitution truly put Missouri values first,” Kehoe said in a statement.

Kehow unveiled the Missouri First Map, which he said is “a more compact, contiguous proposed map that was drawn and created by his team in Missouri to be considered by the General Assembly.”

The new map, he said, splits fewer counties and municipalities than the current map. It preserves two congressional districts as currently drawn, and retains every current member in their proposed districts.

“Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our Missouri values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the extreme Left representation of New York, California and Illinois,” Kehoe said. “Missouri’s conservative, common-sense values should be truly represented at all levels of government, and the Missouri First Map delivers just that.”

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that “passage of a new, much fairer, and much improved, Congressional Map, that will give the incredible people of Missouri the tremendous opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the2026 Midterm Elections – A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda, not just in the ‘Show-Me State,’ but across our Nation.”

Trump, who noted he decisively won three primaries and three presidential elections, added “I call on all of my Republican friends in the Missouri Legislature to work as fast as they can to get this new Congressional Map, AS IS, to Governor Mike Kehoe’s desk, ASAP.”

In his Friday video, Kehoe said: “I appreciate President Donald Trump for raising the level of conversation on this matter, because his leadership on this nationally underscores just how important this moment is for Missouri.”

The proposed map significantly redraws the 5th congressional district, which is represented by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2004. It includes a much larger portion of the state, meaning from the western portion of the state to the eastern edge.

The district currently covers Kansas City and its surrounding areas, as well as a portion of Independence. The district is home to Harry S. Truman, a Democrat who was U.S. president from 1945-1953.

“President Trump’s unprecedented directive to redraw our maps in the middle of the decade and without an updated census is not an act of democracy — it is an unconstitutional attack against it,” Cleaver, the first Black mayor of Kansas City, said in a statement. “This attempt to gerrymander Missouri will not simply change district lines, it will silence voices.”

He added Democrats wouldn’t “concede” if the map redrawing moves forward.

“The people of the Fifth District and I will fight relentlessly to ensure Missouri never becomes an antidemocratic state, where politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives. In the courts and at the ballot box, we will demand that the rule of law is upheld, our voices are heard, and democracy prevails.”

He noted roughly 40% of Missourians cast their ballots for Democratic candidates last year but hold only 25% of the House seats.

The other House Democrat serving the state is Wesley Bell, elected for his first term in November, and serving in the 1st Congressional District covering St. Louis. He was the first Black prosecutor in St. Louis County.

The Missouri Constitution calls for the legislature to draw new congressional districts every 10 years after new U.S. census numbers are reported. Missouri officials weighed the map’s legality last week, according to emails obtained by the Kansas City Star.

“The plain language of the Missouri Constitution and the Missouri Supreme Court’s precedent make clear that mid-cycle congressional redistricting is prohibited,” attorneys Chuck Hatfield and Alix Cossette, two longtime Democratic attorneys, wrote in a memo obtained by the Missouri Independent. “Any attempt to do so will draw a substantial legal challenge, which will likely succeed and invalidate any map adopted by the General Assembly.”

Other states

In the U.S. House, Republicans currently hold a 219-212 advantage, which includes vacancies from the deaths of three Democrats and one GOP member who resigned.

On Friday, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation for a new congressional map in an attempt to add five GOP seats in the U.S. House, which now includes 25 of 38 controlled by GOP.

In California, the new map could add five seats for Democrats, who hold a 43-9 edge. But unlike in Texas, voters in November must approve the change. California’s borders are drawn by a nonpartisan group and new legislation left it up to a referendum.

Republican-dominant legislatures in Ohio, Indiana and Florida may redraw congressional borders before the 2026 midterm elections.

Earlier this week, some Indiana legislators visited the White House to discuss redistricting.

States traditionally redo their borders at the start of each decade but in Ohio, under state law, a new congressional map must be approved by November 30. The previous map lacked bipartisan support.

Other states with a Democratic majority, including Illinois, New York, Maryland and Oregon, are also considering changing the borders.

Republican legislatures control 28 of the 50 states with 18 by Democrats and four chambers divided politically.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. —  Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe is calling Missouri lawmakers into a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of a growing national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an edge in next year’s congressional elections.

Kehoe’s announcement Friday comes just hours after Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans gain five more seats in the 2026 midterm elections. It marked a win for President Trump, who has been urging Republican-led states to reshape district lines to give the party a better shot at retaining control of the House.

Missouri would become the third state to pursue an unusual mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas took up the task first but was quickly countered by Democratic-led California.

Kehoe scheduled Missouri’s special session to begin Sept. 3.

Missouri is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats — Reps. Wesley Bell in St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver in Kansas City. Republicans hope to gain one more seat by reshaping Cleaver’s district to stretch further from Kansas City into suburban or rural areas that lean more Republican.

Some Republicans had pushed for a map that could give them a 7-1 edge when redrawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP legislative majority ultimately opted against it. Some feared the more aggressive plan could be susceptible to a legal challenge and could backfire in a poor election year for Republicans by creating more competitive districts that could allow Democrats to win three seats.

Republicans won a 220-215 House majority over Democrats in 2024, an outcome that aligned almost perfectly with the share of the vote won by the two parties in districts across the U.S., according to a recent Associated Press analysis. Although the overall outcome was close to neutral, the AP’s analysis shows that Democrats and Republicans each benefited from advantages in particular states stemming from the way districts were drawn.

Democrats would need to net three seats in next year’s election to take control of the chamber. The incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterm elections, as was the case for Trump in 2018, when Democrats won control of the House and subsequently launched investigations of Trump.

Seeking to avoid a similar situation in his second term, Trump has urged Republican-led states to fortify their congressional seats.

In Texas, Republicans already hold 25 of the 38 congressional seats.

“Texas is now more red in the United States Congress,” Abbott said in a video he posted on X of him signing the legislation.

In response to the Texas efforts, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a November statewide election on a revised U.S. House map that gives Democrats there a chance of winning five additional seats. Democrats already hold 43 of California’s 52 congressional seats.

Newsom, who has emerged as a leading adversary of Trump on redistricting and other issues, tauntingly labeled Abbott on X as the president’s “#1 lapdog” following the signing.

Voting rights groups filed a lawsuit this week ahead of Abbott’s signing the bill, saying the new map weakens the electoral influence of Black voters. Texas Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new map in court.

The redistricting battle could spread to other states. Republicans could seek to squeeze more seats out of Ohio, where the state constitution requires districts to be redrawn before the 2026 elections.

Republican officials in Florida, Indiana and elsewhere also are considering revising their U.S. House districts, as are Democratic officials in Illinois, Maryland and New York.

In Utah, a judge recently ordered the Republican-led Legislature to draw new congressional districts after finding that lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Republicans have won all four of Utah’s congressional seats under the map approved by lawmakers in 2021.

Lieb and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Ark. AP journalist Jim Vertuno contributed from Austin, Texas.

Thursday might be an off-day for the Dodgers.

But for their most intriguing recent draft pick, it’s also the opening day of a different kind of season.

In the 17th round of last month’s MLB draft, the Dodgers took a flier on University of Missouri pitcher Sam Horn, a 6-foot-4 right-hander with a big fastball, a promising slider and an athletic, projectable build.

Like most late-round prospects hoping to become a diamond in the rough, Horn came with questions. He pitched just 15 innings in his college career after undergoing Tommy John surgery as a sophomore. His limited body of work led to a wide range of scouting opinions.

In Horn’s case, however, the biggest unknowns had nothing to do with his potential as a pitcher.

Because, starting Thursday night, he will also be under center as quarterback for Missouri’s football team.

Horn is not only a two-sport athlete, but someone still undecided on whether his future will be on a mound or the gridiron. As a quarterback, he was a four-star recruit in Missouri’s 2022 signing class. And this fall, he has been locked in a battle with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula, jockeying for first-string signal-caller duties at an SEC program coming off a 10-win season.

When Missouri opens its 2025 football schedule Thursday night against Central Arkansas, Pribula will play the first half, and Horn will play the second half. As for the rest of the season, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz has yet to hand either player all the keys to the offense.

“I think both quarterbacks have done an excellent job of doing the things that we’ve asked them to do, and there wasn’t enough separation that I felt like there was a clear-cut starter,” Drinkwitz told reporters this week. “And so the next-best evaluation is in a live football game to see how guys respond, not only to preparation and a game plan, but also respond to a crowd, also respond to being tackled and being hit.”

It’s a QB battle that Dodgers officials have followed with fascination throughout Missouri’s fall camp.

Already, the club has signed Horn to a baseball contract with an almost $500,000 signing bonus (well above the norm for the 525th overall pick).

The question now is whether he ever ends up playing for them.

“We’re pleasantly hoping he does,” Dodgers vice president of baseball operations Billy Gasparino said this week. “We think there’s a whole window of opportunity to get him much better, and quickly.”

Once upon a time, the Dodgers viewed Horn as one of college baseball’s better pitching prospects. Even in a limited sample size as a freshman in 2023, Gasparino said the team evaluated him as having potential future first-round talent.

“He’s a tremendous athlete,” said Gasparino, the longtime point man for the Dodgers’ draft operations. “He has really good arm action. I think that part was very elite.”

By the time Horn actually became draft-eligible this summer, though, uncertainties about his future made his scouting process unique.

All along, Horn signaled to MLB teams that he wanted to play football this fall. As a redshirt junior, he will have another season of eligibility in football next year as well. Gasparino said the narrative around Horn, who is originally from Lawrenceville, Ga., is that “baseball is his first love.”

“But,” Gasparino added, “he definitely seemed split on what he wanted to do going forward.”

This is not the first recent example of the Dodgers drafting a power-conference college quarterback.

Two years ago, they used their final 20th-round selection in the 2023 draft on then-Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, a former two-sport star at St. John Bosco. Uiagalelei, however, never signed with the team. As a highly-touted five-star talent with NFL aspirations, he never made the switch to baseball either, his draft rights with the Dodgers lapsing after he transferred to Florida State for the 2024 football season.

Horn’s situation appears to be different. Unlike Uiagalelei (who never actually pitched collegiately), he spent the last three years on Missouri’s baseball team. And if he doesn’t win the starting quarterback job with the Tigers football squad this fall, his odds of reporting to the Dodgers next spring figure to be much more realistic.

That’s why, as Missouri’s QB battle has unfolded this preseason, Gasparino scoured Missouri recruiting site message boards and local news outlets, looking for any indication of which way the program was leaning.

“The coach is going to give nothing,” Gasparino said jokingly. “So you kind of have to go on the message boards, and to the local writers, to figure out, ‘Alright, who is winning? What is going on?’ It’s been kind of a hard read.”

Leading up to the draft, Horn’s situation also required extra scouting legwork. The Dodgers dusted off his old freshman year and high school evaluations, after he pitched just 10 ⅔ innings in Missouri’s spring baseball season coming off his Tommy John procedure. They also reached out to NFL scouting departments and college football recruiters, “just to figure out how talented he was at football,” Gasparino said.

The Dodgers do have downside protection if Horn ultimately decides to stick with the football, with Gasparino noting that “to actually get his signing bonus, he has to come to us.”

But in the meantime, they’ll be keeping a close eye on Missouri’s football season — starting with Thursday night’s opener in which Horn is slated to see the field.

“Definitely gonna be watching,” Gasparino said. “I mean, I guess first, it’s like, don’t get hurt. But also just hoping that the right answer becomes very clear on what he should do sport-wise … Of course, we’d be disappointed if it’s not baseball. But would hate another year of in-between.”