Washington, D.C. — This week, Republicans in Missouri initiated the mid-decade redistricting process, aiming to make the Show-Me State one of the most egregiously gerrymandered in the country, despite previously rejecting such an extreme move in the Missouri House and Senate just three years ago.  

One thing is clear. Governor Kehoe and Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly are not standing up for Missourians, who are demonstrating overwhelming opposition to a mid-decade gerrymander. They are buckling to the demands from Donald Trump. It’s no wonder Missouri Republicans initially balked at the idea of a mid-decade gerrymander – because they know Missourians don’t want this. 

Local editorial boards across the state are slamming this nakedly partisan power grab:

“Missourians are not a monolith, but GOP elected officials in Jefferson City are moving to make our state’s government act like one. We must urge our leaders to put public service over ruthless political gamesmanship. Don’t allow politicians to take more power out of our hands.”

—Editorial Board, Kansas City Star

“All due respect, Gov. Kehoe, but why even blather about ‘values’ at this point? Just say what you’re doing: You’re disenfranchising a major swath of your state’s residents on orders from a blatantly unethical president whose rhetoric and tactics skew more authoritarian by the day. It’s wrong. And you know it’s wrong.”

—Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Thousands of Missourians across the state, from rural to urban communities, and across the political spectrum, are loudly opposing Republicans’ extreme gerrymander, which carves up Kansas City – the state’s largest city– into three districts that stretch hundreds of miles into deeply rural territory on the opposite side of the state.  

Governor Mike Kehoe’s office has been flooded with calls from constituents demanding that their congressional districts remain unchanged, and Missourians have shown up to protests across the state, including in Clayton, Kansas City, and Jefferson City. Labor union workers and civil rights leaders in Kansas City have expressed their anger at this attempt to gerrymander. “It is designed only to make sure that those in office stay in office and to suppress the vote of other African American and brown people,” said Rev. Rodney Williams, pastor of Swope Parkway United Christian Church said to KCUR. 

Even the state’s business community is slamming this scheme, with two of Kansas City’s largest business advocacy groups warning that keeping Missouri’s largest city together in one congressional district is essential to the state’s economy. “Keeping the [Kansas City] region unified within a single congressional district is essential to securing federal support, advancing bi-state cooperation, and maintaining long-term economic growth,” the groups said in a joint statement.

Missourians in rural communities aren’t happy either. “Lumping us in with large cities, we have two different agendas. We all need different things from our politicians,” said Angela Johnston, a farmer from Memphis, Missouri, a small town close to the Iowa border that would find itself drawn into a district with parts of Kansas City almost 200 miles away on the new gerrymander. “Those in the city and those of us who live in rural Missouri, it’s just very different.”

At this week’s hearing before the Missouri House Special Committee on Redistricting, Missourians across the political spectrum overwhelmingly testified in opposition to the extreme gerrymander. Here are some samples of public testimony from the hearing:

“This HB1 is hogwash, I’m a Republican and a conservative. We’re in the middle of a census and I’m totally opposed to this HB1,” said Artie. [KSHB 41: Missouri’s redistricting proposal gets its first hearing in state capitol]

“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,” said Shannon Cooper, a former Republican state legislator. [Missouri Independent: Legislative push to gerrymander Missouri congressional map advances]

“The idea with democracy is that there’s balance, and if there’s too much of either side that hurts the idea of balance,” said one St. Louis voter. [First Alert 4: Reaction pours in as Missouri House Committee passes redistricting map]

“For the first time in my life, I’ll be a rural voter, even though I’ve lived in the house I’ve owned in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri … for almost 30 years,” said Sarah Starnes, a Kansas City resident. [The Beacon Missouri: ‘Kansas City hangs in the balance’: Contentious hearing kicks off Missouri redistricting effort]

Here’s the bottom line: Missouri Republicans have a choice. They can listen to their constituents and reject this extreme gerrymander again, or they can shamelessly cave to Trump’s demands and face a very angry electorate at the ballot box and even more lawsuits in court.

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