Pushback continues in Kansas City as state legislators continue moving forward with a special session in Jefferson City, where they plan to tackle redistricting.
A big target of these proposed maps, Missouri’s fifth congressional district, Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver’s seat.
A coalition of advocates met at a park near the city’s East Side, on the corner of 9th Street and Van Brunt Boulevard. This is where the new map presented by Governor Mike Kehoe shows a split will happen.
State Rep. Wick Thomas, who covers this area in the 19th District, says currently all his constituents fall into Cleaver’s congressional district. But with the changes, his district would actually be covered by three different congressional districts.
“Where we are standing right now, the congressional district would expand east past Jefferson City,” Thomas said. “The governor has called for my district, a district of 37,000 people, to be in three different congressional districts.”
He stood alongside leaders from the nonpartisan groups People Not Politicians and League of Women Voters.
Melanie Busse, the President of KC League of Women Voters, has even teamed up with the statewide President for the League of Women Voters to push a letter to decision makers.
“We sent a letter to Governor Kehoe on behalf of my league. We also sent letters to the Speaker of the House, John Patterson, to the Speaker Pro Tem of the Senate. I’ve not received any responses back from them. I’m just hoping that they received our message than our message has heard,” Busse said.
This is why she says it was important to show up with the group on Thursday, especially as she discovered she’ll be directly impacted by the proposed maps.
“We know it will affect our members because many of our members live in the Fifth District, and in fact, I noticed today, I’m looking at the new map, that it will affect me personally, that my district will be changing, so my representation will be changing,” she said.
At the same time this public call happened, leaders in Jefferson City heard public testimony about the maps. There was some heated debate at the Capitol as Republicans ignored a request from democrats for a roll call and spent the day debating the process for this special session.
Some agreed with the concerns being shared on Thursday.
“There are a lot of things happening here that’s clearly unconstitutional,” Rep. Jeremy Dean (D), Springfield, said.
Legality is something legislators have continued to bring up about the process for this redistricting push. But there’s also some heavy pushback there.
“What we’re doing is totally within the bounds of the rules of the Missouri House of Representatives,” Rep. Brian Seitz (R), Branson, said. Defending this push, he continued, “I think the need is there, because we want Missouri accurately represented at a federal level.”
Legislators are expected to take on the full vote for redistricting around Sept. 10; that same day, advocate groups from across the state plan to descend on Jefferson City to protest.
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