JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — With a week left in this year’s legislative session, Missouri lawmakers will try one more time to approve a congressional map.
If the map flounders in the fractured Senate or fails to pick up steam in the House due to concerns about political gerrymandering, the state’s congressional boundaries will likely be drawn by the courts. Three lawsuits already seek a solution in the courts if the legislature fails.
This week, after months of bitter Republican infighting, the House Redistricting Committee advanced a new compromise map that seeks to fix some of the concerns from both chambers. As proposed, the district lines appear to preserve the state’s current mix of six Republican and two Democratic members of Congress.
Rep. Dan Shaul, an Imperial Republican who chairs the redistricting committee, said Thursday he’s hopeful this map will survive both chambers by the end of session at 6 p.m. May 13. But others, namely House Democrats, aren’t so sure.
“I think we’re in a better position today than we ever have been,” Shaul said. “The thing we fight now is the courts. The courts fire up at 6:01 p.m. Friday (May 13).”
A hard-right faction in the Senate called the Conservative Caucus has for months wanted Republican leaders to draw a map that would have allowed the party to pick up an additional seat in Congress.
The 7-1 map, as senators called it, would have required gerrymandering the Kansas City-area 5th District, long held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The new map, according to Shaul, would leave the Kansas City area largely intact.
The map, which passed out of committee this week, splits Boone County almost in half between the 3rd and 4th districts.
Jefferson County is also split between the 3rd and 8th districts. And it places Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base together in the 4th District, currently represented by U.S. Senate candidate Vicky Hartzler.
Shaul said he hopes the House will pass the new map on Monday, giving the Senate roughly four days to debate and approve it before the end of next week.
Rep. Jerome Barnes, a Raytown Democrat, said he expects Democrats to propose several amendments to the map on Monday. As it stands now, he said he anticipates most Democrats will vote against it.
“I’m not a fan of it,” he said. “My goal is to have all the Democrats read the bill over the weekend and come in and ask some hard questions but, in the end, I’d like to see all of them vote the map down.”
Barnes painted the new map as a compromise among Republicans in both chambers that was rushed through at the end of the session. As some Democrats have argued, Barnes said he believes the courts would draw a fairer map than the legislature.
“The majority party worked together with the senators to come up with a compromise with the Conservative Caucus,” he said. “They never talked across the aisle to any of us.”
Shaul refutes the idea that the map should be left to the courts. He said there’s a bipartisan push to pass the boundaries before the session ends.
“I think many of the people I spoke to from the minority party agree that whatever the courts rule may not serve them better,” he said. “It may actually hurt them because (Cleaver), his district may look different and may not benefit him to the degree it does here.”
Missouri remains one of the last states in the country without an approved congressional map.
Across the border, a Wyandotte County judge struck down Kansas’ approved congressional map for unconstitutional racial and political gerrymandering. The Kansas attorney general appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court where the case is scheduled for oral arguments later this month.
The lawsuits against Missouri — one in federal court and two in state court — address what would happen if a new map is not approved and the existing one has to be used in August primaries. The lawsuits contend it would be unconstitutional for the state to hold the primaries using districts based on the 2010 census because it would significantly weaken votes from constituents in “overpopulated” districts.
Of the two lawsuits filed in state court, the one filed by Democrats asks the courts to draw a new map. The competing lawsuit filed by Republicans asks a judge to require the legislature to adopt a new plan and reopen candidate filing.
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