Top Missouri staff weighed legality of Trump’s gerrymandering push, emails show
As President Donald Trump pressures Republican states to enter a national redistricting effort, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has remained noncommittal about whether he’ll call on lawmakers to gerrymander the state’s U.S. House map to ensure Republican control of Congress.
Behind the scenes, however, Missouri has already looked into the legality of such an unprecedented move.
State government officials and high-ranking Kehoe staff late last month discussed which state laws allowed Missouri to redraw its congressional map mid-decade, emails obtained by The Star show. The email chain focused on whether Missouri and federal law required lawmakers to use the most recent Census, conducted in 2020, to carve up a new map.
The emails, which The Star obtained through a public records request, provide further evidence that momentum could be building for a special session that would force Missouri into a redistricting frenzy amid a similar effort in Texas.
However, legal experts who spoke with The Star about the emails said the redistricting plan discussed could run Missouri into legal trouble.
In a July 30 email titled “Missouri census laws related to redistricting,” Matt Hesser, the state’s demographer, sent a series of state and federal laws regarding redistricting to Dan Haug, the state’s longtime budget director. As state demographer, Hesser researches and analyzes population growth around the state.
“This is in reference to the discussion about potential sources for population data for any possible mid-decade redistricting,” Hesser wrote in the email, which he also sent to three top officials in the Missouri Office of Administration, including Commissioner Ken Zellers.
The email acts as a reference guide of sorts in which Hesser includes whether Missouri law, the state Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act require lawmakers to use the most recent Census data to redraw the state’s congressional districts.
While Hesser quotes the various laws, he does not come to a legal conclusion. Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on population changes released from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Hopefully, this information will give legal council a starting point for (additional) research regarding potential sources for population data used for any possible mid-decade redistricting,” Hesser wrote in the email.
Several hours later, Haug forwarded Hesser’s email to three high-ranking officials in the Missouri Governor’s Office: Adam Gresham, Kehoe’s chief of staff, Bill Anderson, his deputy chief of staff, and Lowell Pearson, Kehoe’s general counsel.
“As a follow up to our discussion today about redistricting, I am forwarding you the relevant sections of the Constitution and RSMo,” Haug wrote in the email to Kehoe’s staff. “Let us know if you need anything else from us on this issue.”
The emails appear to signal that Missouri officials looked into whether they could use non-Census data to redraw the state’s map. However, a Kehoe spokesperson, in an email to The Star, emphasized that Missouri would use Census data.
“If a special session on redistricting is called, the most recent census data would be used,” spokesperson Gabby Picard said. “As a reminder, a decision on a special session has not yet been made.”
Picard’s reference to the most recent Census data is noteworthy. While the most recent Census was performed in 2020, Trump recently called for a “new and highly accurate” mid-decade Census that could bolster the Republican push to redistrict GOP-led states.
A spokesperson for the Office of Administration declined to comment on the email.
Is Missouri’s redistricting effort legal?
Two legal experts who reviewed the email and Picard’s comments said that if Missouri redraws its congressional districts based on the 2020 Census, the move is likely to run into legal trouble.
Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City-based attorney heavily involved in state government issues, said a new map based on five-year-old population data could expose the state to a constitutional challenge if people aren’t accurately represented under the new districts.
“That’s one reason the Missouri Constitution limits redistricting to only once every 10 years,” said Hatfield, who previously worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. “The state’s own data shows that the population has shifted since 2020, so the data they plan to use will be incorrect.”
Hatfield pointed to Missouri’s population projections, which show that the state’s population has changed since the 2020 Census. Jackson, Clay and Platte counties, for example, have all seen population growth since 2020, according to the Missouri data.
Jim Layton, an attorney and former state solicitor general who spent 22 years in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, made a similar argument in a statement to The Star.
“There is a reasonable (but untested) argument that data that we know is now inaccurate cannot be used to determine whether new districts, when enacted, are ‘as nearly equal in population as may be,’ as the Missouri Constitution requires,” Layton said.
Upcoming special session?
The redistricting push comes as Trump’s political team has put pressure on lawmakers to redraw their states’ U.S. House maps so Republicans can maintain a slim majority in Congress.
The proposed plan would be an overt example of partisan gerrymandering, a term used to describe the practice of redrawing electoral district boundaries to favor one party over another.
Missouri’s likely move would involve carving up the Democratic-leaning 5th District, which includes Kansas City’s urban core and its nearby suburbs. That plan could force out of office U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, Kansas City’s longtime Democratic congressman.
The idea floating around Missouri GOP circles would involve creating a new map that could allow Republicans to pick up seven of the state’s eight congressional districts.
Republicans currently control six districts, and Democrats hold the 5th District in Kansas City and the 1st District in St. Louis, under the maps state lawmakers approved three years ago.
Missouri lawmakers are not currently in their annual legislative session. Kehoe would have to call lawmakers back to Jefferson City in a special session if he wants them to redraw the map before the 2026 election.
If Kehoe does call a special session, he could schedule it to run around the same time that lawmakers return to the state Capitol on Sept. 10 for their annual veto session.
While Kehoe has been noncommittal about the plan coming to Missouri, he has repeatedly expressed interest in the effort. The Republican governor gathered the state’s top legislative leaders to discuss the idea at a private meeting earlier this month, The Star previously revealed.
“Our goal, if we move forward, and there’s no decision to move forward…is to make sure Missouri’s values are reflected in Washington, D.C.,” Kehoe told reporters on Tuesday.
Cleaver and other Kansas City Democrats have sharply criticized the effort, saying it would be met with legal challenges. Opponents view the plan as a brazen and undemocratic power grab that would dampen the voting power of Kansas City and its nearby suburbs.
It’s unclear how exactly Republicans would split up the districts. But, U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican who has spoken with Trump’s political team, previously told The Star that voters in the Kansas City area could be split into three GOP-leaning districts.
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
