Missouri residents sue to strike down GOP’s gerrymandered congressional map
A group of Missouri residents on Friday sued to strike down the state’s proposed gerrymandered congressional map as Republican senators rushed to pass the legislation.
The lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court, argues that the Missouri Constitution prohibits lawmakers from redrawing congressional districts more than once a decade. It asked a judge to find the proposed map unconstitutional and block it from taking effect.
“In order to comply with the Missouri Constitution, Missouri’s congressional districts may only be drawn once in a decennial period, immediately after the U.S. Census is certified to the governor of Missouri,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit targets a Republican attempt to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts mid-decade under pressure from President Donald Trump. The map would carve Kansas City into three GOP-leaning districts, potentially allowing Republicans to pick up another seat in Congress.
Republicans currently control six of Missouri’s congressional districts while Democrats hold the 5th District in Kansas City and the 1st District in St. Louis, under maps lawmakers passed in 2022 after the 2020 census.
The suit was filed just hours before the GOP-controlled Missouri Senate was poised to take up and pass the proposed map as part of a special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe. The Senate ultimately approved the new boundaries by a vote of 21 to 11, sending the bill on to Kehoe for his certain signature.
Chuck Hatfield, a prominent attorney in Missouri politics, and his team at the law firm Stinson filed the lawsuit on behalf of four Missouri residents: Merrie Luther from Cole County, Kim Davis and Rebeca Amezcua from Jackson County and Kenneth Chumbley from Greene County.
Each of the plaintiffs’ homes would be carved into a new congressional district under the proposed map.
The lawsuit names Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, the state’s top election official, as the defendant.
The legal action’s contention that the mid-decade redistricting attempt was unconstitutional echoes a chorus of arguments from opponents over the past several weeks.
Legal experts, including Hatfield, have argued that the Missouri Constitution bars lawmakers from redrawing congressional districts more than once a decade. Republican lawmakers have bristled at the idea, claiming that the state constitution was silent on the issue.
Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The lawsuit also takes aim at the map’s use of 2020 Census data, alleging that Missouri’s own data shows that the state’s population has shifted since then.
Friday’s lawsuit marks the second in what will likely be a flurry of legal actions filed against the proposed map. The Missouri chapter of the NAACP filed a suit last week, alleging that Kehoe illegally called lawmakers into a special legislative session to pass the map.
