Kansas City mayor to testify against Missouri gerrymander in key redistricting trial
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is set to testify against Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map this week as Jackson County voters seek to strike down the map in a key trial ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Lucas, who has opposed the map since lawmakers approved it last fall, will likely testify on Wednesday, according to a copy of the mayor’s calendar. In a statement to The Star, the mayor’s spokesperson said he will address the map’s impact on Kansas City voters.
“Kansas City stands to lose critical representation in Washington due to redistricting efforts that dilute our city’s voice and political power,” said spokesperson Megan Strickland. “Mayor Lucas will address concerns about how these changes threaten Kansas City residents’ ability to elect representatives who understand and advocate for our community.”
This week’s trial is part of an onslaught of legal battles that could have seismic ramifications for Kansas City’s congressional representation. It centers on a lawsuit alleging that Missouri’s new map, which carves Democratic-leaning Kansas City into three GOP-friendly districts, violates the Missouri Constitution on several fronts.
The suit was filed by the ACLU of Missouri and the Campaign Legal Center on behalf of four Jackson County voters who were sliced out of Kansas City’s 5th Congressional District. The lawsuit also alleges the map includes a crucial error that puts the same voters in two different districts.
“Gerrymandering undermines the principle that every vote should count equally,” Strickland said. “The redistricting case is about ensuring Kansas City’s voice continues to be heard in Washington and that our democratic process reflects the will of our community, not political manipulation.”
The series of legal battles and a looming referendum take aim at an unprecedented special session in which lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional districts. The session, called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, thrust Kansas City into a national redistricting fight spearheaded by the Trump administration.
The goal was to force out of office U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, Kansas City’s longtime Democratic congressman, and allow a Republican to win his seat.
Kehoe, in a stunning decision, also called on lawmakers to overhaul Missouri’s initiative petition process, the state’s most visible form of direct democracy. The announcement deployed lawmakers into a volatile special session aimed at both representative and direct democracy in the hopes of maintaining Republicans’ firm grip on Missouri politics.
The map carves more than 70,000 minority residents out of Cleaver’s district and uses Troost Avenue, Kansas City’s historic racial dividing line, as a divider between the 4th and 5th Congressional Districts, The Star previously revealed.
Under the new map, the 5th District would stretch east from Troost Avenue to the rural cities and towns spread across central Missouri. It combines the voters in eastern Jackson County with voters in places hours away, like Jefferson City, Maries County and Osage County.
But the map’s fate remains in doubt. As opponents seek to strike down the map in court, a referendum campaign turned in more than 300,000 signatures to force a statewide vote on the districts in November.
At the same time, Missouri Republican officials and map opponents are engaged in a separate legal battle over whether the map should be paused until Missourians have a chance to vote on it. Local election officials are currently verifying the campaign’s signatures to determine whether the referendum vote can take place.
Map supporters scored a victory in a separate case last week when a Cole County judge ruled that Kehoe had the authority to call a special session to redraw the state’s districts. That ruling rejected a lawsuit filed by the Missouri NAACP.
The legal wrangling has sparked intense confusion over the map’s status ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. With just a week until the filing period opens, no major Republican candidate has launched a campaign to challenge Cleaver.
