In race for gerrymandered KC district, only one Republican candidate lives there
.jpg "Missouri Republicans redrew Missouri’s congressional districts to make the 5th District more favorable for Republicans. Of the six Republicans running for the seat, only one lives in it.")
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Six Republicans seek the Republican nomination to challenge Emanuel Cleaver.
- Only one Republican candidate, Brad Patty, currently lives in the new 5th District.
- Residency concerns can sometimes hamper political campaigns.
Six candidates are seeking the Republican nomination to face off against Kansas City’s longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, but only one lives in the district Republican lawmakers gerrymandered last year.
Through property records and candidate interviews, The Star found that most of the candidates do not live in the state’s new 5th District, which stretches from Kansas City to the rural cities and towns spread across central Missouri. Many of them actually live in the 4th District, currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Alford.
After a series of court decisions that favored the gerrymandered map, Republican candidates began filing to challenge Cleaver. The district, which previously contained Kansas City and its suburbs, now stretches hundreds of miles east from Troost Avenue to central Missouri.
The candidates came from all over: from Hartsburg, just north of Jefferson City, from Harrisonville to North Kansas City. But only one Republican candidate, Brad Patty, currently lives in the district.
“I find it kind of self-serving that we have individuals who help make this map and vote it in and participate in it, then they live outside of the district,” Patty said. “Yet they go ahead and run for the very map that they help construct.”
The U.S. Constitution only requires congressional candidates to live in the state rather than the specific district they seek to represent, but it’s generally viewed as a political liability for a candidate to reside outside the district they wish to represent.
Residency concerns in the 5th District are compounded by the fact that lawmakers — under pressure from the Trump administration — redrew the district’s boundaries to attract Republican candidates.
Patty, who lives in Fayette, is a long-shot candidate for the office, having raised just $2,735 in the latest FEC filings, which ran through March 31.
Patty moved to the district just about a year and a half ago after retiring from a career in the military. Though he’s a recent transplant, he said he has “roots here in the county that go back three generations.”
Matt Harris, a political science professor at Park University in Parkville, emphasized the highly unusual circumstances surrounding the 5th District, which was drawn mid-decade to boost Republicans’ chances.
“It’s a district drawn for the GOP, and so I think that’s a little unique, too, in that it’s going to draw in people who maybe don’t live in the district, but suddenly there’s this opportunity that, in the previous 5th, didn’t exist,” said Harris.
Other candidates respond
State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican and one of the presumed frontrunners in the race, shrugged off questions about his residency. Brattin voted in favor of the gerrymandered map, dubbed the “Missouri First” map by supporters, in his role as a state senator.
Brattin said that while he lives in the 4th Congressional District, he lives near the 5th District’s border. Brattin added that he currently represents a portion of the 5th District as a state senator.
“Missouri values are Missouri values, whether or not I live one mile or two miles from where the new district line is,” he said.
Brattin said he would move to the new district if elected, and said that it’s not unprecedented that someone will run for a district they don’t reside in. Alford, before he won his seat, was a resident of the 5th District.
But Alford’s residency did become a campaign issue in 2022, when Missouri approved new congressional districts that carved out four candidates vying for the seat. Kalena Bruce, who was also seeking the nomination for the 4th District, called on non-resident candidates to drop out of the race.
Taylor Burks, who amassed a significant financial war chest and wracked up endorsements from mid-Missouri politicians, lives in Missouri’s 3rd District, just outside the 5th District’s boundaries.
Like Brattin, Burks said he would move if elected and has represented people in the new 5th District when he served as the clerk of Boone County.
“I’ve been a long time mid-Missouri resident, and with this new district, we had no say in where the lines were here in Boone County,” Burks said.
Brett Hueffmeier, a former staffer for senators Kit Bond and John Ashcroft, said that at first glance, he thought he was in the district, but on closer inspection, his home in downtown Kansas City was about four blocks away from the district line.
“I think it happens a lot, not just here but in other states, where people run in a district that they don’t necessarily live in. The demographics are not necessarily hugely different,” Hueffmeier said.
Berton Knox said he was previously in the 5th District before redistricting, but maintained his campaign after the state redrew the map.
“I feel like a carpetbagger, basically. So, but I’m not going to pull out either just because of the redistricting,” Knox said. “If I’d have known and had time, I would have stayed with what is now the 6th (District).”
Micah Beebe, a real estate broker seeking the seat, said residency isn’t a major concern among voters. His Lee’s Summit home is just outside of the district.
“I don’t know how much voters really care about that,” Beebe said. “I’m just a couple of blocks outside of the district.”
Cleaver lives in the redrawn 5th District and criticized his Republican opponents for not living in the district they’re seeking to represent.
“Voters expect and want to be represented by leaders who live in their district. I agree with the voters,” Cleaver said in a statement. “Candidates running for elected office should live in the district they seek to represent. To do otherwise is simply disingenuous.”
Harris, the political science professor, said that residency concerns can sometimes be a political liability for candidates but oftentimes are easy for politicians to shrug off.
“I tend to think it probably won’t be a huge deal, especially because most of them don’t live in the district,” Harris said. “It’s not like issues stop at the district border.”
