Does Gov. Kehoe’s ‘Missouri First’ map put Missourians’ voices last? | Opinion

The Missouri General Assembly convened a special session this week to gerrymander the state’s congressional map, and to curtail the state’s initiative petition process. That’s what’s on the agenda.

What Gov. Mike Kehoe and his majority Republican legislators really are doing is this: attacking voter rights. That’s your rights, by the way — no matter which party you declare.

Here’s why.

Both gerrymandering and restricting voter petitions make it harder for the overall majority of people to make their voice heard. When that happens, an unequal and powerful minority can both pass and undo laws. So much for representing all of us.

Plans are underway to divide the Democratic-leaning Kansas City area into three Republican congressional districts, a move influenced by pressure from the Trump administration. Thursday, legislators will vote on a plan to break up District 5 — a majority Democratic district in Kansas City — and move voters into surrounding Districts 4 and 6, which are represented by GOP Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves, respectively.

Kehoe’s administration has named it the “Missouri First Map.”

Gerrymandering

Redistricting isn’t unusual. It’s usually done every 10 years after a census count. However, gerrymandering is intentionally redrawing a district to make it either more Republican or more Democratic. In this case, Trump and Kehoe want all districts in our already red state to be redder than they already are.

The manipulation is called “cracking.”

The nonpartisan law and policy institute Brennan Center for Justice explains it this way:

“Cracking splits groups of disfavored voters among multiple districts. With their electoral strength divided, cracked groups struggle to elect their preferred candidates in any of the districts because they are too small a share of the electorate to be effective.”

There is also the opposite, “packing.” According to the Brennan Center, Planners “cram members of disfavored groups or parties into as few districts as possible. The packed groups are able to elect their preferred candidates by overwhelming margins, but their voting strength is weakened everywhere else.”

We see it playing out in Texas and California. Texas passed a Trump-backed map in August to crack districts, leading to a retaliatory “packing” response in California. This mid-decade redistricting push follows pressure from Trump’s political team on Republican-led states to redraw their U.S. House maps, aiming to maintain a Republican majority in Congress.

In Missouri, these plans go after Democratic Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver’s 5th District. He said the change will silence Missouri voters, more than 40% of whom voted for Kamala Harris last November statewide.

“This attempt to gerrymander Missouri will not simply change district lines, it will silence voices,” Cleaver said in a statement released Friday. “It will deny representation. It will tell the people of Missouri that their lawmakers no longer wish to earn their vote, that elections are predetermined by the power brokers in Washington, and that politicians — not the people — will decide the outcome.”

We aren’t the only ones wondering about this. Faith leaders are calling the new map efforts un-Christian, the NAACP is suing to stop it, and one voter thinks proportional voting is the only way to fix it.

Quashing voter petitions

While gerrymandering certainly could have an effect on future voter initiatives — as a new voter district makeup could make a difference on what gets passed — Kehoe isn’t waiting to see. He wants to change the rules, making it incredibly difficult for voters to get the citizen initiatives passed.

Among several new restrictions, the bill requires that a majority of voters statewide and a majority of voters in each congressional district vote to adopt a measure that gets on the ballot via petition drive.

Explaining the change in a press release, Kehoe said: “Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our Missouri values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the extreme Left representation of New York, California, and Illinois. Missouri’s conservative, common-sense values should be truly represented at all levels of government, and the Missouri First Map delivers just that.”

The explanation makes no sense to us —not under his voter initiative proposal, nor under the proposed gerrymandered districts.

He announced the special session late last week in a statement: “Today, I am calling on the General Assembly to take action on congressional redistricting and initiative petition reform to ensure our districts and Constitution truly put Missouri values first.”

We imagine Kehoe believes he has the votes to get his way or he wouldn’t have called the special session. It may seem too late to call your state representative. Nevertheless, here’s how.

To contact your Missouri representatives and senators, find their contact information on the Missouri House and Missouri Senate websites.

Missourians are not a monolith, but GOP elected officials in Jefferson City are moving to make our state’s government act like one. We must urge our leaders to put public service over ruthless political gamesmanship. Don’t allow politicians to take more power out of our hands.