Is gerrymandering on the immediate agenda?

By Trey Swaggart

Special to the North Cass Herald

Could Missouri be the next state to redraw its congressional maps mid-decade?

According to multiple reports, President Trump has reached out to several Republican officials in the state recently to request that the state redraw its congressional maps.

Trey Swaggart

The gist of the plan revolves around the narrow House GOP majority. Currently, the Republicans enjoy a 219-212 edge with four vacancies. With the majority on a razor's edge, GOP officials are looking around the country for targets ahead of next year’s midterm election, which brings Missouri into the spotlight.

The current representation breakdown in Missouri is six Republicans and two Democrats. In order to boost the GOP efforts at retaining the House, state lawmakers have been examining ways to break the Kansas City- based 5th congressional district represented by former Kansas City mayor Emmanuel Cleaver, in order to make the map 7-1, something conservative Republicans tried doing back in 2022.

With the state legislature out of session, the onus falls on Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe to call a special session to resolve the matter. The Kansas City Star reported early Monday that Gov. Kehoe had met with a group of leaders in the General Assembly, with the Star reporting that emails showed Missouri House Speaker Johnathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, planned on attending via phone.

Lawmakers from Cass County have expressed their views on the matter. Representative Sherri Gallick of District 62 said that while she had heard rumors of such a plan, no concrete information has been presented to her. “You learn that until there is confirmation on a subject, that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Gallick said she planned to wait for more details before offering any further statements.

Representative Michael Davis of District 56, who represents Belton and Raymore, said he agreed with the proposed 7-1 map three years ago and believes “voters gave us a mandate to enact a strong conservative majority, including a strong congressional map.” When the topic of voters choosing their representatives came up, Davis said that the nature of redistricting is a political process, going on to criticize states like New Jersey and California that have bipartisan independent redistricting commissions as also having backroom politics.

State senator Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, recently told KMBC 9-TV that he supports the plan telling the station, “I’m glad to see people wanting to come around to the reasoning and the want and the desire to actually reflect Missouri and the red state that we are.”

While it remains to be seen whether lawmakers go through with this with many still bearing the scars of the last redistricting battle, the game has changed.

With the game changing, who represents north Cass County in Washington could be about to change.