The next battlefront in the President Donald Trump-led redistricting crusade gets underway Wednesday in Jefferson City, following Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s call for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
The irrefutable aim of the legislature is to boost Republican dominance by putting Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-area district in jeopardy. Trump has already signed off on the proposal, posting on his social media platform Truth Social that Missouri voters will have “the tremendous opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections,” adding the governor’s new proposed map needs to be approved “AS IS.”
Cleaver, an 11-term representative and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, described the rare, mid-decade redistricting ploy to make his district far more Republican-leaning to POLITICO this way: “[It’s] as stinky a plan as you could have.”
He said the proposal harkens back to the decades-old building of the nation’s Interstate Highway System that many now view as exacerbating racial disparities with the purposeful dissection of Black and brown communities when the federal government seized properties through eminent domain.
Cleaver argued the new map lines cut through the Kansas City Public School district. “We’ll have two school districts being divided by a congressional line,” he said.
Cleaver declined to directly say if there was a racial element behind the GOP-led map, but said in his conversations with Democratic leaders in Missouri and on Capitol Hill, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffreies, that the party stands ready to fight back.
Cleaver told the local outlet Missouri Independent that he planned to sue over the implementation of a new map that would likely obliterate his district, which is 20 percent Black and 11 percent Hispanic. It likely wouldn't be an argument based on the federal Voting Rights Act, which still prohibits racial gerrymandering, but could run afoul of some state laws.
Part of why Cleaver feels emboldened even if his seat is in peril, is because of efforts taken up by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last month green-lighted a ballot initiative that would oust a half-dozen Republicans from that state. The measure needs approval from California voters, and if passed as expected, would counteract the new maps Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on last week that is all but assured to increase Republicans’ advantage in the state.
And it's not just California that's stepping into the ring to counteract the GOP redistricting push. Maryland state Sen. Clarence Lam, a Democrat, introduced a bill last week that would make good on Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s vow “to identify what is possible” to possibly eliminate the state’s lone Republican-held seat, occupied by Rep. Andy Harris.
“I don't love having to do this, either,” Lam said in an interview, lamenting that Republicans are following orders of Trump to rig midterm elections forcing Democrats to launch their own counteroffensive. “I just don't believe in unilateral disarmament.”
Lam’s plan would resurrect one of the maps approved by the state’s Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission a few years ago that would in all likelihood deliver Democrats sole control over their federal delegation. A state court court struck down a similar map, deeming it an illegal partisan gerrymander and ordered the state legislature to redraw lines ahead of the 2022 midterms.
The Maryland state senator said he’s not had conversations with Moore about his proposal and brushed off concerns over if the state did pass new maps it would be struck down in court once again. He suggested with other states, including Ohio, Indiana and possibly Florida taking steps toward redrawing their state maps, we’re now in a far different political climate than we were just a few years prior.
"I think if other states are willing to pick up some of the most extreme tools and exploit them at our expense," Lam added, "I don't think we should stand back and let them step all over us."
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