The Missouri House is slated to begin debate Monday afternoon over a new congressional map that targets Democrat Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City and substantially curtails the initiative petition ballot process.
And while there's not much suspense over the outcome, the next couple of days are expected to showcase Democratic disdain for their Republican colleagues and even some misgivings from Republicans about the two special session agenda items.
Friday perhaps showcased a preview when Rep. LaKeySha Bosley slammed proposed congressional redistricting as racist. She said the map seeks to dilute Black political power by potentially forcing out Cleaver, who was elected as the first African American mayor of Kansas City.
When House members return on Monday, they'll begin debate on the two main pieces of Gov. Mike Kehoe's special session agenda. The first would create a congressional map that converts Cleaver's district into a GOP-leaning seat. The second item is a proposal that requires any initiative petition ballot proposal to pass in a statewide vote and in eight out of eight congressional districts.
The redistricting plan comes as President Donald Trump pressures GOP-leaning states like Missouri, Texas, Indiana and Florida to make their maps more favorable ahead of the 2026 election cycle. Typically, the president's party does poorly in midterm elections, and Republicans hold a small majority in the U.S. House.
While Republicans explicitly rejected going after Cleaver in 2022, there seemed to be little reluctance when Rep. Dirk Deaton's legislation sailed through two House committees last week.
"I can tell you that the majority of people in my area want me to vote yes on the bill, and I will be joyful to vote yes on this bill," said Rep. Hardy Billington, R-Poplar Bluff.
Some backers of the new map have been upfront about how they want to prevent Democrats from taking over the House next year. Others have pointed to states like Illinois that have maps slanted against Republicans, though that map was drawn right after a census and not in the middle of the decade at the behest of a president.
Rep. Richard West, R-Wentzville, said that drawing a map that could put Cleaver in danger of losing reelection reflects the views of a state that has voted for Republican candidates up and down the ballot.
"All I heard yesterday was Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump," West said. "And in reality, this is about the people in the state of Missouri. And I think that the map that has been presented best represents the state of Missouri."
House Democrats say special session shows GOP's true colors
Republicans hold a commanding majority in the House. And unlike in the Senate, House leaders can easily cut off debate — meaning there's little leverage the Democrats have to stop either measure from moving through the process.
But Democrats have used this special session to accuse their Republican counterparts of being subservient to Trump. State Rep. Keri Ingle, D-Lee's Summit, added that the fact Trump needs GOP states to redraw maps that are already aligned against Democrats shows that they don't expect next year's election to go well for Republican candidates.
"The thing with pendulums is that they swing back," Ingle said. "This is an egregious overreach of power. It's shameless. And I know that a lot of you will feel shame and will text me later about it. And I'm not going to give you absolution."
Prominent GOP lawmakers warned in 2022 that trying to transform Cleaver's heavily Democratic district into a more Republican seat would backfire – primarily because it would move scores of progressive Kansas City voters to districts represented by Sam Graves and Mark Alford.
State Rep. Mark Sharp, D-Kansas City, said Republicans will ultimately regret adopting a map that many lawmakers felt was too risky to adopt just three years ago. He also said that Cleaver could still prevail in the new 5th District, which connects parts of Kansas City with a number of rural counties.
"I'm not convinced that Congressman Cleaver won't retain his seat," Sharp said. "I think people are so upset, you're going to see probably similar turnouts in Missouri as you did for the presidential election in 2008 and 2012."
On Sunday, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, issued a Sunshine request to Kehoe's office asking for "population counts, political performance, race/ethnicity, age, gender, income and voting-age population data" related to how the new districts were drawn.
"Since this information should have been made publicly available before your plan was presented to committee, we ask that your office provide it immediately so that House members have the ability to consider it before [Deaton's bill] is brought up for debate on Sept. 8," Aune wrote.
A spokeswoman for the governor's office said Sunday night she was unaware of the request so she is unable to comment until she knows more.
Initiative petition plan could be changed
Democrats were also fiercely critical of Republicans for their proposal, which needs voter approval, that requires initiative petitions to pass in eight out of eight congressional districts.
The plan would encompass both constitutional amendments and statutory ballot items that go before voters through the initiative petition process. It would not affect constitutional amendments or statutory changes that lawmakers place on the statewide ballot.
Rep. Emily Weber, D-Kansas City, said that only 24 out of 1,557 people submitted favorable testimony about the plan. She said the fact that lawmakers are pursuing a plan that would make it nearly impossible to pass a ballot item that doesn't come from the legislature shows Republicans don't care about their constituents.
"Because of everything that's going on, because of the layoffs, because of the lack of support, because of the higher property taxes or utility bills or whatever it is, everything is out of control, and they're crying at us for assistance and help," Weber said. "And what do we do? We do a second extraordinary special session for rigged maps and to attack IP."
Several Republicans told St. Louis Public Radio they would be open to changing the proposal. West, for instance, said he would be amenable for the plan to only affect constitutional amendments.
State Rep. Bill Hardwick, R-Pulaski County, said he wasn't a huge fan of the proposal as written.
"We're functionally getting rid of the initiative petition process. And my position has been, we want to reform it," Hardwick said. "We don't want money to buy constitutional amendments, but we also don't want to take away the people's ability to say the government's not working, and we want to go around them. So there's importance to the initiative petition process. It needs to have some reasonable viability."
Because Republicans have such a large majority in the House, some lawmakers could vote against either one of the special session priorities without affecting the outcome.
Perhaps lawmakers with the biggest incentive to do so are those like Reps. Bill Falkner, R-St. Joseph, and Peggy McGaugh, R-Carrollton. Both will be term-limited out of the legislature next year, so they would be under less pressure to fall in line with the party on either issue.
Falkner isn't terribly enthused about redrawing congressional lines in the middle of the decade.
"I would like to stay away from it. I think it should be tied in with the census like we've been doing," Falkner said. "I think we go down a slippery slope when we go this way."
McGaugh added, "I agree with my colleague here, and I'm keeping an open mind in seeing what's going to happen when we debate this."
"As seniors, it's freeing to be able to not worry about what's coming ahead, because you're going to vote the way that is your conscience," she said.
The House is expected to give first-round approval to the initiative petition and redistricting plans on Monday and send the measures to the Senate on Tuesday. In order for either item to pass out of the Senate, Republicans will likely have to utilize a procedural maneuver known as the previous question to stop Democratic filibusters.
Both measures would then go to the governor but still would need approval from voters.
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