Missouri House Democrats don't have a lot of leverage to prevent Republicans from pushing through a map this week that would make it much harder for U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver to win reelection.
But it's likely that the initial vote Monday afternoon on redistricting will provide opponents with a potentially potent way to prevent the new map from going into effect: Missouri's referendum process.
Republicans hold overwhelming majorities in the House, so passage of Rep. Dirk Deaton's bill is not in doubt. But it is possible there won't be enough votes to prevent map opponents from putting it up for a statewide vote.
Here's why: Any bill that passes out of the legislature can be put up for a statewide vote if opponents gather a certain amount of signatures in six out of eight congressional districts. According to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins' web site that's a little more than 106,000 signatures.
The one exception is for any bill that gets what's known as an emergency clause. If 109 House members and 23 senators vote for an emergency clause, then it goes into effect upon the governor's signature.
But the House Republicans currently have 107 members because of four vacancies. And the threshold to secure an emergency clause remains at 109 even if there aren't 163 members currently serving.
That means that map opponents will have 90 days after the special session ends to gather signatures to put it up for a statewide vote. And if they're successful, Deaton's bill can't go into effect unless voters approve it in a statewide election.
Most statewide ballot initiatives go before voters in August and November but it's unclear when a referendum on redistricting would go to a statewide vote.
In an interview on Monday morning, Deaton said that right now his bill doesn't have an emergency clause – and he doesn't expect there to be one because it's not necessary for the new map to go into effect right away.
"There's been some conversations about an emergency clause at different points, but it's not currently a part of it," Deaton said. "And I don't know that I have reason to believe that it will be as we move forward."
Deaton noted that filing for congressional seats doesn't start until early next year – meaning that it's not necessary for the map to go into effect immediately.
"I think those are the appropriate considerations the legislature ought to be making," Deaton said. "When you look at the Missouri Constitution for when we should pursue an emergency clause, and you're talking about some very speculative… peripheral issues to an emergency clause."
Deaton's legislation would convert Cleaver's Kansas City-based district into a more GOP-leaning seat. It comes as President Donald Trump is pressuring Republican-leaning states to redraw their congressional lines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Right to work a recent precedent
The 90-day window to get signatures would be a tight turnaround, as most ballot initiatives take much longer than that to collect the necessary signatures.
But in 2017, labor unions were able to get three times as many signatures as needed to prevent what's known as right to work from going into effect. That would have barred employers and unions from requiring workers to pay dues as a condition of employment.
"It's basically a citizen's veto," Missouri AFL-CIO President Jake Hummel said in an interview. "And it would freeze the law from going into effect until such time as the voters have a chance to weigh in at the next regularly scheduled general election."
Hummel said right to work opponents started collecting signatures in March and turned them in during August – a longer time frame than map opponents would have. But he added that the redistricting push has stoked a lot of anger – especially since Deaton's map would connect parts of Kansas City with largely rural areas.
"I don't recall a time where I've seen this much negative pushback on both of these two issues," said Hummel, referring to the redistricting proposal and a separate plan to curtail the initiative petition ballot process. "I think there is a lot of anger out there and that may translate into people thinking that maybe this was a step too far."
For national Democratic groups, the referendum option may be a cheaper route to protect Cleaver's seat than spending potentially tens of millions of dollars to prevent it from flipping to Republicans next year. It also doesn't preclude redistricting opponents from filing lawsuits, especially over whether lawmakers have the right to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.
In any case, Deaton said he's preparing for Monday's debate on the map.
"I just try to deal with what's in front of us at a given time," he said. "I think we're taking an appropriate normative course of action here. And that's how we should do it in this instance, just like any other and leave all of that for [others] to certainly speculate about or theorize."
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