Missouri’s redrawn congressional maps — which carve the Kansas City area into three separate districts — can stand, according to a ruling Thursday from a Jackson County judge.
Judge Adam Caine’s ruling comes about five months before Missouri’s primary elections, and sets up a contentious race for Kansas City’s longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II to keep his seat. The state’s 5th District now includes much of rural Central Missouri.
The court found that the new congressional maps, which Missouri lawmakers passed last fall, are lawful in how they were drawn. A separate court will determine if redrawing the map without a new Census, called “mid-decade redistricting,” is constitutional in the first place.
Plaintiffs in the case decided Thursday argued the new districts violated the state constitution's compactness rule that congressional districts be divided into “contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be.”
But the court did not agree. Caine found that plaintiffs failed to meet the heavy burden required under Missouri law, and did not prove that the “Missouri First” map was “not as compact as may be.”
“Accordingly, this Court will respect the political determinations of the General Assembly and it denies the Plaintiffs’ requested relief,” the court’s decision states.
The mid-decade redistricting took place during a special legislative session in September, an attempt by Republican lawmakers to follow President Donald Trump’s orders to redraw state congressional maps and shore up the party’s majority in Congress this year. Republican officials say a 7-1 map favoring the GOP more accurately reflects the political leanings of Missouri voters in recent years.
Carving Kansas City up?
Missouri’s new map splinters Kansas City into the 4th, 5th, and 6th districts, and carves up some of the city’s most diverse communities.
The map uses Troost Avenue, a historic racial and economic dividing line, to split up the 4th and 5th districts. Majority Black neighborhoods east of Troost are now part of the 5th District, which stretches into middle Missouri, where communities are by and large more rural and whiter.
The 4th District includes Kansas City west of Troost Avenue to the Kansas stateline, and stretches 150 miles south to Dade County. Kansas City’s Historic Northeast, a diverse neighborhood made up of immigrants and refugees, is now included in the 6th District, which reaches Missouri’s northern border.
Redistricting opponents have argued for months that Republican efforts were a flagrant example of gerrymandering to dilute the voting power of majority minority neighborhoods.
The court’s decision found that the new map reduced the number of counties that are split up from nine to five. The judge also found the redrawn maps reduce the number of split municipalities from 31 to 13, compared to the congressional maps from 2022.
The judge found that the new maps remove a divide between the northern half of Kansas City and the metro area, placing all of Kansas City’s Northland into a single district. The court’s decision also pointed out that Troost Avenue is also used as a district line in Missouri’s state Senate map and Kansas City’s City Council map.
Cleaver has already filed for reelection to represent the 5th District. Four Republicans filed for the seat. The Missouri primary is Aug. 4.
