An effort to redraw Missouri’s congressional district map to give Republicans an additional seat cleared a first hurdle on Thursday in the state’s Republican-dominated legislature.
A committee in the Missouri House voted to approve the new map at the request of Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican.
The new map was approved on a party-line vote, with the 10 Republicans on the committee voting in favor and the four Democrats opposing it. The vote sends the measure to the full House, which is expected to take up the issue next week.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight congressional seats. The revised map is likely to flip a seat currently held by Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat whose district includes Kansas City. Mr. Cleaver has called the redistricting effort an unconstitutional power grab that would disenfranchise Democrats.
Missouri, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the State Legislature, is the latest battleground in an escalating fight over control of Congress.
The fight began last month after lawmakers in Texas approved a gerrymandered map that was encouraged by the Trump administration and that was expected to give Republicans an additional five seats in next year’s midterm election.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, responded in kind, proposing redrawn congressional district boundaries with the goal of flipping five Republicans seats in that state to Democrats.
Republicans currently hold 219 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats have 212.
Missouri Democrats have decried the proposed new map, saying it would water down the political power of Black voters and other groups.
“Democracy in Missouri is taking a devastating blow, one it may not recover from,” State Representative Mark Sharp, the top Democrat on the redistricting committee, said during Thursday’s hearing in the Missouri House.
State Representative Dirk Deaton, a Republican who is leading the redistricting push, said the map under consideration was drawn up by the governor’s office. He called it an improvement over the current one, arguing that it would “split fewer counties and municipalities.”
Representative Richard West, a Republican who chairs the committee, pushed back on suggestions that the new map would disenfranchise a significant number of voters. The revised district boundaries, he argued, could actually make a handful of existing Republican-held seats “more competitive.”
If the House passes the proposal, as is widely expected, the Missouri Senate would take it up. A new map could be ready for Governor Kehoe to sign into law in the next few weeks.
Mr. Cleaver said he intended to file a lawsuit if the new map were to be adopted. He and other Democrats have said the redistricting process, which is taking place outside of the usual 10-year schedule based on new census data, violates provisions of the State and U.S. Constitutions.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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