Jefferson City, Missouri– A Missouri court has rejected a legal challenge filed to new US House districts backed by President Donald Trump that aim to help Republicans win an additional seat in the midterm elections.
Opponents New areas They claimed they violated a state constitutional provision requiring counties to be incorporated. But Jackson County Circuit Judge Adam Kane rejected that in a ruling issued Thursday.
Although the decision was a victory for Republicans, a separate legal challenge is still pending in the Missouri Supreme Court, alleging that mid-decade redistricting is unconstitutional. Opponents have too More than 300,000 signatures have been submitted to the petition In an attempt to force a statewide vote on the new congressional map.
Missouri is one of several states targeted by Trump for redistricting in Congress, as he seeks to gain an advantage in the November elections at a time when Republicans are trying to maintain their narrow majority in the House of Representatives. after Trump called out Republicans in Texas For redistricting, Democrats faced new districts in California, and Redistricting battle It quickly spread to other states.
Missouri is currently represented in the US House of Representatives by six Republicans and two Democrats under a map approved in 2022 based on the most recent census. At the time, Republican lawmakers pushed back against an attempt by some in the party to push a map that would give Republicans a chance to win seven seats. They cited concerns that it could spread Republicans too thin and be counterproductive in losses if Democrats have a favorable election year.
But Republicans put those concerns aside last year under pressure from the White House to review districts for partisan gain.
The new map passed during a special legislative session in September is aimed at helping Republicans win the Kansas City-area seat currently held by US Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver. It reallocates parts of Kansas City to two contiguous districts represented by Republicans and extends the remainder of the 5th Congressional District east into heavily Republican rural areas.
Court filings on behalf of sued voters asserted that the new map “radically departs” from historical norms by dividing and expanding the 5th District, which was previously more concentrated in Kansas City.
But lawyers for Republican Attorney General Katharine Hanaway countered that the new map actually represents an improvement. Although the 5th District may be less compact, the state has emphasized that the map overall is more compact and divides fewer local governments between multiple districts. Kane agreed in his ruling.
The judge said the implicit argument of those filing the lawsuit is that rural voters do not belong to the same district as urban voters in Kansas City. But the judge pointed to other instances in which rural and urban voters were combined in congressional districts, including under a map used from the 2012 through 2020 elections that combined Kansas City’s central business district with rural areas to the east.
“The decision to gerrymander is a policy and policy decision that is properly left in the hands of the General Assembly and Missouri’s political processes,” Keane wrote.
Groups representing voters who filed a lawsuit criticized the court’s ruling but did not say whether they would appeal the ruling.
“If allowed to run, he would represent a significant setback for fair representation in Missouri,” the ACLU and the Campaign Legal Center said in a joint statement.