Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe on Friday introduced a special session to attract new congressional maps – turning into the most recent governor of a Republican-run state to accede to President Donald Trump’ s calls for to undertake mid-decade redistricting.
Kehoe ordered lawmakers to return to the state capitol subsequent week to take up the map-drawing, together with laws aimed toward weakening the state’s citizen initiative course of.
The proposed map unveiled by Kehoe takes goal at long-serving Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-area district and will put Republicans on observe to win seven out of the state’s eight US House seats in subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections. Cleaver, in his eleventh time period, has beforehand vowed to take authorized motion to dam any map that targets his seat.
In an announcement, Kehoe mentioned the measures earlier than lawmakers will “ensure our districts and Constitution truly put Missouri values first.”
On Friday, Trump hailed Kehoe’s transfer in a social media put up, saying the session would yield a “new, much fairer, and much improved, Congressional Map, that will give the incredible people of Missouri the tremendous opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican” subsequent 12 months.
Kehoe’s motion got here the identical day that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into regulation new maps in Texas, which Republicans hope might web them 5 further House seats.
The Missouri special session will begin Wednesday.
Trump and his allies have urged Republicans in a number of states – together with Missouri Ohio, Indiana and South Carolina – to take goal at a handful of Democratic seats of their states in a quest to protect or develop the GOP’s slim majority within the US House after the 2026 midterm elections. Florida has additionally launched a legislative committee to look at redistricting, however any motion is prone to happen subsequent 12 months.
Earlier this week, a contingent of Indiana lawmakers visited the White House to debate redistricting.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin denounced Kehoe’s motion Friday. “Another Republican governor just caved to the demands of Donald Trump at the expense of Missouri families and American democracy,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Mid-decade redistricting is uncommon, and the hassle to attract new strains marks a rare marketing campaign by the president to maintain Democrats from controlling the House over the last two years of Trump’s second time period within the White House.
In a counterpunch to Texas’ motion, the California legislature lately superior a plan to put aside maps drawn by a nonpartisan fee to create 5 extra Democratic-friendly seats. Voters in California will resolve in a November referendum whether or not to approve that plan in what is predicted to be a pricey marketing campaign.
Other Democratic states are weighing redistricting efforts of their very own. But Republicans – who management the governors’ places of work and legislatures in 23 states in comparison with simply 15 held by Democrats – have extra avenues to squeeze out further seats that profit their celebration because the redistricting battles unfold.