Missouri lawmakers pass GOP redistricting plan backed by Trump

Washington — The Missouri state legislature on Friday passed a plan to redraw the state's congressional maps and potentially add another Republican-leaning House seat, the latest state to join a nationwide redistricting push backed by President Trump.

The state Senate passed the redistricting plan Friday, sending it to the desk of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, who says he will sign it into law. The state House passed the plan on Tuesday. Kehoe called a special session to take up redistricting last month.

The new map would split up the Kansas City area, making longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's district more conservative. Missouri would then be left with seven GOP-leaning House districts and one Democratic-leaning seat, a shift from the state's current House delegation, which has six Republicans and two Democrats.

The redistricting push follows similar mid-decade redistricting moves by California and Texas. The nationwide gambit to reshape congressional maps comes as Republicans fight to hold onto a razor-thin majority in the House in next year's midterm elections.

At Mr. Trump's urging, Texas officials passed a plan to create five new GOP-leaning districts last month. California lawmakers quickly responded by passing a map that would move five Republican-held seats toward Democrats, though the California plan still needs to be approved by voters in a special election this fall.

Mr. Trump lauded Missouri lawmakers for advancing the new map, which he said in a Truth Social post "will, hopefully, give us an additional Seat in Congress" and "will help send an additional MAGA Republican to Congress."

"A new, much fairer, and much improved, Congressional Map, has now overwhelmingly passed both Chambers of the Missouri Legislature," the president wrote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, called the new maps "rigged" in a statement Friday.

"Bowing to the demands of Donald Trump, corrupt Missouri Republicans advanced their mid-decade gerrymandering scheme today to try and rig the midterm elections in order to salvage the weak GOP House majority," he said.

Before the new maps passed, University of Missouri professor Peverill Squire told CBS News that Republicans have weighed splitting up Cleaver's district for years — but "none of this comes without any cost." He noted that the redrawn maps are based on years-old data that may have changed, and legal challenges could follow.

"There's a lot of risk for the Republicans, and the only thing at the moment that they stand to gain is maybe one more House seat," Squire said.

Within hours of the Senate passing the redistricting plan, opponents filed a legal challenge in state court calling the new map "unconstitutional in a host of ways" and the process "slapdash and rushed." The lawsuit — filed by the ACLU of Missouri and the Campaign Legal Center — argued the Missouri Constitution only allows one redistricting per decade after new census figures are released, and requires House districts to be as compact as possible.

The lawsuit argued the intent of the new maps is "to transform what has long been a seat anchored in the Democratic-leaning Kansas City metropolitan area into a district dominated by rural, Republican-leaning counties, an outcome accomplished by splitting Kansas City's Black and white residents along stark racial lines."

Nikole Killion and Caroline Linton contributed to this report.