KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Missouri congressional map has been a moving target for voters like Leslie Moody, a Kansas City resident who voted in last month’s primary but was unsure who was on the ballot for her U.S. House district. She knew only that it was not her current representative, Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. The uncertainty eased Thursday when a U.S. Supreme Court order restored the Missouri congressional map used in 2022 and 2024 for November’s general election. For many, the dominant reaction has been frustration.
The shift came after the Republican-led legislature, encouraged by former President Donald Trump, redrew the map last year in an effort to improve the party’s chances of capturing an additional U.S. House seat. Republicans hold six of Missouri’s eight seats.
A surge of lawsuits and conflicting rulings followed. The Supreme Court’s order appears to settle the matter for this fall by sending the state back to the earlier configuration.
For Moody, a 70-year-old retired chemist, the return to the prior boundaries means her neighborhood is again in the compact 5th District centered on Kansas City, one of two districts currently represented by Democrats. The Trump-backed plan would have split Kansas City into several districts extending far beyond the city into more conservative areas. “It’s completely ridiculous,” she said.
Missouri congressional map restored for November
The court-ordered reset leaves only two of the state’s eight districts as they were under the Trump-backed map. It also left just one district, the St. Louis-based 1st, as safely Democratic. The 5th District saw the largest upheaval under the rejected plan, with only about two in five voters from the old district included in the revised one. The redrawn lines would have pulled in residents from Jefferson City, roughly 130 miles east of Kansas City.
In Jefferson City, longtime Republican activist Carolyn McDowell objected to what she described as mid-decade gerrymandering efforts. She learned Thursday that her home, which had been temporarily shifted from Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Onder’s district to that of Democrat Cleaver, would revert to Onder’s district, which stretches east toward suburban St. Louis. “This is confusing for people who are running for office and for the voters,” McDowell said, adding that she was pleased the Supreme Court blocked the new lines for November and calling the map unconstitutional.
Kay Park, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri, said the organization did not receive many calls from voters as the districts changed. However, some who did reach out felt the redrawn map diluted their representation compared with the prior version, which is now back in place.
Kansas City voter Ashley Sadowski tried to track the legal wrangling closely. She listened to a state Supreme Court hearing as judges weighed whether to hold Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in contempt for not following an order to use the 2022 map. Even so, she said the rapid shifts were hard to follow. The rejected lines had moved her into the 4th District, prompting her to study Democratic candidates there for the primary after years in the 5th. With the Supreme Court order, she is again in the 5th for November. “It’s astounding that we all showed up in August to vote on a map that wasn’t legal,” she said.
For Platte City resident Leslie French, whose home remains in the Republican-leaning 6th District under either scenario, the changes still felt jarring. French, a Democrat, said altering districts mid-decade after the 2020 census seemed unfair and at odds with a healthy democracy. She said she was surprised and grateful that Justice Brett Kavanaugh acted to restore the earlier map, which she viewed as a check on what she called a power grab. French, who has attended rallies on gerrymandering and sometimes dresses as the Statue of Liberty, added, “It’s embarrassing. When we travel to foreign countries, I’m tempted to tell people I am Canadian.”
Reporters contributed from Columbia, South Carolina; Haddonfield, New Jersey; and Jefferson City, Missouri. For more on how communities adjust to shifting public routines, see New school year begins with bikes, bells and buses.