Missouri Voters Sue to Block ‘Unconstitutional’ GOP Gerrymander

Missouri voters filed a lawsuit Friday that challenges the GOP’s new congressional map, calling it an unconstitutional gerrymander that dismantles Kansas City’s Black Democratic representation and rigs the 2026 elections.

The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU and Campaign Legal Center, argue that Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) violated the Missouri Constitution by convening a special session to redraw congressional districts just three years after the state already approved new maps following the 2020 Census.

“At the demand of President Trump and contrary to the plain text of Missouri’s Constitution and decades of precedent, Governor Kehoe recently called an Extraordinary Session of the Missouri Legislature to jam through an unconstitutional mid-decade redraw of the State’s congressional districts with the goal of preventing Kansas City voters from electing their preferred candidate to Congress,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit highlights that lawmakers “sprinted through hearings and enacted a new map in just a week and a half’s time” with “no transparency.” It argues that the rush to pass the gerrymander was designed to avoid scrutiny and deliver a map that splits Kansas City into multiple districts.

“While publicly acknowledging that the map was being redrawn to defeat Black Democratic Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver, the Governor nonsensically cited the obviously pretextual claim that there was some Voting Rights Act or Fourteenth Amendment violation with the 2022 map in his Proclamation calling the Extraordinary Session,” the complaint adds.

The plaintiffs also argue the map violates Missouri’s requirement that districts be “as compact as may be.”

Instead, the new 4th and 5th Districts are described as meandering and bizarrely shaped, with one featuring a “giraffe-neck appendage” into Kansas City that splits Black communities.

“Politics and partisan advantage are not permissible justifications for deviating from the compactness requirement,” the complaint continues.

The lawsuit further alleges that lawmakers left a critical error, assigning one Kansas City precinct to two different districts. That mistake left districts malapportioned and, in some areas, noncontiguous — both explicit violations of Missouri’s Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.

If allowed to stand, the map would dismantle Kansas City’s 5th Congressional District and tilt Missouri’s delegation toward a 7–1 Republican supermajority.

The lawsuit is the latest legal fight against Trump’s national push to secure a GOP majority in Congress through mid-decade redistricting schemes in states like Texas and Missouri.