The Missouri House on Monday gave initial approval on a Republican plan to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts, marking the first major vote on a map that would dilute the voting power of Kansas City.

The vote came more than four hours after the House also advanced a first-in-the-nation plan that would overhaul Missouri’s initiative petition process, the state’s most visible form of direct democracy that allows citizens to put measures on the ballot.

The two proposals, which are aimed at both representative and direct democracy, are part of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe’s unprecedented special session that could change the trajectory of Missouri for years to come.

The Republican-controlled House advanced the map and petition overhaul on party-line votes. Both need one more vote on Tuesday before heading to the Missouri Senate.

Monday’s floor vote served as the first formal debate over the pair of issues, which have faced intense pushback from residents in Kansas City and across Missouri. Democrats fought against both for roughly six hours, framing them as undemocratic power grabs to appease President Donald Trump.

“What is happening in this body?” said Rep. Wick Thomas, a Kansas City Democrat. “It’s so sad to watch the death of democracy in Missouri, the death of our republic in Missouri.”

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the mid-decade redistricting attempt would dice Kansas City voters into three GOP-leaning congressional districts. Republicans’ stated goal is to make it easier for a Republican to win U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District.

“My colleague across the aisle brought up the fact that President Donald J. Trump has, in fact, asked Missouri to consider redistricting,” said Rep. Justin Sparks, a Wildwood Republican. “I fully support it.”

Mid-decade redistricting is exceptionally rare. Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But Trump wants to ensure Republicans maintain their slim majority in Congress ahead of the 2026 election and has pressured states to redraw their maps.

“Just step back for a second and think about not only what you’re doing to the state, but what you are participating in and enabling across the country,” Rep. Eric Woods, a Kansas City Democrat, told Republicans on Monday.

Under the proposed map, Kansas City voters would be split into the 4th, 5th and 6th Congressional Districts. Cleaver’s 5th District would extend hundreds of miles east to central Missouri, while the 4th District would stretch from downtown Kansas City to the Ozarks region.

Residents across the sprawling Kansas City area have attacked the idea, saying the move would silence the voices of local voters and marginalized communities in a city more progressive and diverse than the rest of the state. Residents in Kansas City would share the same representative as people living in rural parts of Missouri.

“Slicing through the center of Kansas City does nothing to improve the state of Missouri anywhere,” said Rep. Pattie Mansur, a Kansas City Democrat. “In fact, it really seems to be just a way to silence the voices of the people in the place that I call home.”

Legal experts who spoke with The Star also contend that the Missouri Constitution bars lawmakers from redrawing the state’s congressional districts mid-decade, putting the state at risk of losing a long, drawn-out legal fight.

No Democrats voted in favor of the proposal. Twelve Republicans voted against it, including House Speaker Jonathan Patterson from Lee’s Summit and Kansas City Reps. Bill Allen and Chris Brown.

One Republican spoke against the proposal on the floor.

“Our plate is full of things that we need to be doing for the people of this state,” said Rep. Tony Harbison, an Arcadia Republican. “And this ain’t one of them.”

Direct democracy overhaul

Before lawmakers voted on the map, they advanced a bevy of changes that would weaken the initiative petition process.

The more than a century-old mechanism has allowed Missouri voters to overturn an abortion ban, raise the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, expand Medicaid and legalize sports betting in recent years.

Currently, citizen-led ballot measures need a simple majority (50% of the vote plus one) in order to pass. The Republican proposal would require citizen-led amendments to the constitution to receive both majority support statewide and a majority in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass.

The changes would make it virtually impossible for most citizen-led constitutional amendments to pass on the ballot, political experts told The Star. It would give voters in just one congressional district the power to veto an amendment, no matter how popular the measure is statewide.

“This is about killing the initiative edition process and everybody knows it,” said Rep. David Tyson Smith, a Columbia Democrat. “It’s insidious and it’s sickening.”

Missouri would be the only state in the country with such a requirement, called a concurrent majority, according to a review of state ballot measure rules compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The higher threshold would also not apply to state lawmakers. Amendments placed on the ballot by the General Assembly would still only have to receive a simple majority statewide in order to pass.

Republicans defended the effort on Monday, emphasizing that the proposal would give rural, less-populated parts of the state more sway over ballot measures. Others argued that the current process allows outside groups to influence elections.

“We’ve had an elevation of very partisan issues that might scrape by with 50% of the vote with a very slick campaign, well-financed with foreign money and out of state money,” said Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican who sponsored the legislation.

No Democrat voted in favor of the proposal. Only six Republicans voted against it, including Kansas City-area representatives Patterson and Brown.

Because Lewis’ legislation is a constitutional amendment, the changes to the voter threshold would have to be approved by voters on a statewide ballot measure in 2026. However, Republicans tacked on additional language derided as “ballot candy” that could entice voters to approve it.

In addition to the petition overhaul, the ballot question would also ask voters to ban foreign adversaries from contributing to or opposing ballot measures, an act that is already illegal under state law.

Smith attacked the language of the proposal as an attempt to mislead voters into overhauling the initiative petition process.

“It’s designed to mislead people,” he said. “Because no one’s going to vote for this if you just said what you’re going to do.”

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