The Republican majority Missouri State Senate passed a redistricting plan by a 22 to 10 margin on Thursday that fails to improve the GOP’s position in the current partisan makeup of the state’s eight congressional districts.
The current Missouri delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives consists of six Republicans and two Democrats.
The next step in the process is for the House to consider the Senate plan. It is unclear if both chambers will be able to iron out their differences. The House previously passed their own plan in January, which failed in the Senate.
Conservatives have been pushing for an aggressive plan which would change Missouri’s U.S. House delegation to a 7-1 in GOP’s majority instead of the current makeup. That idea was hotly debated but was ultimately discarded. That plan also failed in a Senate floor vote 24-8 in February.
The Senate debated both the House map again and the conservatives plan on Thursday, before passing their own which keeps the current partisan makeup of Missouri’s eight congressional districts the same.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and members of the Senate conservative caucus previously blasted the House map and other plans that differed from a 7-1 GOP U.S. House majority plan. “It is the Pelosi map. It is the RINO map,” State Senator Bob Onder (R-Lake St. Louis) previously said. “It is the sellout map. It is the bought-and-paid-for map. It is the insider Jeff City swamp map intent on giving away one to two congressional seats to Nancy Pelosi and the congressional Democrats.”
Ashcroft referred to legal concerns over a 7-1 map as “balderdash”.
The House plan that the Senate previously filibustered kept the same status quo that the Senate-passed plan does in terms of partisan makeup, setting the state up to have six GOP seats and two Democrat seats. The difference between the two plans is that the lines are drawn in a different way. The end result will likely be the same.
Former governor and current U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens has also pushed for the 7-1 map.
Governor Mike Parson has previously indicated that he’d be willing to sign either a 6-2 or a 7-1 map.
The Senate-passed plan contains an emergency clause with an immediate effective date if the plan passes the state House and is signed into law by Governor Parson.
The filing deadline for federal candidates in Missouri primaries is March 29, 2022. The primaries are scheduled to take place on August 2.
Republicans control both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, meaning that they have total control of the redistricting process in Missouri. However, the state House and the state Senate have been unable to come to an agreement thus far.
Missouri is one of four states that have yet to complete their congressional redistricting process. The other states are Florida, Louisiana, and New Hampshire.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR.
Photo “Bob Onder (Left)” by Bob Onder. Photo “Jay Ashcroft (Right)” by U.S. Department of Education. CC BY 2.0.
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