The Missouri Senate on Friday passed measures to redraw congressional districts and change the state’s initiative petition process. The Senate votes capped off a two-week special session called by Gov. Mike Kehoe at the urging of President Donald Trump, who has asked GOP-led states to redraw congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The most controversial aspect of redistricting targeted the 5th District of Missouri, currently represented by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, by dispersing its territory between three adjacent districts. The measure is projected to give Republicans an electoral advantage in seven of the state’s eight congressional districts.
“This is a superior map,” said state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican sponsoring the proposed new congressional map. “It better represents the state of Missouri.”
While supporters of Missouri’s redistricting indicate that Democrat-dominated legislatures such as Illinois, California, and Massachusetts have established a much more serious disparity between popular party support and the percentage of seats held by each party in those states’ respective legislatures, critics of Missouri’s proposed redistricting have warned that establishing an insufficiently representative legislature diminishes the significance of many Missourians’ voting power.
During the special session, Republicans also passed a measure to raise the standard required for initiative petition ballot measures to amend the state constitution. The approved plan would require constitutional amendments put on the ballot by Missouri citizens to attain both a simple majority statewide and a majority in all eight congressional districts in order to pass, rather than merely obtaining a simple majority amongst all voters statewide.
Both bills passed after Senate Republicans used a procedural maneuver– “calling the previous question” (“PQ”)–to end a Democratic filibuster. While the PQ is used regularly in the Missouri House, it is rarely used in the Senate due to that chamber’s tradition of negotiation and unlimited debate. However, Republicans have now used the PQ on four measures, dating back to the last week of the 2025 regular session.
The initiative petition proposal will now go to voters on next year’s statewide ballot, while the redistricting bill will go to Gov. Kehoe for his signature.