Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver<\/a> by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas. The plan reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver\u2019s district, partly by creating a dividing line along a street that has served as a historical segregation line between Black and white residents. <\/p>\nCleaver, who was Kansas City\u2019s first Black mayor, has served in Congress for over 20 years. He won reelection with over 60% of the vote in both 2024 and 2022 under districts adopted by the state Legislature after the 2020 census. He said he plans to challenge the new map in court and seek reelection in 2026, regardless of the shape of his district. <\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, in the courts and in the streets, we will continue pushing to ensure the law is upheld, justice prevails, and this unconstitutional gerrymander is defeated,\u201d Cleaver said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n
Three lawsuits already have been brought, including two Friday on behalf of voters who contend mid-decade redistricting isn\u2019t allowed under the Missouri Constitution. A hearing is scheduled for Monday on another lawsuit previously filed by the NAACP.<\/p>\n
Kansas City residents raise concerns about new districts<\/p>\n
Cleaver\u2019s revised Kansas City district would stretch from near the city\u2019s St. James United Methodist Church \u2014 which Cleaver once led \u2014 180 miles (290 kilometers) southeast to include another United Methodist church in rural Vienna. In the neighborhood around Cleaver\u2019s hometown church, where his son is now pastor, about 60% of residents are Black or a mix of Black and another race, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. By contrast, the area around Vienna has just 11 Black residents out of nearly 2,500 people.<\/p>\n
Democratic state Sen. Barbara Washington of Kansas City, who described Cleaver as her longtime pastor, said the new map \u201cerases the voice of my community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarving up Kansas City and silencing our constituents is terrible,\u201d Washington said. <\/p>\n
Kansas City resident Roger C. Williams Jr., a 79-year-old former middle-school principal, said the effort to reshape congressional districts reminds him of the discrimination he witnessed against Black residents while growing up in Arkansas. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Republicans are doing now in the state of Missouri is they\u2019re taking me back to a time when I, or people that looked like me, would not have an opportunity, because they wouldn\u2019t have a voice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Republican lawmakers said little during Senate debate. But sponsoring state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Republican, has said the new map splits fewer overall counties and municipalities into multiple districts than the current one. <\/p>\n
Republican Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O\u2019Laughlin said in a statement after the Senate vote that the map \u201cstrengthens Missouri\u2019s conservative voice and ensures every Missourian is fairly represented in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Missouri Republicans handed President Donald Trump a political victory Friday, giving final legislative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1927,93879,8650,2356,93878,93877,12,1070,793,6946,15065,6747,93875,9602,3,111,3766,12484,93880,93876,1022,1059,795,3438,21,9291,19,11162,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":{"0":"post-152784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-barbara-washington","11":"tag-black-experience","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-cindy-olaughlin","14":"tag-dirk-deaton","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-elections","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-kansas-city","19":"tag-mike-kehoe","20":"tag-missouri","21":"tag-missouri-state-government","22":"tag-mo-state-wire","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","26":"tag-redistricting","27":"tag-referendums","28":"tag-roger-c-williams-jr","29":"tag-texas","30":"tag-tx-state-wire","31":"tag-u-s-news","32":"tag-u-s-republican-party","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","35":"tag-united-states-of-america","36":"tag-united-states-senate","37":"tag-unitedstates","38":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","39":"tag-us","40":"tag-usa","41":"tag-washington-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}