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Missouri candidates start filing for a district that may not exist
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-missouri-candidatesLast year, the GOP-dominated legislature enacted new boundaries that all but dismantled the district, which has long been a safely blue seat centered on Kansas City.
Instead, they chopped the city into pieces and split it among three different districts, all of which would be solidly red. The revamped 5th, represented by Democrat Emmanuel Cleaver since 2005, would now stretch almost from the state border with Kansas deep into rural central Missouri, some 200 miles away.
Democrats, however, immediately responded by seeking to qualify a veto referendum for the ballot, which would put the map up for a vote. A group called People Not Politicians began collecting signatures, and in December, organizers announced that they’d submitted over 300,000—more than twice the required total.
According to longstanding practice in Missouri, that should have paused the new map from taking effect until a vote could be held. Republicans, though, insisted that the new lines were “officially in effect” and would remain so unless the submitted signatures passed muster with election officials—a process that could take until mid-summer. That prompted opponents to swiftly sue in state court.
Instead, they chopped the city into pieces and split it among three different districts, all of which would be solidly red. The revamped 5th, represented by Democrat Emmanuel Cleaver since 2005, would now stretch almost from the state border with Kansas deep into rural central Missouri, some 200 miles away.
Democrats, however, immediately responded by seeking to qualify a veto referendum for the ballot, which would put the map up for a vote. A group called People Not Politicians began collecting signatures, and in December, organizers announced that they’d submitted over 300,000—more than twice the required total.
According to longstanding practice in Missouri, that should have paused the new map from taking effect until a vote could be held. Republicans, though, insisted that the new lines were “officially in effect” and would remain so unless the submitted signatures passed muster with election officials—a process that could take until mid-summer. That prompted opponents to swiftly sue in state court.