Missouri’s redistricting saga focused primarily on efforts to transform the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District into a GOP-leaning seat.
But depending on what the U.S. Supreme Court decides, there could be another redistricting battle in Missouri over the state’s 1st Congressional District.
That’s because the high court appears poised to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act that protects minority-majority districts. Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt said earlier this month that the St. Louis- and St. Louis County-based seat could be one of many that state legislatures revisit if that prediction comes true.
“I think that you'll see a number of those discussions, not just in Missouri, but across particularly the mid-South and the southeast and the South as these districts have been protected by an interpretation of the law that's about to get thrown out,” Schmitt said in an interview with St. Louis Public Radio.
During an episode of the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air on Friday, state Rep. LaKeySha Bosley said she hasn’t been surprised that Republicans are openly talking about whether the 1st District will hold up if the Supreme Court rules against a portion of the Voting Rights Act. That’s what Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office did in a brief that defends the new congressional map that targets Cleaver.
“People really need to understand what's at stake here, and the legislature is playing with people's lives, quite literally,” Bosley said. “And that means that they're playing with their access to their legislature and to their representatives.”
The contention in Hanaway’s brief that the 1st District could be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander was surprising to some for a couple reasons. The new map that Republicans pushed through in September made changes to the 1st District, but not enough that could keep a Black candidate from winning election there.
Hanaway’s office said in a statement that the new plan is “race blind” because “unlike previous redistricting plans, racial data was expressly excluded during the formation of the Missouri FIRST Map.”
But it also marked a significant break in a decades-long redistricting alliance between Missouri Republicans and Black St. Louis lawmakers. African American lawmakers supported the 1st District because it helped expand Black political power throughout the region, while Republicans backed it because it made surrounding districts more GOP-leaning.
“You had elected leaders who were no longer supporting or in support … because there was no benefit for anybody within this new congressional map,” Bosley said.
Bosley: Maps are racist
During the redistricting special session, Bosley castigated her Republican colleagues in a committee hearing for advancing a map that she said trampled on Black political power – both in Kansas City and in St. Louis.
Bosley pointed out that changes to the 1st District, while seemingly small, likely reduced its Black population. She echoed other St. Louis-area legislators who question whether the new 1st District even has a plurality African American population anymore, especially since the May 16 tornado displaced scores of Black St. Louis residents.
“Let's call these maps what they are,” Bosley said in September. “They are racist. Period, full stop.”
During her Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air interview, Bosley said a lot of her Republican counterparts were dismissive of her comments.
“Nobody likes the ‘r’ word or they don't like the term racist. And because racists don't like to actually know that they're racist,” Bosley said. “They don't want anyone to pull up the mirror to them to show them exactly who they are.”
Bosley went on to say that even if Republicans justified the congressional redraw in September based on wanting to derive a partisan advantage to prevent the GOP from losing control of the U.S. House, that doesn’t change the fact that the new map hurts Black Missourians.
“It's the same as if you accidentally hit somebody with the ball, right? And you say: ‘Oh, I'm sorry.’ It still doesn't take the pain away that you hit them with the ball,” Bosley said. “You may not intentionally mean to be racist, but the map itself, the way that it is drawn, the way that it is dividing minorities, not only in the 5th Congressional District, but also in the 1st Congressional District.”
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Darrious Varner is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
