While Republicans continue their push to gerrymander Missouri’s congressional map, opponents are already eyeing a plan to ask voters to overturn it.
And looming over the debate are approaching deadlines for Missouri ballots to be finalized and candidates to file for office, along with promises of lawsuits — with any delays potentially undermining efforts to create a new Republican seat in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
The Missouri House passed a new map Tuesday that would carve up the 5th District, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, and disperse its voters into three districts that give Republicans an electoral advantage in seven of the state’s eight congressional seats.
The fate of the proposed new map is now in the hands of the Missouri Senate, where the GOP holds a supermajority and is expected to pass it to Gov. Mike Kehoe for his signature this week.
At least two groups are considering a petition drive to force a referendum vote on the map once it is signed into law. If they successfully gather enough signatures, the map would be frozen until an up-or-down statewide vote is held next year.
“I expect a citizens referendum as soon as this passes the Senate,” said House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat.
Jake Hummel, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO, said that while he hasn’t talked directly with his members about whether to initiate a referendum, “I have a pretty strong feeling they will.”
That referendum strategy was last deployed in 2018, when labor unions collected 300,000 signatures in 90 days — more than three times the amount required — to put a question on the statewide ballot repealing a GOP-backed right-to-work law.
The repeal push was ultimately successful, with 67% of voters rejecting the right-to-work law.
In fact, of the 27 times a referendum has been placed on the ballot, voters have rejected actions by the General Assembly all but twice.
Protesters gather at the Missouri Capitol on Wednesday to denounce GOP efforts to gerrymander the state congressional map and make it harder to amend the state constitution (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).Referendum elections are required to be held on the November general election ballot unless the legislature votes to move it to an earlier date. The timing of that vote would be crucial in determining whether a new map could even be finalized in time for congressional elections next year.
According to a letter from the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities that was sent to legislative leadership last month, every election in 2026 administratively begins 10 weeks prior to Election Day.
Elections are administered in the statewide voter registration database, which houses the district boundaries and voter district assignments currently in effect and ensures voters receive the right ballot on Election Day.
District boundary lines must be “locked” during an active election, the letter states, and voters cannot be assigned to a new district during this timeframe to ensure proper ballots can be created, proofed, ordered and printed in time for absentee voting to begin.
Under that timeline, the April 7, 2026, municipal election begins administratively on Jan. 27. The Aug. 4, 2026 primary election begins administratively on May 26.
That means, at least according to local election officials, if the congressional map being considered by the legislature isn’t finalized until after May 26, it wouldn’t apply to the August primary.
Meanwhile, the candidate filing period in Missouri for the August 2026 primary opens on Feb. 24 and ends March 31. In 2022, the filing period came and went without a new map in place as lawmakers quarrelled over boundary lines.
And numerous opponents of the gerrymandering push have promised litigation, arguing it is unconstitutional to redraw Missouri’s congressional map before the next census is complete.
The idea of forcing a gerrymandered congressional map onto the ballot for voters to decide was a recurring theme Wednesday as thousands gathered at the Missouri Capitol to denounce the Republican-backed effort.
The other target of Wednesday’s rally is legislation making its way through the legislature this week that would make it virtually impossible to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process.
If that bill clears the Senate, it automatically goes to the statewide ballot next year.
Voters, Aune said, will have the last word on both proposals.
“(Republicans) may not feel like they have to answer to us here in this building,” she at Wednesday’s rally, “but they have to answer to each and every one of you.”