KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A group of Missouri voters filed a legal challenge today to the state’s mid-decade redistricting effort, arguing that state officials’ attempt to implement a new congressional map for the 2026 midterm elections violates the Missouri Constitution.
The voters are residents of Kansas City and currently reside in Congressional District 5, which is the target of the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting effort, but would be split into three separate districts under the new map. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Missouri, and Campaign Legal Center (CLC).
“Kansas City has been home for me my entire adult life. Voting is an important tool in our toolbox, so that we have the freedom to make our voices heard through a member of Congress who understands Kansas City’s history of racial and economic segregation along the Troost divide, and represents our needs. If our communities are needlessly split by these new lines, we would no longer see our strong values reflected in the priorities of our congressional representatives,” said plaintiff and Missouri Workers Center leader Terrence Wise.
In late July 2025, President Trump and his staff began pressuring Missouri lawmakers to enact a new congressional district map to dismantle Congressional District 5, which covers Kansas City and the surrounding area and has been represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver since 2005. On Aug. 29, Gov. Mike Kehoe called for a special session of the General Assembly for this purpose, claiming that the current congressional map “may be vulnerable to a legal challenge under the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, due to a lack of compactness in certain districts.”
Yet, President Trump, Gov. Kehoe, and other Missouri officials made it clear that the true intention was to secure Republicans an additional seat in Missouri’s delegation. The state House and Senate both passed the new map on September 12.
The lawsuit alleges that the new map violates the Missouri Constitution because congressional redistricting may occur only once every decade and because the new districts are not compact.
"In a blatant illegal and unconstitutional power grab, the governor bowed to the whims of Washington while sacrificing representation in both urban and rural populations of Missouri," said Gillian Wilcox, Director of Litigation at the ACLU of Missouri. "The splitting of Kansas City into three separate congressional districts will not only diminish the representation of a major population center but will leave smaller rural towns' interests to compete against the interests of the residents of the K metropolitan area."
The Missouri Constitution provides no basis for mid-decade redistricting, the lawsuit emphasizes. It authorizes congressional redistricting only following a decennial census, and once the districts have been enacted those districts remain in place until the next census.
“The new map drawn by Missouri lawmakers openly defies key constitutional requirements intended to keep the state’s map-drawing process fair. Missouri’s Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting. It also prohibits non-compact congressional districts. The map enacted by the Missouri legislature dismantles Kansas City’s fifth congressional district, submerging metro area residents into meandering rural districts with no close connection to their communities of interest. Both urban and rural Missourians deserve dedicated representation in Congress, and the Missouri Constitution guarantees that right as a way to prevent exactly this type of egregious gerrymandering,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center.
The lawsuit further argues that the 2025 map violates the Missouri Constitution’s compactness requirement. Congressional District 5, which under the 2022 map covered Kansas City and the surrounding suburbs, has several commonalities that align with compactness. These include that these communities have similar economic industries, follow urban and suburban city planning, are more multicultural than other parts of the state, and have a higher proportion of renters to homeowners than other parts of the state.
Under the new map, the current Congressional District 5 is split into three districts, with each encompassing a part of the Kansas City metropolitan area as well as rural parts of the state. The lawsuit alleges that dividing Kansas City this way separates closely united communities, denying them coherent representation in Congress.
Furthermore, the state’s rationale that it must redraw the districts to avoid legal challenges does not hold up. There were no legal challenges to the existing districts. The state is using the Voting Rights Act as a pretext, because the new map does not actually increase electoral opportunity for minority voters. Moreover, the dividing line in Kansas City starkly segregates Black and white neighbors, making the new districts more likely to be challenged as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.
In rushing the map through the legislative process, state officials also failed to properly allocate population between the new districts.
“Instead of standing up for their constituents, Missouri officials are caving to President Trump’s demands by passing this unconstitutional map,” said Ming Cheung, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. No matter how the state spins it, Kansas City voters will have worse representation in Congress if this map is allowed to take effect.”
Read full petition.