Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Chad Perkins said Trump staffers called him after The Independent published his negative comments about the idea. He says other Republican leaders are also on the call list
BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
The Trump White House is ratcheting up pressure on Missouri Republicans reluctant to pursue a new map that could give the GOP seven of the state’s eight seats in Congress.
Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Chad Perkins of Bowling Green said he received a call Friday afternoon from the White House after staff read his comments published Thursday in The Independent.
“We do redistricting every 10 years,” Perkins said Thursday. “We’ve already done that. To do it again would be out of character with the way Missouri operates.”
During the call Friday, he said, after verifying he was quoted accurately, he was told it was important to President Donald Trump.
“They said ‘well, we’re really going to try to do that’ and that might change the dynamic of it,” Perkins said.
The presumed target for the change is Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, who has held the 5th District seat since 2005 and was re-elected in November with 60% of the vote.
Cleaver’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment on the White House effort to defeat him by altering his district.
Missouri’s other Democrat, U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell of St. Louis, represents the 1st District.
To achieve a delegation with seven Republicans, Kansas City would need to be sliced into multiple districts instead of being encompassed by one. Neighborhoods heavy with Democratic votes would be added adjoining districts — the 5th shares a border with the 6th District, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Sam Graves of Tarkio, and the 4th District, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Alford of Raymore — or combined with enough Republican votes to make the 5th District a safe GOP seat.
The White House political staff who made the call, Perkins said, told him they would be calling every GOP member of the Missouri House delegation as well as Gov. Mike Kehoe to push the project forward.
Kehoe’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The reason the White House staff gave for the pressure is that Democrats are looking at redistricting California and Illinois to their advantage, Perkins said.
“That might be true, but I don’t like gerrymandering lines,” Perkins said. “I like things to be clear, concise and compact.”
The internal question for Republicans in the 2022 redistricting debate was whether they could reach for a 7-1 map without putting seats at risk by diluting their voting strength. That intraparty fight mixed with personality clashes in a dysfunctional state Senate that put passing any redistricting plan into question up until the final votes.
“To me, the arguments that were good arguments against it two years ago probably are still the same good arguments,” Perkins said Friday. “ But if someone comes up with a plan, we’ll take a look at it.”
The Missouri Freedom Caucus, the faction that clashed repeatedly with Senate GOP leadership, on Friday called for Kehoe to “immediately” call a special session for redistricting and changes to the initiative petition process.
“It’s time this super-majority Republican Party in Missouri grows a spine and actually delivers the Congressional map that reflects the strong conservative values of this great state,” the caucus posted on social media.
Other Republican lawmakers on Thursday told The Independent they weren’t excited about another round of redistricting, including Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin of Shelbina and state Sen. Mike Cierpiot of Lee’s Summit.
O’Laughlin did not respond to messages asking if she, too, had heard from the White House. Cierpiot said he had not.
If Republicans want to move forward, Kehoe could call a special session that would complete maps before the new election year begins. Otherwise, the work would take place in the regular session that begins in January and ends in May.
Democrats could filibuster any bill changing the districts and the only way to get it to a vote in the state Senate would be to use the rule to shut down debate, known as the previous question. It was used twice at the end of this year’s session, and Democrats have already vowed that Republicans will pay a price for that breach of bipartisanship.
Using it in a special session to gain a political edge for the GOP would make retribution worse, Perkins said.
“Then how does that break down how everything will run come January, because it will have consequences,” Perkins said.
The biggest impetus to move on redistricting, he said, would be a desire to please the president.
“If you’re a Republican state senator, a Republican state representative,” Perkins said, “you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this president.”