President Donald Trump spoke to GOP state senators during a caucus meeting and later in the day they moved to shut down debate over new rules intended to make it easier to pass a new congressional map
BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
Just hours after hearing from President Donald Trump during a caucus meeting, Republicans in the Missouri Senate showed they are ready to please him by shoving a new congressional district map to passage over opposition from Democrats.
The General Assembly is meeting in special session to revise the state’s eight congressional districts so Republicans are likely to win seven instead of the six they currently hold. The Missouri House has already approved the map sought by Trump, who on Tuesday demanded on social media that the Senate do the same.
“The Missouri Senate must pass this Map now, AS IS, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the ‘Show Me State,’ and across the Country,” Trump wrote.
To push the bill to final passage by Friday, Republicans had to get the two bills passed in the House into position for committee hearings on Thursday. But before that could take place, the chamber had to vote on rules for the session and Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin rolled out revisions intended to make House bills the Senate’s top priority.
And to get those revisions passed, they voted to shut off debate — using a once-rare motion known as the previous question. This year saw a major break from tradition, when Republicans used the motion to slam through partisan priorities at the end of the regular session in May.
It was the first time since 2017 when the previous question was used during a regular session.
The proposed rule changes triggered a Democratic-led debate that consumed two hours before Republicans forced a vote.
For about two hours, Democrats accused the Republicans of cheating by substituting the new rules instead of using the rules used during this year’s regular session — and for the veto session that took place just minutes before the chamber convened for the special session.
“For those of you that are going to be here for a few years, why would you give away your power just to make today a little bit easier?” said state Sen. Stephen Webber, a Democrat from Columbia. “That doesn’t make any sense, and it really saddens me, because I don’t know where it stops.”
The new rules were not distributed before the session convened and many Republicans were not informed in advance the changes were coming.
State Sen. Joe Nicola, a Republican from Independence, said he was given the new rules and the bill on congressional maps approved in the Missouri House with the expectation he would be an automatic vote in favor of both. But Webber’s point was valid, he said, and he’s not ready to go along.
“I’m nobody’s puppet. I will never be anybody’s puppet,” Nicola said. “I’m not going to come down here and be expected to rubber stamp anything. That is not what I was elected to do.”
But when the chamber voted on the previous question, Nicola went along.
The previous question motion is used commonly in the Missouri House, but until this year it was considered a last resort in the Senate. When the votes were held, Democrats started calling the presiding officer of the Senate “Speaker” instead of “President.”
“There are no speakers in the Missouri Senate,” said state Sen. Jason Bean of Holcomb, who was presiding at the time.
Following the vote, the House bills were read and the Senate will meet at 9 a.m. Thursday to move them to committees for hearings later in the day.
Flipping the 5th District
The Republicans’ target is the 5th Congressional District, currently held by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, a Democrat who has been in office since 2005. The map being considered would split the district into pieces, putting portions in the 4th and 6th districts and adding enough Republican votes to what remains to flip the district to the GOP.
Gov. Mike Kehoe also wants lawmakers to pass a state constitutional amendment raising the majority requirement for passing constitutional amendments proposed by initiative petition.
Instead of a statewide majority deciding the questions, initiative proposals would have to win majorities statewide and in every congressional district. That would allow as few as 5% of voters to decide the question.
But it is Trump’s insistence on a new congressional map to shore up the GOP’s shaky majority in the U.S. House that is the main focus of the special session.
During a caucus of the Republican senators Wednesday, Trump called Kehoe and spoke to the members through the governor’s phone.
State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, insisted in an interview that the special session was not called just because Trump wanted it. The proposed new map puts all of Schroer’s county into the 3rd Congressional District — it is now split between the 3rd and the 2nd districts — and he said that will keep a community together in the same district.
But when asked whether Kansas City, which is almost entirely in the 5th District but would have its population split among three in the proposed map, deserved the same consideration, Schroer said it did not.
“Donald Trump is encouraging Republicans to grow a spine, and stop bending the knee to the Democrats to avoid filibusters like we did in 2022,” Schroer said. “It’s really helped and it’s binding the Republican Party back together.”
