51ºÚÁÏ

With the House and Senate moving this week to redraw the state’s congressional maps to help President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterm elections, opponents are mulling a plan to get the law on the ballot in hopes voters dump it before the changes go into effect.

Jake Hummel, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO said such a maneuver could be “entirely possible� for organizers who believe a majority of Missourians are opposed to the new map configuration.

Hummel, however, has not yet brought the plan to the federation’s members for their consideration.

“I have to talk collectively to our organizations,� Hummel said Tuesday. “My membership does not trust the General Assembly.�

House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said Tuesday she is confident a ballot proposal aimed at killing the changes is in the works.

“I expect a citizens referendum as soon as this passes the Senate,� Aune said Tuesday.

Another group that could be considering a campaign against the changes is People Not Politicians — Missouri, which advocates for citizen access to the ballot. Richard Von Glahn, who oversees the organization, issued a statement saying that a campaign could be forthcoming.

“If lawmakers won’t listen, the people have other tools — including legal action and a referendum,� the statement said.

The emerging plan comes as the House voted 90-65 Tuesday to advance the new boundaries to the Senate, where Senate President Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, is promising to ram it through the upper chamber, perhaps as early as Friday.

The plan would carve up the state’s current map, which has six safe Republican seats and two safe Democratic seats. Trump wants the map to give him one additional GOP-leaning district to help stave off projected Republican losses in next year’s mid-term election.

In their plan, Republicans are targeting Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District, pushing the lines of the Kansas City-focused district into GOP-dominated territory in mid-Missouri. Cleaver says he is going to run for reelection, but he also is threatening to file a lawsuit over the changes.

Among the more notable of 13 Republican “no� votes Tuesday was House Speaker Jon Patterson, R-Lee’s Summit, who said he opposed the new lines because Jackson County is split, putting him in a more rural district.

“As a Jackson County resident, I just felt it wouldn’t work. Some think it’s the premier county in the state,� Patterson said. “One of the downsides of this map is that Kansas City could have a congressman from Boone County.�

Patterson said he is not concerned about what Trump may think of his decision because the end result will be in the president’s favor.

“I can handle a few mean tweets,� Patterson said.

Rep. Yolanda Fountain Henderson, a north 51ºÚÁÏ County Democrat, criticized Republicans for taking up Trump’s redistricting call.

“If he tells you to jump, would you jump off a cliff?� Henderson said. “This redistricting is awful. It’s wrong.�

Although Democrats in the Senate are aiming for a full-on floor fight when they convene Wednesday, a citizen-led referendum could serve as an alternative blockade.

Under the Missouri Constitution, opponents of the new congressional lines can ask for a statewide vote on the proposal if they can gather an estimated 106,000 signatures from voters in six out of the state’s eight congressional districts. The map measure could not go into effect until voters have their say.

Unions used the same playbook in 2018 when they pumped $15 million into a campaign to overturn a right-to-work law championed by then-Gov. Eric Greitens. The law would have barred workers in private sector jobs from being compelled to join a union.

The anti-union law was nullified when 67% of the voters rejected it in an August special election.

Some of the same players in that fight are still around, although they serve in different positions. Hummel was serving in the state Senate at the time, representing a 51ºÚÁÏ district as a Democrat.

Sen. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, was serving as chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party. During debates on the proposed law in 2017, the Senate majority leader was Republican Mike Kehoe, who now is the governor.

Business groups who had sought the right-to-work law said it was not a case of voters being opposed to the change, but the deluge of money that the unions pumped into the challenge.

Tuesday’s House session also saw lawmakers advance legislation that would ask voters to increase the threshold to pass constitutional amendments proposed through initiative petition.

The measure moved to the Senate on a 98-58 vote, with six Republicans joining minority Democrats in opposing it. Speaker Patterson also was among the GOP “no� votes.

Under the plan, constitutional amendments put on the ballot by voters would need a simple majority statewide and a similar majority in all eight congressional districts to become law.

Supporters said the initiative petition process has become dominated by out-of-state interest groups that do not represent Missouri values.

“We need to have outside influences out of Missouri,� said Rep. Bill Lucas, a Jefferson County Republican.

Opponents say the requirement of support in all eight districts effectively would gut the citizen-led initiative process by making it easier for a small percentage of the state’s voters to defeat any ballot measure.