Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver blasted a plan that President Donald Trump is pushing to draw the 10-term Democrat out of a job.
Cleaver, who represents the Democratic-leaning 5th Congressional District in the Kansas City area, said the effort is part of a broader campaign to establish Republican dominance in Missouri and the federal government.
"Someone over at the White House is seemingly committed to fomenting what I call national nastiness as a way of establishing a one-party rule in our country," Cleaver said in an interview with St. Louis Public Radio on Friday. "And I think it is very dangerous."
Cleaver's colleague, Congressman Eric Burlison, R-Greene County, confirmed Thursday that the Trump administration wants Gov. Mike Kehoe to call the General Assembly into special session and redraw the state's congressional map that was enacted in 2022. If Kehoe agrees, the session likely would be held this fall.
The goal would be to transform Cleaver's district into a Republican-leaning seat by splitting the Kansas City area into a few districts.
Trump is pushing other Republican-majority states, including Texas, to redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats are panning it a desperate attempt by Republicans to preserve a slim majority in the U.S. House.
But Cleaver went further, saying that pushing for mid-decade redistricting would "tear up the country" by creating a "MAGA government." And Cleaver, a former mayor of Kansas City, said it's outrageous that Republicans would contemplate denying representation to Missouri's largest city (by both municipal population and area).
"We're headed in a bad direction. We don't have redistricting in the middle of the decade," Cleaver said. "It is something that we do after the census. I mean, what do we base it on?"
Any new map would either use imprecise population estimates or old data from the 2020 U.S. census, calling into question whether districts would be equal in population, as required by the state constitution. Democrats may also challenge whether the constitution allows state lawmakers to redraw districts at a time other than the beginning of a decade.
Reversing course?
Missouri Republicans considered splitting Kansas City into three congressional districts in 2022. But the GOP-controlled legislature decided against it over concerns that the move could backfire and open the door to Democrats winning more competitively drawn districts.
U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, publicly urged state lawmakers then not to draw Kansas City into his 6th District and Republican Rep. Mark Alford's 4th District. He told MissouriNet that year that "in a Democrat year it could be a disaster for the state if you make those districts so that you have so many un-commonalities within a district it could turn the state into a 4-4 state rather than a 6-2 state."
Cleaver declined to say whether he's talked with Graves about the mid-decade redistricting push. Graves' spokesman didn't return a message from St. Louis Public Radio.
But Cleaver said he understood why state legislative Republicans were risk averse about going after the 5th District.
"If somehow this seat is snatched, the likelihood of another district falling is great," Cleaver said.
Any push to redraw the map would require scores of Republicans who didn't support splitting up Cleaver's district a few years ago to now reverse course. Former state Sen. Bill Eigel, one of the leaders of the failed 2022 effort to target Cleaver, said on Friday that at least nine senators would need to change their votes for the effort to succeed.
"Donald Trump is such a miracle worker that he can even get the RINOs in the MO Senate to act like Republicans," Eigel wrote in a text message. "I would certainly enjoy watching the soft moderates in the MO Senate correct one of their biggest failures."
Freedom Caucus calls for a special session
Meanwhile, Missouri's Freedom Caucus called for Kehoe to bring the legislature back into session both for redistricting and to overhaul the state's initiative petition process.
The caucus often clashes with state GOP leadership. Its chairman, state Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Definance, said in a statement that "our current congressional map sends two Democrats to Washington, D.C., representing only a very small fraction of our electorate." He called the current map "a weak compromise — inconsistent with the political will of Missouri voters."
"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, as the political makeup of this state clearly demands," he said.
In response to questions about whether he was consulting with Trump and whether he'd call a special session later this year, Kehoe spokeswoman Gabby Picard told St. Louis Public Radio on Friday that the Republican governor "and his team are aware of the redistricting efforts in Texas, and discussions are always being held to ensure that conservative Missouri values are represented in Washington."
"Gov. Kehoe will always consider options that provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians," Picard added.
There's some evidence that the White House is actively lobbying Missouri Republicans to go after Cleaver's seat.
After he was quoted in the Missouri Independent's article about the Trump-led redistricting push, House Speaker Pro Tem Chad Perkins, R-Bowling Green, got a phone call from a White House staffer.
"They told me it certainly was a priority for them for us to take a look at different maps and asked if we'd be willing to consider it," Perkins said in a telephone interview. "I think it's more popular than I realized."
Still, Perkins said the concerns around going after Cleaver in 2022 are still valid — particularly the risk of making surrounding seats more Democratic.
"I think all the arguments against it four years ago probably are still good arguments today," Perkins said. "But if there is new information to be brought to light, we'll take a look at the new information."
Cleaver said he'd like the state legislature to ignore the president's wishes.
"I hope that the General Assembly will just say we're not going there," Cleaver said. "You know, thank the president for what he's offered in the way of reducing the likelihood of all the people being represented."
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