JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Senate on Thursday approved the state’s congressional map that appears to protect Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s hold on the 5th Congressional District.
The map, which passed the upper chamber by a vote of 22-11, appears to maintain the state’s current mix of six Republican and two Democratic members of Congress. It now heads to Gov. Mike Parson’s desk, sidestepping immediate concerns that a federal or state judge would draw the state’s congressional boundaries.
Thursday’s vote illustrated the General Assembly’s last-minute attempt to fulfill its constitutional obligation and avoid the courts before the legislative session ends at 6 p.m. Friday. Three lawsuits already seek a solution in the courts if the legislature had failed.
It ended months of filibusters and derailed debate by a hard-right group of senators, called the Conservative Caucus. The group sparred with Republicans aligned with Senate leadership in search of a map that would have allowed the party to pick up an additional seat in Congress.
The new map was built to survive the fractured Senate, according to House Redistricting Chair Rep. Dan Shaul, an Imperial Republican. It was viewed as a compromise between Republican leadership and members of the hard-line conservative caucus.
Sen. Bob Onder, a Lake St. Louis Republican and hardline conservative who had hotly debated the congressional map for weeks, acknowledged his faction’s defeat Thursday. But he framed the final map as better for conservatives than a previous version.
“The battle for a #7-1 #MAGA congressional map just ended in defeat. But we in the @SenateCaucus did manage to defeat the #PelosiMap being pushed by @MoSenateGOP leadership,” Onder said on Twitter.
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