Missouri GOP Scrambles to Defy Voters Trying to Clean Up Democracy
Last year, Missouri voters overwhelmingly voted to approve a ballot referendum that would put the state’s legislative redistricting process in the hands of a nonpartisan official, among other lobbying and campaign finance reforms. Missouri Republicans, who have enjoyed unbroken control of the state legislature since George W. Bush’s first term, don’t love it. They hate it, in fact, so much, that they are now trying to find a way to not have to use it.
Before the initiative, which passed with 62 percent support, Missouri legislators handled their own redistricting process. This is insane, and also how it’s done in most states throughout the country. But not even two months after the election, Republican Gov. Mike Parson—who replaced the state’s scandal-ridden former Gov. Eric Greitens last year—called for repealing the initiative, which created a new, still-unfilled position called “state demographer” that would redraw legislative maps to make them fairer.