If Missouri Republicans stay mostly united in their push to drown out Kansas City’s voters, there’s very little Democratic lawmakers can do to stop them during the special session.

That means if Missouri voters want to reject the new gerrymandered congressional map, which splinters Kansas City into three separate districts, they may have to take matters into their own hands.

Under state law, voters can mount a challenge and force a referendum vote on any bill passed by the General Assembly that doesn’t feature an emergency clause — language that allows the governor’s signature to make a new law effective immediately.

The redistricting bill that passed the House Tuesday, sponsored by Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican, does not include such an emergency clause.

That opens the door for opponents of the bill to collect enough signatures within 90 days of its passage to force a statewide vote on the new map, which would divide Kansas City along Troost Avenue, the city’s de facto racial divide created by Jim Crow-era housing policies.

Richard von Glahn, policy director at Missouri Jobs with Justice, who is leading the campaign against mid-decade redistricting, said he hopes GOP lawmakers will abandon their plan for a redrawn map that aims to oust longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.

“There’s the largest crowd I’ve ever seen at the Capitol here today (Wednesday). I think a lot of people are upset about this,” von Glahn said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s important for senators to look around, see the crowd, hear the voices speaking out against this, and they should do the right thing,” he added. “And if they don’t, we’ll evaluate the options going forward.”

Veto referendum process

The veto referendum is a separate direct democracy mechanism from the initiative petition process that Republican lawmakers have proposed weakening.

To trigger a referendum, organizers must reach a threshold of signatures in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts equal to 5% of voters in each respective district, as determined by the last gubernatorial election.

Based on vote counts in the 2024 election that saw Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe rise to power, the minimum number of signatures necessary to get a veto referendum on the ballot is 106,384, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office.

The 90-day window for lodging a challenge is tight, but veto referendums have been successful in Missouri as recently as 2017, when labor unions successfully organized to defeat a right-to-work law that would have banned compulsory union fees.

During the right-to-work fight, organizers collected roughly three times the necessary number of signatures to get the veto referendum on the ballot. More than 67% of voters subsequently opposed the legislation, blocking it from becoming law.

“When politicians do something that is really out of step with what voters want, you see that voters offer a correction to that,” von Glahn said.

The veto referendum will remain a viable option for gerrymandering opponents unless lawmakers retroactively add an emergency clause to Deaton’s bill. That’s unlikely now that the legislation has been approved by the House.

In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio on Monday, Deaton said he doesn’t see a compelling reason to add language to the bill that would make it go into effect immediately, thereby blocking a potential veto referendum.

“There’s been some conversations about an emergency clause at different points, but it’s not currently a part of it,” Deaton said. “And I don’t know that I have reason to believe that it will be as we move forward.”

Deaton did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Statewide ballot initiatives are generally presented to voters in August or November. If Republicans sign off on the new map and gerrymandering opponents collect enough signatures to challenge it, it’s unclear when a statewide vote would be held.

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