Missouri Voters Challenge Mid-Decade Redistricting Effort

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A group of Missouri voters filed a legal challenge today to the state’s mid-decade redistricting effort, arguing that state officials’ attempt to implement a new congressional map for the 2026 midterm elections violates the Missouri Constitution.

The voters are residents of Kansas City and currently reside in Congressional District 5, which is the target of the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting effort, but would be split into three separate districts under the new map. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Missouri, and Campaign Legal Center (CLC).

“Kansas City has been home for me my entire adult life. Voting is an important tool in our toolbox, so that we have the freedom to make our voices heard through a member of Congress who understands Kansas City’s history of racial and economic segregation along the Troost divide, and represents our needs. If our communities are needlessly split by these new lines, we would no longer see our strong values reflected in the priorities of our congressional representatives,” said plaintiff and Missouri Workers Center leader Terrence Wise.

In late July 2025, President Trump and his staff began pressuring Missouri lawmakers to enact a new congressional district map to dismantle Congressional District 5, which covers Kansas City and the surrounding area and has been represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver since 2005. On Aug. 29, Gov. Mike Kehoe called for a special session of the General Assembly for this purpose, claiming that the current congressional map “may be vulnerable to a legal challenge under the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, due to a lack of compactness in certain districts.”

Yet, President Trump, Gov. Kehoe, and other Missouri officials made it clear that the true intention was to secure Republicans an additional seat in Missouri’s delegation. The state House and Senate both passed the new map.

The lawsuit alleges that the new map violates the Missouri Constitution because congressional redistricting may occur only once every decade and because the new districts are not compact.

“Instead of standing up for their constituents, Missouri officials are caving to President Trump’s demands by passing this unconstitutional map,” said Ming Cheung, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. No matter how the state spins it, Kansas City voters will have worse representation in Congress if this map is allowed to take effect.”

The Missouri Constitution provides no basis for mid-decade redistricting, the lawsuit emphasizes. It authorizes congressional redistricting only following a decennial census, and once the districts have been enacted those districts remain in place until the next census.

“The new map drawn by Missouri lawmakers openly defies key constitutional requirements intended to keep the state’s map-drawing process fair. Missouri’s Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting. It also prohibits non-compact congressional districts. The map enacted by the Missouri legislature dismantles Kansas City’s fifth congressional district, submerging metro area residents into meandering rural districts with no close connection to their communities of interest. Both urban and rural Missourians deserve dedicated representation in Congress, and the Missouri Constitution guarantees that right as a way to prevent exactly this type of egregious gerrymandering,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center.

The lawsuit further argues that the 2025 map violates the Missouri Constitution’s compactness requirement. Congressional District 5, which under the 2022 map covered Kansas City and the surrounding suburbs, has several commonalities that align with compactness. These include that these communities have similar economic industries, follow urban and suburban city planning, are more multicultural than other parts of the state, and have a higher proportion of renters to homeowners than other parts of the state.

Under the new map, the current Congressional District 5 is split into three districts, with each encompassing a part of the Kansas City metropolitan area as well as rural parts of the state. The lawsuit alleges that dividing Kansas City this way separates closely united communities, denying them coherent representation in Congress.

Furthermore, the state’s rationale that it must redraw the districts to avoid legal challenges does not hold up. There were no legal challenges to the existing districts. The state is using the Voting Rights Act as a pretext, because the new map does not actually increase electoral opportunity for minority voters. Moreover, the dividing line in Kansas City starkly segregates Black and white neighbors, making the new districts more likely to be challenged as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

In rushing the map through the legislative process, state officials also failed to properly allocate population between the new districts.

"In a blatant illegal and unconstitutional power grab, the governor bowed to the whims of Washington while sacrificing representation in both urban and rural populations of Missouri," said Gillian Wilcox, Director of Litigation at the ACLU of Missouri. "The splitting of Kansas City into three separate congressional districts will not only diminish the representation of a major population center but will leave smaller rural towns' interests to compete against the interests of the residents of the KC metropolitan area."

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The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law. We safeguard the freedom to vote, defend voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and work to ensure public trust in our elected officials.

Learn more about CLC. Don't miss out on our latest resources: Subscribe to President Trevor Potter's newsletter on LinkedIn or email, tune in to the latest season of our award-winning podcast, Democracy Decoded, and join our livestreamed events. 

Issues
Redistricting

Defending Missourians from Unconstitutional Gerrymandering (Wise v. State of Missouri)

At a Glance

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is representing a group of Missouri voters to block the state from redrawing Missouri’s congressional map and replacing it with an unrepresentative and extreme gerrymander.

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Redistricting
About This Case/Action

In June 2025, the Trump administration began urging certain Republican-controlled states, including Missouri, to redraw their congressional maps in ways that would benefit the Republican Party in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.  

Missouri Governor Michael Kehoe responded by calling the Missouri Legislature into a special session to adopt a new congressional map in the middle of the decade — a departure from Missouri’s usual redistricting process going back almost a century.  

The new congressional map’s most significant changes were made to the former Congressional District 5, the district that contained much of Kansas City.  

Under Missouri’s previous map, and going back nearly six decades, Kansas City was represented by a single congressional district. This ensured that the city’s residents, including its sizeable minority population, had a unified voice in Congress that accurately represented their needs and could fight to solve the unique problems they faced.  

But under the new map, Kansas City is split among three different districts, erasing that unified voice and instead expanding to include far-flung rural areas. As a result, neither the voters in these rural areas nor the residents of Kansas City will have a member of Congress that can fully dedicate themselves to the distinct needs of these diverse groups.  

CLC, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU-MO) and the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project (ACLUP VRP), filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of Missouri voters.  

The lawsuit argues that the new map violates the Missouri Constitution’s compactness requirement for its congressional districts, which is meant to keep together communities that share similar interests and face similar challenges. Adhering to this provision helps ensure that Missouri’s congressional maps are truly representative of its people.

The lawsuit also alleges that the act of redistricting in the middle of the decade in and of itself, regardless of what the new map looks like, is a violation of the Missouri Constitution. The relevant constitutional provision requires redistricting to be done only after a census (which occurs at the beginning of each decade) to ensure that the new maps are being drawn in response to actual shifts in population and demographics rather than for political gain.

The plaintiffs have asked that the court rule that redrawing Missouri’s congressional maps in the middle of the decade is a violation of the state’s constitution, and to block the implementation of the new gerrymandered map. 

Campaign Legal Center Urges Oversight and Government Reform Committee to Respect D.C. Residents’ Right to Local Control and to Full Democracy

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tomorrow, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing to markup 14 proposed bills that would further silence the voices of more than 700,000 Washington, D.C., residents. D.C. residents have no voting representation in the House or the Senate of the U.S. Congress. This package would further erode D.C.’s control of their local affairs by granting Congress more authority to overturn bills passed by the democratically elected D.C. City Council and signed by the mayor. The bills would also eliminate the democratically elected position of D.C. attorney general — a position adopted by the people of D.C. by referendum — and codify portions of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in August to increase the presence of federal law enforcement within the District that residents overwhelmingly oppose. 

Bruce V. Spiva, senior vice president at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, issued the following statement on tomorrow’s markup on D.C.-related bills:

“Congress is once again attacking the local control and democratic rights of the more than 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C. The markup in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee of a troubling package of 14 bills will further silence the voices of D.C. residents.

“D.C. residents pay more per capita in federal taxes than any other jurisdiction and have fought in every war since the founding of the Republic. Yet, they are denied the same rights as every other American. The lack of statehood for residents of Washington, D.C., is fundamentally a democracy issue. D.C. residents are currently only able to express their will through a democratically elected local government. They possess no voting representation in Congress to protect their interests. Congress should not interfere with D.C. residents’ control of their own local affairs as expressed through their elected local government.

“The package of bills being reviewed by the Oversight Committee will do just the opposite. These bills will further erode D.C. residents’ right to self-governance and further oppress the residents of the nation's capital, who deserve the same rights as all Americans. Our country was founded on the principle that government without the consent of the governed is illegitimate.

“Lawmakers who support democracy must respect the will of D.C. residents and reject this attempt to overturn laws enacted by their elected councilmembers and mayor. Campaign Legal Center strongly supports D.C. statehood and urges the Oversight Committee to move forward on D.C. statehood and not backward by supporting this package of bills that at its core is undemocratic.”

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The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law. We safeguard the freedom to vote, defend voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and work to ensure public trust in our elected officials.

Learn more about CLC. Don't miss out on our latest resources: Subscribe to President Trevor Potter's newsletter on LinkedIn or email, tune in to the latest season of our award-winning podcast, Democracy Decoded, and join our livestreamed events.

Fighting Dark Money by Defending the Johnson Amendment (National Religious Broadcasters, et al. v. IRS, et al.)

At a Glance

Religious 501(c)(3) groups filed suit to challenge the Johnson Amendment, a long-standing law barring 501(c)(3) organizations participating in partisan political campaigning while still maintaining their tax-exempt status. Campaign Legal Center, joined by Public Citizen and Common Cause, filed an amicus brief in this case, arguing that exempting religious organizations and houses of worship from this ban and allowing them to engage in partisan politics would open the door to a new wave of secret, tax-deductible spending in elections. 

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About This Case/Action

The Johnson Amendment is a decades-old provision of federal tax law that prohibits all 501(c)(3) organizations — including religious, charitable and educational nonprofits — from endorsing or opposing political candidates. In exchange, these groups receive significant public benefits: exemption from federal income tax and the ability to receive tax-deductible contributions. The rule preserves the nonpartisan nature of the charitable sector and protects taxpayers from subsidizing political campaigns.  

Congress — the only branch with the power to change the law — has refused to do so. By seeking to write an exception for religious 501(c)(3)s into the Johnson Amendment via a court order, the Trump administration’s IRS is attempting to work around the authority of Congress and around the checks and balances that maintain our rule of law.

In National Religious Broadcasters v. IRS, four 501(c)(3) groups — including two churches — sued the IRS, seeking a court-approved settlement that would permanently shield religious groups from Johnson Amendment enforcement for participating or intervening in political campaigns.  

Under the proposed settlement, the IRS would not treat certain communications by religious groups or houses of worship endorsing or opposing candidates as “participation” or “intervention” in a political campaign, so long as they are delivered through “customary channels of communication” on matters of faith. 

What’s at Stake? 

While the case is being argued only in respect to the named plaintiffs, an exemption would be broadly applied to religious 501(c)(3)s nationwide. Allowing any religious organization to engage in partisan politics would have drastic consequences:  

  • A new class of “dark money” groups. Religious nonprofits could accept unlimited, tax-deductible donations to fund electioneering without disclosing donors, making them a new class of existing groups that donors can funnel unlimited, secret money through, commonly known as “dark money.”  
  • Taxpayer-subsidized partisanship. Politicized 501(c)(3)s would pose an even greater threat to transparency in elections, since — unlike 501(c)(4)s — 501(c)(3)s can offer their donors charitable tax deductions for their contributions. Wealthy special interests could receive a tax benefit for their secret spending through a religious 501(c)(3).  
  • Weakened campaign finance transparency. IRS and Federal Election Commission enforcement gaps already allow many politically active nonprofits to avoid disclosure; the proposed settlement would widen this loophole further and make it harder to uphold campaign finance laws that protect our elections. 

CLC’s brief explains that the Johnson Amendment is constitutional and essential to  protecting both electoral integrity and the credibility of the nonprofit sector. If the settlement were approved, it would dismantle a core safeguard in campaign finance law. Religious nonprofits could become conduits for unlimited, undisclosed taxpayer-subsidized political spending — further eroding public trust in elections and charitable institutions alike.

Campaign Legal Center, Public Citizen and Common Cause have urged the court to reject the settlement, preserve the Johnson Amendment and uphold longstanding rules that keep tax-exempt charities focused on public service, not partisan politics. 

CLC Applauds Bipartisan Legislation to Ban Congressional Stock Trading

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Washington, DC — Today, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that could help address a longstanding ethics problem in Congress. The “Restore Trust in Congress Act” strengthens existing rules on congressional stock trading by prohibiting Members of Congress, as well as their spouses and dependents, from owning or trading stocks. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has advocated for years for legislation that bans trading individual stocks and properly penalizes members who break the law, all core tenants of the bill introduced today.  

This reform is needed to address the shortcomings of the STOCK Act, which over a decade after its passage, has not lived up to its goal of increasing public trust that Members of Congress are prioritizing the needs of everyday Americans over their own personal wealth.  

While multiple efforts have been put forth to reform congressional stock trading, this latest solution by House members offers the necessary bipartisan support needed to pass this law. With the Senate working to advance similar legislation, a full ban on congressional stock trading moves closer to becoming law.    

Kedric Payne — CLC’s vice president, general counsel, and senior director, ethics — issued the following statement in response to this development:  

“Campaign Legal Center has been fighting for years to improve laws regulating the way Members of Congress trade stocks. As long as sitting lawmakers are allowed to trade stocks connected to the industries they oversee, the public will question whether they are prioritizing their own personal profits over the public interest. We applaud this bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key provisions of stock act reform CLC has fought to advance — a ban on stock ownership that is enforceable and holds lawmakers accountable.”  

Over a decade of poor enforcement of the STOCK Act — and allegations of lawmakers enriching themselves during times of economic uncertainty or public crisis — has contributed to decreased public trust in our elected officials, institutions and government.  

CLC has long called on Congress to implement a full ban on stock trading by sitting lawmakers — alongside enforceable accountability mechanisms that ensure no one can skirt the law.  

Catch up with our multi-year effort to highlight the problem of congressional stock trading and advance meaningful reform efforts here.  

Issues
Ethics
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