Missouri House Advances Gerrymandered Map for Trump

Republicans in the Missouri state House passed a map, gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, in a 90-65 vote, advancing President Trump’s nationwide attempt to pressure Republican state legislatures around the country to force House seats that have typically gone to Democrats in their states to flip.

The new map — which Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe labeled a “Missouri First” map when he unveiled it just 12 days ago — was sent to the state Senate Tuesday, where it is expected to pass the state’s upper chamber. As I mentioned in yesterday’s edition of Where Things Stand, the gerrymandered map slices up the congressional district around Kansas City and redraws the lines to include more rural parts of the state where residents typically vote Republican.

It’s part of Trump’s efforts to rig the midterm elections in his favor by eliminating Democratic seats in the House, where Republicans currently hold a very tiny majority. His pressure campaign was successful in Texas, where Republicans in the state legislature were able to redraw maps that will flip five Democratic seats in the U.S. House to Republicans. He’s pushing Republicans in Indiana to, essentially, get rid of all Democratic representation for the state in the U.S. House. In Missouri, Republicans’ gerrymandering would flip one of the two seats held by Democrats there.

Democratic state Rep. Ashley Aune, the state House minority leader, called out her colleagues for their subservience to Trump just before the final vote Tuesday.

“The Missouri GOP is aiding and abetting the systematic destruction of our democracy by an authoritarian regime led by a geriatric con man who knows the only way he can win is to cheat,” Aune said. 

Not all Republicans in the state House were on board with the change, either. Per Democracy Docket:

The map doesn’t have unanimous support from Missouri House Republicans. House Speaker Jon Patterson (R) voted against the map in Monday’s preliminary vote – a decision Jackson County Democrats called cowardly. 

“As Speaker of the House, Lee’s Summit Representative Patterson had the power to stop these bills before they ever reached the floor. Instead, he chose to play politics – casting a meaningless ‘no’ vote after allowing both bills to advance. That is not leadership. That is cowardice,” the group said in a statement. 

Meanwhile in Nebraska

Well, Washington, D.C., rather…

There’s reason to believe that Republican members of Nebraska’s state legislature are heading to Washington, D.C. this week to talk to them about potentially redrawing some congressional district lines in order to make it harder for a Democrat to win the swing district around Omaha (which is currently held by retiring-Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) in the U.S. House).

Per the Nebraska Examiner:

While Republicans hold all of Nebraska’s congressional seats, political experts see the now open-seat 2nd District race as a possible pickup for Democrats in 2026.

After the most recent census, when the GOP-led majority in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature redrew the state’s congressional maps, it did so in a way that shored up the 2nd District by swapping some Democratic-leaning residents in suburban Sarpy County with more reliably Republican residents of rural Saunders County. The changes helped maintain the swing district’s slight Republican lean.

At least four Republican Nebraska state lawmakers went to D.C. today for a “state leadership conference,” organized by White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the Nebraska Examiner reported. Iowa lawmakers will also reportedly be there, another state Trump has reportedly been eyeing for his mid-cycle redistricting push. Items on the agenda include hearing “firsthand how President Trump is implementing the America First Agenda,” and how to “advance it at the state and local level,” the Examiner reported.

Axios reported on this potential redistricting meeting last week as well.

Trump Takes Credit for Biden Infrastructure Bill Projects

After the infrastructure bill passed Congress and President Biden signed it into law in 2021, TPM tracked some of the ways in which Republican members of Congress, years later, tried to take credit for the bill they voted against.

Now, per a new New York Times report, Trump’s doing the same thing:

In southern Connecticut, the federal government is replacing a 118-year-old bridge along America’s busiest rail corridor. The $1.3 billion project was largely funded by the 2021 infrastructure law that was championed by then-President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and strenuously opposed by Donald J. Trump.

These days, however, motorists cruising by the construction site might be forgiven for thinking that a certain famous New York developer was responsible for it all.

“PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” a sign by the road declares. “REBUILDING AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE.”

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