Missouri completed its legislative redistricting on March 15 when the state’s Judicial Redistricting Commission filed new state Senate district boundaries with the secretary of state.
Two distinct politician commissions are responsible for state legislative redistricting in Missouri—one for the state Senate and another for the state House of Representatives. To form the Senate commission, the state committee of both major political parties nominates 10 members, for a total of 20 nominees. From this pool, the governor selects five members per party, for a total of 10 commissioners.
The Senate Independent Bipartisan Citizens Commission failed to submit proposed maps to the secretary of state’s office by the December 23, 2021, deadline. Therefore, responsibility for developing Senate district boundaries was assumed by the Missouri Judicial Commission for Redistricting. The judicial commission released its final plan and sent it to the secretary of state’s office on March 15. The commission’s chair, Missouri Appeals Court Justice Cynthia Lynette Martin, said in a press release, “The Judicial Redistricting Commission’s work has been thorough and labor intensive, and was purposefully undertaken with the goal to file a constitutionally compliant plan and map well in advance of the commission’s constitutional deadline to avoid disenfranchising voters given the candidate filing deadline and the deadline for preparing ballots.”
Scott Faughn of The Missouri Times wrote that “[t]he biggest difference in this map and that previous map is that it shifts the weight of some of the districts from rural weighted districts to evenly split districts and even enhances the suburban influence inside several republican seats.” He added, “the new map produces 7 solid democratic districts, and 3 likely democratic districts. On the republican side the new map produces 18 solid republican districts, and 3 more likely republican districts,” with two competitive districts when the current incumbents no longer seek office.
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