Last week, the Missouri Governor enacted a congressional map that intentionally diminishes Black voting power in the state. The new map clearly targets Missouri’s 5th congressional district, which has provided electoral opportunities to Black voters for decades. It does so by intentionally splitting District 5, which formerly encompassed all of Kansas City, into three separate districts, surgically dividing Black communities and denying them opportunities for representation of their choice in Congress.
In early September, the Missouri Legislature conducted an unprecedent mid-decade redistricting effort by forcing a new congressional map through a rushed and intentionally opaque legislative process, often during technical sessions without the quorum typically required to move a bill forward, denying the public meaningful opportunities to participate in the process. The resulting map undermines Black voting power, threatening their ability to elect their candidates of choice.
In response to the enactment of the map, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) Director of Policy Demetria McCain issued the following statement:
“Regardless of political party, we cannot stand by when Black voters are harmed through unlawful maneuvering. Off-cycle redistricting that targets Black voters’ candidates of choice is illegal.
“This is a blatant and direct attack on the nearly 700,000 Black residents in Missouri’s rights, and it feeds off the insidious historical discrimination that Black voters have endured for decades. The Legal Defense Fund vigorously denounces any effort to use off-cycle redistricting as an opportunity to eke out power at the expense of Black voters and other voters of color.”
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957 — although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
