JEFFERSON CITY – City leaders took congressional redistricting concerns to lawmakers in Jefferson City with perfect results for Richmond and Ray County residents, state Rep. Peggy McGaugh said.

U.S. HOUSE DISTRICTS the House Special Committee on Redistricting redrew the map to return the city and county to one district, rather than dividing them between two congressional districts.

“I’m hopeful the congressional (plan) will pass the House (this week),” McGaugh said. “It will make it over to the Senate by the end of the next week, and I’m hoping that after six hours of debate, we’ll all sign off on it and it won’t have to go to the courts.”

The victory provides hope for area residents to stay in one district, but whether the map will hold up as the redistricting process continues is unclear.

“It’s still the great unknown,” McGaugh said. “It potentially will go to the Supreme Court to fight it out.”

One reason the map could face challenges is that people in other congressional districts might disagree with how their districts have been redrawn. U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, who for now represents Ray County, went from being in a multicounty urban, suburban and rural district to being confined by the new map to a couple of counties balled tightly in heavily populated portions of Jackson and southern Clay counties. A Cleaver representative at the committee meeting asked for Cleaver’s district to include a larger share of Clay County, but that did not occur.

On the St. Louis side, state representatives from the St. Charles area rejected being part of the 1st and 2nd districts, The Missouri Times reported.

“Currently, the fastest-growing county within our great state in terms of population and economic development is St. Charles County,” The Times reported, taking the comments from a letter nine lawmakers had sent the House redistricting committee. “Moreover, during the last two years, St. Charles County has been a refuge for individuals and businesses that have been adversely impacted by the tyrannical edicts of activist local officials elsewhere.”

Also, as stated during the hearing, some people – including Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft – want to use Republican redistricting clout to gain another party seat in Congress. They want a Missouri map restricting Democrats to one seat, rather than the present two out of eight U.S. House seats.

If Democrats and Republicans mount sufficient opposition to the proposed maps in the House and Senate, then that could result in a courtroom showdown.

AREA REPRESENTATIVES

Mayor Mike Wright, Administrator Tonya Willim, businessman Jimmy Carter and Economic Development Director James Gorham, supported by McGaugh, let House committee members know why the plan to split Richmond and Ray County between two congressional districts would hurt the city and county. The Richmond delegation sought to be placed in a single district, either the 4th or 6th.

Representing a city of just 6,013 residents, each speaker testified the planned division would have diluted the voices of the city and county. The division would matter when seeking help to address a variety of issues, including receipt of federal aid, which proved necessary during the drought of 2018, the back-to-back flooding in 2019, the 2021 summer storm and the ongoing pandemic that began affecting business and government operations in 2020. If placed in two districts, this small area would have had to deal with two busy members of Congress, and their staffs, in the hope that one or the other might respond versus focusing on pressing needs elsewhere in their districts, the delegation testified.

“They did a great job of testifying,” McGaugh, who stood with the group during the hearing, said. “It was well-taken by the committee. Both the Democrats and the Republicans – they just came to me later and said, ‘You have nice people in Richmond.’ I said, ‘Yes, I certainly do.’”

After the hearing, the committee moved on an 8-3 vote to place Richmond and Ray County entirely in Sam Graves’ 6th Congressional District. The change also moved Carroll and Chariton counties into the 6th District, with the Missouri River forming the district’s southern border for all three counties.

“The natural border line of the Missouri River is now that line between 6th and 4th,” McGaugh said. “We got everything we asked for.”

Richmond is the only city that sent a delegation to Jefferson City to seek a change in the proposed map.

STATE HOUSE DISTRICTS

Instead of McGaugh’s 38th House District remaining entirely in Ray County, the redistricting plan called for the 38th to include only the top rural third of the county. Richmond and the bottom two-thirds of the county would go to Rep. Terry Thompson.

Now, the proposed map for state House districts is not a certainty, McGaugh said.

“It’s still in flux,” she said, adding she hopes the county remains together. “I certainly hope for a change. It makes me a little bit more hopeful that it will, now that this change for the congressional was (approved). But it’s a whole different animal because the commissioners that had been working on these maps all summer are not the same people as (the House) committee. … It’s all different people – a whole different process.”

Those involved in House and Senate redistricting continued to meet.

“If they can’t come to an agreement, then yes, that will go to the courts,’ McGaugh said.