JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri House on Tuesday approved a gerrymandered congressional map that would dilute the voting power of Kansas City under pressure from President Donald Trump.

The map, sponsored by state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican, would carve Kansas City into three Republican-leaning congressional districts. The goal is to make it easier for a Republican to win Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District.

The vote came as part of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe’s unprecedented special session as Trump pressures Republican states to redraw their U.S. House maps to ensure Republican control of Congress.

House lawmakers approved the map on a largely party-line vote of 90-65. It now heads to the state Senate.

Deaton told his colleagues Tuesday that the map, which supporters call the “Missouri First Map,” would better represent Missouri in Congress.

“I thank Gov. Kehoe for his leadership,” Deaton said. “I know it comes to the great disdain, seemingly from the discussion we had yesterday, for many on the other side of the aisle, but I appreciate the leadership of President Trump as well.”

Under the proposed map, Kansas City voters would be split into the 4th, 5th and 6th Congressional Districts. Cleaver’s 5th District would extend hundreds of miles east to central Missouri, while the 4th District would stretch from downtown Kansas City to the Ozarks region.

The map would use Troost Avenue, a historic symbol of segregation in Kansas City, as the dividing line between the 4th and 5th Districts.

“We already have to fight against Troost, which is our natural dividing line if you all don’t know,” said Rep. Melissa Douglas, a Kansas City Democrat. “We still have that Black population on the east side. So this rigging of this line is not in the best interest ... It’s going to be at the cost of the of the people that I serve within my district.”

Middecade redistricting is exceptionally rare and legal experts previously told The Kansas City Star that it violates the Missouri Constitution. Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But Trump wants to ensure Republicans maintain their slim majority in Congress in the 2026 election and has pressed states, such as Texas, to redraw their maps.

Thousands of residents from Kansas City and across Missouri traveled to the state Capitol last week to testify against the legislation. Critics argue the new map would silence the voices of local voters and marginalized communities in a city more progressive and diverse than the rest of the state.

Residents in Kansas City would share the same representatives as people living in rural parts of southern, northern and central Missouri.

“With this map, Kansas City is losing fair democratic representation in Congress,” said House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat. “Federal investments in affordable housing, affordable energy, public safety, health care access and more in my community are on the chopping block.”

“Republicans claim to be the party of small government and local control,” Aune said. “Yet here you are taking your marching orders from the federal government.”

While the map passed with broad Republican support, the chamber’s most powerful leader voted against it.

House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, told The Star prior to the vote that he couldn’t vote for a map that carves up the Kansas City area.

“I do see a lot of benefits with this new map and I do feel that it’s constitutional,” he said. “But as a Jackson Countian, I can’t vote for something that splits Jackson County in half.”

“To come into the greatest county in the state, the best city in the state, and to cut it in half,” Patterson said. “I couldn’t support that.”

Patterson, whose home would be located in the 4th District under the proposed map, said he does not plan to run for that seat.

“I have no plans to run for Congress,” he said. “I don’t need the airline miles.”

The rapid fire special session marks a departure from previous redistricting efforts in Missouri, in which lawmakers spent weeks debating different versions of maps. Republicans have released very little information over the past week about the map’s impact on specific communities across the Kansas City area.

There’s also looming controversy over who actually crafted the map, which Kehoe unveiled on the Friday before Labor Day weekend. The Star previously revealed that Kehoe discussed redistricting in a private meeting with top legislative leaders in early August.

Kehoe and Republican supporters have consistently said that Kehoe’s “team in Missouri” created the map. Trump posted his own copy of the map on social media roughly 30 minutes after Kehoe called lawmakers into a special session.

Emails obtained by The Star shed some light on which officials might have been involved in crafting the map. They indicate that high-ranking Kehoe staffers and top officials in the Missouri Office of Administration discussed the legality of redistricting in July.

Prior to passing the map, the GOP-controlled House also approved a Republican plan to overhaul the state’s initiative petition process.

The mechanism is Missouri’s most visible form of direct democracy that allows citizens to put measures to a statewide vote, such as abortion rights and Medicaid expansion.

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