MARIES COUNTY — Missourians will determine Nov. 3 whether to adopt the new congressional district lines map for the 2028 and 2030 elections.

A yes vote on Proposition A would change the district lines to the boundaries set in 2025 state House Bill 1, signed into law by Gov. Mike Kehoe. A no vote would keep the current district lines. In either scenario, the district lines will be redrawn after the 2030 census for the 2032 midterm election.

Because the initiative petition for HB 1 received enough signatures, the bill must be approved by voters before becoming effective.

Supporters believe that this keeps up with the rest of the country while opponents believe that the maps are unfairly drawn without considering the best interests of the people.

The ballot measure affects only the U.S. congressional districts, not the state legislature’s House and Senate districts. Under the current maps, Missouri is represented by two Democrats and six Republicans in the U.S. Congress. If the new maps are used, Ballotpedia’s interactive map projects that Kansas City would lose its Democratic representative, shifting representation to only one Democrat and seven Republicans.

However, the official ballot language frames the question around keeping counties more intact within the congressional districts.

For example, under the 2022 maps, the 3rd Congressional District takes a sliver of Warren and St. Charles counties and wraps south around the 2nd District to include Crawford, Washington and Jefferson counties. Maries County is in the 3rd district.

The 2025 map includes the entirety of Warren and St. Charles counties in the 3rd District. Crawford, Washington and half of Jefferson County would be in the 2nd District. However, the Kansas City area would be split by the 4th, 5th and 6th Districts. The 5th District would extend from Jackson County to Osage and Maries counties.

Maries County residents voted under the 2025 map for the Aug. 4 primary but will use the 2022 map for the general election because of an order from the Missouri Supreme Court.

The referendum petition form was submitted Sept. 25, 2025, to the secretary of state, and it was approved for circulation, according to the Sept. 3, 2026, Supreme Court decision in Von Glahn v. Hoskins.

For a petition to force a statutory law to the ballot, it must receive enough signatures equal to 5 percent of the voters in the last gubernatorial election in six of the eight congressional districts. The minimum number of signatures is 106,384, based on the 2024 election.

Petition organizers on Dec. 9, 2025, submitted 691 boxes with over 300,000 signatures.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins issued a certificate of insufficiency around 4 p.m. on Aug. 4, one hour before the deadline. He argued that the state Constitution does not allow referendums on congressional redistricting plans.

However, the Supreme Court disagreed because Article 3, Section 49 allows for referendums on “any act of the general assembly.” The court therefore ordered Hoskins to issue a certificate of sufficiency and place Proposition A on the ballot.

Virginia Staabs, Democratic candidate for the 16th state Senate District, opposes Proposition A because it divides communities to make it more difficult for one party to be elected. She also believes that this is an outside influence from the Trump Administration and that politicians should represent everyone in their districts, regardless of party lines.

She said that the new lines were did not consider census or voter turnout information, and because this measure is being considered in 2026, a new census will take place in a few years.

Furthermore, Staabs also believes that Hoskins is not working in the best interest of Missouri and that he didn’t take the referendum seriously. She said he waited until the last minute to file the certificate of insufficiency, even though he knew it would be challenged in court.

“He thought he could get away with it, and state Supreme Court told him no,” she said. “Federal Supreme Court told him no three times.”

Because of the uncertainty regarding which congressional map to use, Staabs said that people outside of her district have called about problems with the Veterans Association.

However, she said that she didn’t know who their congressional representatives or candidates were. When the incumbent won’t help, Staabs said that candidates will try to help but are unsure who is in their districts.

“That frequently confuses voters, confuses candidates, and it makes everybody’s life more difficult,” Staabs said.

However, Staabs said the 2022 congressional map isn’t “non-gerrymandered” either because it was passed by a Republican supermajority. She believes that a bipartisan commission should instead determine the district lines.

During the 2024 presidential election, President Donald Trump received 58.5 percent of the vote in Missouri, and former Vice President Kamala Harris received 40.1 percent. If those proportions were used, the Democrats would have had three representatives instead of two.

“I’m not saying that the one we have now … is the best we could have done,” Staabs said. “But it was what we should’ve had until after the next census.”

She also explained that the reason the current 3rd District wraps around the 2nd District is because the 8th District would have been overloaded if it included Washington, Crawford and Jefferson counties.

Regarding keeping the counties more intact, Staabs said that the issue is irrelevant. She said that some cities, such as Richland, are split among three counties. Therefore, splitting congressional districts based on county lines could result in neighbors having different representatives in Congress.

The new 4th District would extend from the Jackson County to Pulaski County, where she lives. She said that the Pulaski barely has things in common with St. Louis because of shopping.

“We have nothing in common with Kansas City, not a dang thing,” she said. “We don’t drive four hours to go shopping in Kansas City.”

Stephen Neubert, chair of the Maries County Republican Party, believes that the new district lines are more favorable for conservatives. He said that Missouri needs to stay relevant, and redistricting achieves that purpose. He believes the state will otherwise fall behind in national representation.

“Every state in the country has done it some form or another,” he said.

Regarding concerns that the districts don’t accurately represent the population demographics, Neubert said that Illinois and Massachusetts have given Republicans in their states “zero representation.” He said that these states have similar splits but in reverse.

Illinois, which voted 54.4 percent for Harris and 43.5 percent for Trump, has three Republican representatives among its 17 districts (17.6 percent). Massachusetts, which voted 61.2 percent for Harris and 36.0 percent for Trump, has zero Republican representatives of its nine districts.

For those who think that Proposition A is a Republican power grab, Neubert said that both sides are trying to grab more power. While he would like to see congressional representation handled fairly, he believes conservatives will be “drowned out” without redistricting.

“Really, this probably should have been done years before,” he said.

Neubert also said that he believes that keeping counties intact is important because they have similar interests, and this would allow these interests to be relevant to their representative. He said that while cities like Belle could be split between districts, people will be split no matter how the lines are drawn.

Regarding Kansas City, Neubert also believes that congressmen are to represent their state’s interests, not just the big city in the district. He said that cities have their own representatives and politicians, but the district covers more than just the city limits.

“Kansas City is not a state. It’s a city in our state,” he said. “There’s a lot of people around those counties that I don’t think feel represented by somebody like (Emanuel) Cleaver.”

Neubert also disagrees that Kansas City and Maries County don’t have anything in common. While Jackson and Maries counties have their own interests, he believes that they still depend on each other, and the congressman should represent both areas.

“Hopefully our interests are more aligned than, ‘We have nothing in common,’” he said. “We all got to eat. We all go to use the infrastructure and everything else. So I think we have a lot in common with each other.”