After the November 2018 midterm election, Missouri voters could congratulate themselves on being ahead of the curve in the nationwide drive for anti-gerrymandering laws. But the elation was short-lived. One day after voters passed Constitutional Amendment 1—nicknamed “Clean Missouri”— by an overwhelming 61% margin, Republicans in the “Show Me” state showed their true colors and began a cynical effort to undermine the new law.

The Clean Missouri amendment includes sweeping new provisions aimed at reducing government corruption at the state level. The new law limits gifts to legislators and bans elected lawmakers from becoming lobbyists immediately after serving in office, among other restrictions.

But the biggest news in the new law is how it revises the process for redrawing congressional district boundaries after each national census. And that’s the provision that Missouri Republicans are targeting.

Here’s what is different about Missouri’s new approach to congressional redistricting. According to AP,

Other states have created independent commissions and required bipartisan votes to redraw legislative and congressional districts. Missouri will be the first to rely on a new mathematical formula to try to engineer “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness” in its state legislative districts; the Legislature will continue drawing the state’s congressional districts.

It’s an experiment—one that Missouri Republicans want no part of because, according to an AP analysis:

…it has the potential to end the Republicans’ super-majorities in the state House and state Senate and move the chambers closer to the more even partisan division that is often reflected in statewide races. But the size of the likely Democratic gains remains uncertain, partly because the formula has never been put to a test.

[Also, there’s science, analysis and factual information involved. Those things apparently turn off Missouri Republicans as well.]

So, without missing a beat, Missouri Republicans declared war on Amendment 1. According to the New York Times,

The day after the election, the Republican speaker of the Missouri House, Elijah Haahr, said that he wanted “to strike up conversations with African-American lawmakers who have expressed misgivings that Clean Missouri could reduce the [number] of black lawmakers,” Jason Rosenbaum of St. Louis Public Radio reported. That’s a classic strategy for Republican gerrymandering: Effectively guarantee black-held seats in exchange for reducing the overall number of Democratic seats.

In addition,

…opponents of the amendment created a political group to undermine it, Tony Messenger, a metro columnist for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has noted. The group has the Alice-in-Wonderland name of “Fair Missouri” and $150,000 in initial funding. Its goal is to place a new measure on the ballot that would sabotage parts of the amendment before they can take effect.

The covert, state demographer gambit

The most cynical anti-Amendment 1 strategy is one that will take place far out of the spotlight of ballot initiatives and special elections. Rumor has it that one Republican state representative is preparing a bill that would simply defund the newly created state demographer’s office.

How would that proposal affect Missouri’s anti-gerrymandering effort? Bigly. A report from KSDK-TV describes the impact:

Currently, state House and Senate districts in Missouri are redrawn after each census by bipartisan commissions. Members are appointed by the governor from nominees submitted by the Democratic and Republican parties.

Amendment 1 creates a new position of nonpartisan state demographer who would propose maps to commissioners that reflect the parties’ share of the statewide vote in previous elections for president, governor and U.S. senator. Criteria of “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness” would outrank more traditional criteria such as geographically compact districts.

De-funding the state demographer is a starve-the-beast, behind-the-scenes maneuver that would, essentially, kill the entire effort.

Interestingly, Missouri’s state website has duly posted a job opening for State Demographer and is accepting applicants. Among the duties of the job, the listing says that the state demographer:

Prepares periodic estimates and projections of the state population, and county-by-county population estimates and projections.

Serves as liaison with state agencies, the federal government, and local governments regarding population estimates and projections for the State of Missouri .

And, most importantly,

Supervises the decennial reapportionment project, including the supervision of professional, technical, and clerical personnel.

[Translation: the demographer is in charge of the data used in redistricting after every US Census.]

The pay scale is attractive: $50,000 – $80,000. The job could be a great landing place for a highly competent, non-partisan statistics nerd. The question is: With Republicans in a tizzy about the new law, and given their multi-pronged anti anti-gerrymandering effort, how long will that job posting—or the job itself, once filled—last?

These strategies show that the Show Me State  —  at least its Republican party — is not, as is popularly believed, out of step with the rest of the US. Undermining initiatives passed by voters [and even elections for high office]  is quickly becoming a national Republican strategy. Looking to Wisconsin, Michigan and other states as role models for controverting the time-honored democratic concept of “the will of the people,” Missouri Republicans can now congratulate themselves for being right there in the ugly, sour-grapes, democracy-defying mainstream of the GOP.

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Sponsors of Missouri Amendment 1—aptly nicknamed Clean Missouri—aims to increase fairness, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. With the length and complexity of the 2018 midterm ballot, it’s fortunate that this good-government proposal is first on the ballot, because many voters may fall victim to ballot fatigue long before they get to some of the other issues.

What’s in the Clean Missouri amendment? Here’s a plain-English summary published by the perpetually knowledgeable and helpful League of Women Voters of Metropolitan St. Louis.

Amendment 1 would do the following:

• Reduce campaign contribution limits to $2,500 for state Senate candidates and to $2,000 for state House candidates.
• Eliminate almost all lobbyist gifts to members of the General Assembly
• Require that all legislative records be open to the public, including committee reports, correspondence and electronic communications, and allow taping of all meetings open to the public.
• Require politicians to wait two years after leaving office before becoming paid lobbyists.
• Ensure that neither political party receives an unfair advantage when new legislative district maps are drawn after each census—also known as “gerrymandering.”
• An independent demographer would draw maps that would then be reviewed by a citizen commission that must hold public meetings. Currently, politicians draw the maps to protect incumbents and their parties.

Those final two bullet points are crucial. They are the anti-gerrymandering provisions of Amendment 1. Contending that democracy depends on creating a level playing field in the way districts are drawn, Amendment 1 specifies that when districts are constructed they need to meet the following criteria, in order of priority:

• Make districts as equal in population as practicable
• Comply with the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other federal laws
• Promote partisan fairness and competitiveness
• Be composed of contiguous territory, coincide with the boundaries of cities, towns and municipalities, and be compact.

The League of Women Voters has been advocating for the kind of redistricting reform specified in Amendment 1 [more details here] and, therefore, supports the proposal.

Here are some illustrations of a few, crazily gerrymandered Congressional districts in other states:

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