Crack.
Pack.
Redistrict.
Gerrymander.
How are all of these words related? Do you know? Have you heard of the last one at all?
If you’re in the Kansas City area, you want your answer to be yes. They directly concern the outcomes of your elections.
But if your answer was no, you first need some background information.
Each state is made up of a number of congressional districts. The map of these districts is called the congressional map.
The national census establishes the number of residents in each state. It’s released every 10 years and is mandated by the Constitution. The next one will come out in 2030.
Normally, each state’s congressional map is redrawn after every new census comes out. Growth or shrinkage in a state’s population can add or remove a district. This is called redistricting, and it’s done to accurately reflect changes in state populations.
This matters because each district, leaning either Republican or Democratic, elects one representative to the House of Representatives. Along with the Senate (the other chamber of the United States Congress), it has the power to propose legislative bills. A bill you may have recently heard of, for example, is Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Congress can then pass these bills on to the President, who can finally sign them into law or veto them.
Redistricting can add or subtract from a political party’s House seat, which can make it easier or harder for them to pass legislation that affects us. But ideally, this process results in a fair, unbiased representation of a population.
Missouri’s current congressional map, according to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, gives neither Republicans nor Democrats an unfair advantage. Currently, of Missouri’s eight districts, Republicans hold six House seats, while Democrats hold two.
Despite this, the Trump administration is calling Missouri lawmakers and Governor Mike Kehoe directly, pressuring them to redistrict 5 years early of the release of the census.
What the Trump administration is trying to do is gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing a state’s congressional districts so one political party is unfairly represented over another in the House. Often, this happens through cracking, splitting a party over many districts to weaken its collective voting power, or packing, concentrating a party in a few districts so the opposing party claims more.
This means that even though one party might make up more of the population, the opposing party might control more of the vote, because the way the voting districts are drawn splits the first party up or groups the majority of it into a couple districts. In other words, it leads to elections that blatantly misrepresent the population.
This is exactly what threatens Kansas City.
The Kansas City area’s Democratic-leaning 5th district is suspected to be the target of Trump’s push. If gerrymandered, Republicans could gain up to 7 seats in the state, and Democrats could lose a seat.
Kansas City is one of the most recent targets in the gerrymandering “war” that first started in Texas, when the Trump administration boldly pushed, and received approval on August 23rd, for a new congressional map only halfway through the census cycle that could net Republicans up to 5 more seats.
Now, it’s bled over into other red and blue states alike. California Democrats stirred up redistricting plans of their own in response to the almost-unprecedented Texas commotion. Gerrymandering, a conversation expected to be stalled until 2030, is now being held in 2025, in states like Utah, Ohio, Illinois, and New York – by both Republicans and Democrats.
As the practice and its consequences loom over Kansas City, I can’t help but feel as though what we’re watching is an unraveling of democracy itself.
Both parties contribute to gerrymandering, but always after each 10-year period, almost as if there’s a silent, sneaky agreement to play by the rules.
But now it’s happening in broad daylight, no holds barred, no intentions hidden. Trump isn’t being sneaky, and neither is anyone responding. This comes up as the 2026 midterm elections approach, and Republicans cling to their ever-so-slight majority in the House.
With the transparency—and acceptance—of this more brazen, insidious way of winning an election, I feel as though the notion of American democracy itself is wilting beyond recognition right beneath our noses.
Because if we can sit and watch while they manipulate our boundaries to choose who gets represented and who doesn’t, then who’s choosing who?
Are voters choosing their politicians, or are politicians choosing their voters? Who wins and who loses in the end, when it comes to us and them? Is this democracy? How much of a say do we really get?
