Missouri Republicans' gerrymandering power grab is a political emergency

In November 2018, a resounding 62 percent of Missouri voters approved Constitutional Amendment One, better known as Clean Missouri.

The amendment restored a modicum of sanity and fairness to a legislature with a reputation for the kind of corruption that tends to grow out of a lack of transparency. Clean Missouri replaced the state’s bipartisan system for drawing legislative districts with a nonpartisan system. It required legislative records to be open to the public. It mandated that politicians wait two years before becoming lobbyists. It placed a cap on lobbyist gifts at five dollars. And it constrained campaign contribution limits. Every single bit of Clean Missouri was nonpartisan and common sense.

Which is to say: anathema to a certain kind of Missouri Republican.

“The polls had not even been closed yet, and there was already chatter about how they [lawmakers] were going to have to work to undo it,” says Sean Soendker Nicholson, the director of the Clean Missouri campaign. “Some folks in Jefferson City have grown accustomed to the old way of doing things. They enjoy operating in secret, they enjoy that lobbyist-gift gravy train, and they enjoy running in districts where the outcome was decided long before election day.”

Read more: https://www.thepitchkc.com/news/article/21065791/how-low-will-missouri-republicans-go-to-undo-clean-missouri