I was a first-time voter in the 2024 election. I remember being excited to be able to vote on issues I felt strongly about, while also getting to have a choice in deciding our political leaders. I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and was particularly excited to vote for two reasons: I wanted to vote for a less corrupt governor, and I wanted to vote to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution.
However, coming up on one year since the election, I have become increasingly frustrated with the laws that have been passed in Missouri. With the new plan to gerrymander the state, ultimately carving up Kansas City, and the abortion ban referendum that will be on the ballot again in 2026, it is beginning to feel more and more like my vote doesn’t actually matter. It is beginning to feel that there is only an illusion of choice in Missouri.
Almost immediately after his election in November 2024, Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe expressed his plans to look into abortion access in the state, despite Missourians voting to restore its access. Openly supportive of the Trump administration, Kehoe also signed into effect the Trump-backed plan to gerrymander the state in early September of this year.
This new gerrymandered map will give Republicans control of seven of Missouri’s eight congressional seats — Republicans currently hold six of the eight seats. In order to do this, the new district lines would carve up the state’s 5th District, located in Kansas City and represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver since 2005.
One of these new district lines has a troubling past in Kansas City, and not nearly enough people are talking about it. This new line would run directly down Troost Avenue, a street that has been historically redlined — the discriminatory practice of denying financial services like loans and mortgages to residents of certain neighborhoods, which tend to be predominantly Black.
As a result of this redlining in Kansas City, the community built around Troost Avenue, while undergoing revitalization efforts, is still suffering repercussions. The fact that Congress decided to draw a new district line is distasteful and upsetting, with many in the city heavily opposing the gerrymandering plan.
In addition to the gerrymandering plan, the Missouri House passed a troubling plan that will “overturn the will of the voters” by putting abortion rights back on the ballot in 2026. This repeal, according to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), will ban almost all abortion access in the state except in medical emergencies, fetal anomalities and cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
According to Politico, “Missouri’s referendum will be the first where voters will have the choice to repeal a post-Dobbs abortion-rights measure that has already passed.”
After becoming the first state to overturn a near-total abortion ban by the vote of the people through ballot initiative, it is frustrating that Missourians will now have to vote on this issue again. Trump argued that letting the states monitor abortion access would give citizens the opportunity to vote for what they want. Yet in Missouri, this doesn’t seem to be the outcome. If the elected officials continually find loopholes to change previously passed amendments, do the voices of Missouri voters even matter?
The wording will be different than before on the reproductive rights amendment in the next election. It will instead ask voters to “ensure women’s safety during abortions,” “ensure parental consent for minors” and “allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest.” The biggest change that politicians are including in this amendment is to “protect children from gender transition,” effectively meaning that gender transition surgeries and hormone treatments for minors would be prohibited.
Politicians are manipulating their words in a malicious attempt to confuse voters on the issue they are voting on, which is not OK. Citizens should be able to trust their representatives to make the right decisions for their communities. But by choosing to use tricky wording, they are attempting to deceive Missouri voters. Combining reproductive rights and gender transition into the same amendment is nonsensical, as they are two completely unrelated issues.
I am extremely upset with the actions taken by Missouri officials since the 2024 election. It feels like they do not trust their voters to make educated decisions about policies.
Missouri is being gerrymandered against the will of the people, and abortion access should be protected since that is what Missouri voters agreed on. Direct democracy is under threat in my home state, and I can only hope that what is happening here will not start a pattern for other red states.
