GOP leader unloads on Missouri Senate colleagues who’ve delayed redistricting

JEFFERSON CITY — With the Missouri Senate entangled in a bitter fight over congressional redistricting, the chamber’s top Republican on Friday blamed the impasse on the political ambitions of multiple senators.

Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, said St. Charles County Republicans were pushing for a congressional district that would favor a St. Charles County candidate. Separately, Schatz said, a St. Louis Democrat was angling for 1st Congressional District boundaries that would make it easier to mount a challenge to incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush.

Schatz’s comments were his most pointed yet on the backroom jockeying that has derailed much of the Senate’s work this session. They come as the upper chamber prepares for debate next week on the congressional map, the last week of action before lawmakers depart for a weeklong spring recess.

Schatz said GOP conservatives’ talk of dividing the state’s eight congressional districts so that Republicans gain a “7-1” advantage is a “fallacy” that isn’t being discussed behind closed doors.

Schatz said the conservative hard-liners would “sit down” and “shut up” if only they were presented with a “6-2” map that places St. Charles County entirely within one congressional district.

Schatz said Friday that Sens. Bill Eigel and Bob Onder‘s hard line on keeping St. Charles County together is to aid a future congressional bid.

“It’s obvious,” Schatz said. “Here’s the thing. ... St. Charles County obviously is 400,000 people. In a congressional seat that has 796,000 people in it, if one county has 350,000 to 400,000 people wholly in a congressional district, where do you think that person’s going to be elected from?

“If you gave them wholly St. Charles (County) in one congressional district, those people would sit down and vote and shut up,” Schatz said, adding that doing so creates problems for other stakeholders.

Onder, who has announced a campaign for St. Charles County executive this year, has denied he wants a St. Charles County-based district to advance his political ambitions.

Schatz said Onder and Eigel have been presented with maps containing 60% of St. Charles County but that they have rejected those versions.

“Any map that gets proposed that splits St. Charles has been rejected,” Schatz said. “There have been maps that have been proposed that have a 60-40 split. They don’t want a 60-40 split. Now, a minor split ... 10%.

“Forty to 50,000 people could be split out of St. Charles,” Schatz said. “And they’ve rejected everything that doesn’t reflect, you know, what they want in St. Charles.”

Onder said Thursday that Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, who is trying to bridge the gap between the two camps, has worked on “three or four dozen maps” that Onder said “I could live with.”

“Only to have those kind of shot down,” Onder said.

He clarified that Senate leadership had rejected “6-2” maps proposed by his hard-line GOP faction.

Roberts for Congress?

Schatz, who is one of six major Republicans running for U.S. Senate this year, said the map with the most support among stakeholders is contained in House Bill 2117, which cleared the lower chamber on Jan. 19.

But Schatz said the map is encountering opposition from Onder, Eigel and Sen. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg; Hoskins wants to keep the state’s two military bases in the 4th Congressional District.

Schatz said another “obstacle” is Sen. Steven Roberts, D-St. Louis, who wants to alter the lines of the 1st Congressional District to place Webster Groves-area voters in the 2nd. He said Roberts’ position had to do with his plan to run against Congresswoman Bush in the Aug. 2 primary.

“Steve Roberts wants ... less Cori Bush voters, to be quite honest,” Schatz told the Post-Dispatch on Friday. “That’s it. I mean, if Steve Roberts is running against Cori Bush, why do you think he would want to change the map?

“Because he wants to shed the deepest-darkest-bluest areas that are strong Cori Bush supporters, and he wants to put those in the 2nd District,” Schatz said.

“That’s completely false,” Roberts said in an interview Friday. “My entire focus has been ensuring we have a 1st Congressional District that has the most majority-minority representation.

“The numbers and the data all support that minority populations are moving west and north, as opposed to west and south,” Roberts said, adding it’s “a uniform position of the Black Caucus.”

“Sounds to me like Senator Schatz is lashing out because he’s unable to control his own caucus and pass these maps,” Roberts said.

Seth Bundy, spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said the Democrats weren’t holding up a vote on the congressional map. And he said Black lawmakers in the House also proposed shifting Webster Groves voters to the 2nd.

He suggested Schatz had a problem with Black lawmakers having input on the maps and that the GOP leader shouldn’t expect members of the Black Caucus to vote for a map they don’t support.

“It’s not about the minority-majority district,” Schatz said. “It’s about: How can he (Roberts) dilute Cori Bush’s support enough to where he can run and defeat her for Congress?”

Candidate filing for the Aug. 2 primary ends March 29. Asked when he would make a decision on whether to file for Congress, Roberts asked, “Is this on the record or off the record?”

Told it was on the record, Roberts said, “Right now, my focus is on my legislative duties. You know, us making sure that we have a map that will maintain majority-minority representation.”

Senate chaos

The Senate paused official debate on the congressional map Feb. 12 for behind-the-scenes negotiations and so that the chamber could make progress on other priorities.

Onder said he expected the maps would come up for debate on Wednesday.

“Last night, I slept for about 12 hours anticipating maps today,” he said.

Instead, the chamber again took up an unrelated topic Wednesday night: extending Medicaid coverage for new moms from 60 days to a year.

The measure, which backers hope will reduce the maternal mortality rate, achieved bipartisan backing and support from interest groups as disparate as Pro-Choice Missouri and the Missouri Right to Life.

What wasn’t to like?

The further expansion of Medicaid, said Onder, who moved to attach an amendment banning funds from Planned Parenthood. Democrats called the action a “poison pill,” while other Republicans said they already were banning the funds through other legislation. The bill on more Medicaid for moms was tabled.

The atmosphere in the Senate appeared to deteriorate overnight, with Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, R-Sikeston, taking to the floor Thursday morning to blast Onder and others for holding up the aid for new mothers.

“I was a pregnant teenager at 15,” Rehder said. “My momma told me I made my bed; I had to lay in it. And I did. I took care of myself, and I made it just fine.

“At 15, I had to walk to the county health department to get my monthly checkups for being pregnant,” she said. “I walked pregnant across town.”

She cited state statistics on Missouri’s maternal mortality rate — 33 deaths out of every 100,000 live births — and that 82% of the deaths were considered to be preventable.

“The sideshow took away from an incredibly important bill,” Rehder said. “You can try to label it expanding Medicaid, you can try to label it giving things to people who don’t deserve it.

“Maybe people that haven’t been in these shoes cannot walk through it,” Rehder said.

Onder and Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, then accused GOP leadership of playing hooky Wednesday morning to hit the golf course.

Onder and Schatz exchanged words Thursday in a Senate hallway after the chamber abruptly adjourned for the week.

“When folks talk about wasting time over debate on something as important as congressional redistricting and then take a half day off to play golf, I think there’s a problem with that,” Onder said afterward.

Schatz on Friday teed off on Onder for bringing up his golf game on the Senate floor. He said he had no committee meetings Wednesday morning, that there was no business to bring up on the Senate floor that morning while other committees heard bills, and that he was back in his office before 12:30 p.m. for his first meeting of the day.

“They’re talking about wasting time,” Schatz said. “I can’t believe that these guys have some concern about wasting time when obviously that’s all they did yesterday, and that’s all they did for ... filibustering for a position is fine.

“Obviously Mike Moon is somebody that’s read for hours out there with a book over him being reprimanded for wearing overalls,” Schatz said. “I can’t believe those guys are out there complaining about (wasting) time.”

Schatz was referring to a filibuster Moon launched after Schatz removed him from Senate committees for showing up on the Senate floor wearing bib overalls.

Originally posted at 4 p.m. Friday, March 4.