Kansas City attorney Edward Greim, partner at Graves Bartle Marcus & Garrett, LLC came under fire yesterday for challenging a proposed Missouri Senate redistricting map on behalf of seven Missouri voters.

The cooks: the bipartisan commission that designed the map.

The Commission took two hours to grill Greim, specifically asking who pays his legal bills regarding this issue.

Greim, however, did not respond to the tangential question.

Instead, he continued to pursue his argument alleging that the Senate map proposal remains unconstitutional.

Although the commissioners afterward conceded that they were willing to update the map if necessary to pass constitutional muster, [...]

Two Missouri law firms filed suit in federal court last Friday alleging that Missouri’s newly proposed Senate districts give more weight to urban voters than to rural voters and should therefore be invalidated.

The Ashcroft Firm–former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s lawfirm–was one of the the two firms.  Catherine Hanaway, former Republican Missouri House Speaker and U.S. Attorney, also works at the Ashcroft Firm.

The suit alleges that the proposed senate map violates equal protection rights and Missouri equal protection regulations.  Instead of using this map, the firms hope [...]

Surrounding recent controversy over redistrict maps, Missouri Republican lawmakers seek to revisit Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan.

Rep. Jason Smith, a four-term Republican who serves on a new panel dedicated to reviewing judicial efficiency, denies allegations that the House review of Missouri’s judiciary relates to its redistricting efforts.

Today, this Special Standing Committee on Judicial Reform will review proposed constitutional amendments which seek partisan elections at all levels of the judiciary.

According to Missouri Lawyers [...]

Jean Paul Bradshaw, II, a former U.S. Attorney and lawyer at Lathrop & Gage, was appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon to a panel that will propose Missouri Senate district lines.

The Missouri Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional an earlier district map proposal this year.

In addition to Bradshaw, Gov. Nixon appointed Todd Patterson of Kansas City who is an intellectual property lawyer of Kansas City.

Bradshaw was chosen as a Republican member of the 10 person bi-partisan panel.  He has experience in white-collar criminal defense, health care fraud and abuse, internal corporate investigations, and the establishment of corporate preventative law [...]

There are currently three lawsuits challenging redistricting maps in Missouri.  Two lawsuits challenge the Congressional boundaries and one lawsuit challenges the State Senate districts.

According to Real Clear Politics:

The first lawsuit filed by Kansas City area attorney Jamie Barker Landes, focuses largely on Cleaver’s District, the 5th Congressional and argues that three largely rural counties in west-central missouri should not have been added to Cleaver’s district because they are “unrelated communities” and are only being added to protect incumbents and preserve the status quo.

[...]

Missouri redistricting was decided by a court panel and now faces another legal challenge.  Attorney David Brown argues that recent Missouri Senate redistricting unnecessarily splits counties. He’s asking the Missouri Supreme Court to expedite his case before candidate filing starts on Feb. 28th.

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From the News-Leader: Missouri Supreme Court asked to invalidate new Missouri Senate districts