Since the 1960s, an unusual alliance in redistricting has brought Black and white lawmakers together to draw Missouri's 1st District to ensure Black voters can elect Black Democrats to congress.

Transcript

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

OK, right now, states are going through their once-every-10-year process of redrawing congressional districts. And in Missouri, Republicans have most of the map-making power. But to preserve the state's only African American district, the GOP there has worked side by side with Black Democrats for decades, as St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum reports.

JASON ROSENBAUM, BYLINE: Cori Bush delivered shock waves throughout the national political world last year when she won a Democratic primary in Missouri's 1st Congressional District. She would be the third African American in a row to represent the district, but she was all but assured to be the first Black woman to go to Congress from the state.

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CORI BUSH: And St. Louis...

ROSENBAUM: Hours after she vanquished 20-year Congressman Lacy Clay, Bush stood in front of the St. Louis Arch with other victorious candidates.

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BUSH: We are here right now showing all of St. Louis that we're standing together and we're ready to do the work, not about us, not about us being great, but because St. Louis has to be great.

ROSENBAUM: Bush's primary win was tantamount to election because the 1st District is by far the most Democratic in the state, and one of the reasons for that goes back to the 1960s. That's when Black Democrats teamed up with Republicans and rural Democrats to draw a congressional map that created a largely Black 1st District.

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WILLIAM LACY CLAY: I was in my car coming from the city hall, and on the radio, they announced that the district was final.

ROSENBAUM: This is William Lacy Clay Sr., the first Black congressman elected to the district in 1968 in a U.S. House oral history clip. He's remembering when he decided to run for the newly drawn seat.

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LACY CLAY: I pull over to the side, I called my wife first and said, I'm getting ready to file for Congress. And she said, right on.

ROSENBAUM: Mike Jones, a former longtime local official and keen observer of St. Louis politics, says that arrangement persevered because Black Democrats in St. Louis often had markedly different policy and political priorities than white Democrats.

MIKE JONES: If you're Black in America and doing politics, Republicans have a tendency to be existential enemies, and white Democrats are totally unreliable.

ROSENBAUM: Many Black Democrats like Jones also believe having a Black representative in Congress makes it more likely to elect other Black officials down the ballot. These kinds of unlikely alliances have also happened in other states, including North Carolina and Georgia. So what's in it for Republicans? Jones puts it this way.

JONES: There's always been a coalition in redistricting because white Democrats would like to spread out Black voters because they are reliable Democrats, which means it makes districts that Republicans have to run in more competitive.

ROSENBAUM: So it may not be shocking that some Democrats have not always been enamored with Missouri's 1st District over the years. They would rather spread the Black population out to multiple suburban districts so that Democrats would have better chances of winning those seats. But there's not much of a reason for Republicans, who control the redistricting process now, to take Democrats up on that offer, as former GOP State Senator Scott Rupp explains.

SCOTT RUPP: You know, the typical alignment of groups and typical political alliances, it all gets thrown out the window, and it really comes down to each individual member of Congress' self-preservation.

ROSENBAUM: For the current map drawing cycle, the district will need to absorb close to 50,000 new people because of population loss, and state lawmakers may need to grab them from whiter suburbs. But it's nearly certain a Black candidate will still be able to win. For her part, Representative Cori Bush doesn't have specific preferences about how GOP lawmakers should change the 1st District, but she adds she doesn't have a lot of reason to trust Republican lawmakers to be responsive to the people.

BUSH: I don't believe that they're looking at fairness and equity and equality and inclusion as they are making these decisions, and I would hope that they would fix that.

ROSENBAUM: Bush added she wants the redistricting process to be fair to racial minorities across the state, including Missourians who are Black, Latino and Asian.

BUSH: And to make sure that the people of St. Louis feel like they're being represented. I say that all the time. They have to feel that representation because they're seeing it change their lives.

ROSENBAUM: And what shape the 1st District takes could have ramifications for Black political power for years to come. For NPR news, I'm Jason Rosenbaum in St. Louis. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.