‘Air Bud’ gets another life through Missouri redistricting : NPR

When I first read about how Texas Republicans were preparing to engage in mid-decade redistricting, I sent a text message to a Republican aide in state government, jokingly wondering if Missouri would get in on the fun.

It’s no secret that my interest in Missouri redistricting borders on obsession. Some of my love for the subject stems from its importance. The lines and where they are drawn can determine which party has a better shot at winning any given district. But I also have a lifelong interest in cartography, including nearly winning my middle school geography bee and getting to talk to a National Geographic mapmaker while tagging along on a work trip with my dad.

Still, at the time I sent that text, I thought there was no way that Missouri Republicans would plunge back into congressional mapmaking in 2025 — especially after redistricting in 2022 sparked a bitter schism within the Missouri legislature.

I was wrong.

Very wrong.

Missouri ended up becoming the second GOP-led state behind Texas to redraw congressional lines at the behest of President Trump. And Missouri Republicans were upfront about their rationale: They wanted to oust Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City to help prevent Republicans from losing control of the U.S. House in 2026.

And Missouri Republicans didn’t just pass a new map: They broke all sorts of legislative norms and precedents to push it to Gov. Mike Kehoe’s desk.

But in the rush to obtain a short-term victory for Republicans in Washington, D.C., Missouri Republicans may have ushered in the new map’s doom from at least two different directions.

EnterAir Bud 

Redistricting detractors have filed a slew of lawsuits — including a particularly important one around whether it’s even allowed for Missouri lawmakers to redraw congressional boundaries in the middle of a decade. That case is still in its early stages, but the Missouri Supreme Court is expected to decide sometime next year.

On the surface, redistricting foes seem to have a solid case — a constitutional amendment that they say only allows for congressional redistricting after a census. But Missouri Republicans appear to have a secret weapon to counter that contention: The Air Bud Rule.

In the 1997 Walt Disney film, a referee allows Buddy the Dog to play basketball because, after searching frantically through a rule book, “there ain’t no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball.”

Flash forward to 2025: Defenders of the Missouri redistricting plan have rallied behind a similarly constructed argument: “There’s nothing in the Missouri Constitution that says lawmakers can’t redistrict mid-decade.”

Air Bud analogy is a slam dunk

When I first heard this argument, I started to ask Missouri lawmakers if they’d seen Air Bud. 

Some, like Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, had seen it — and acknowledged that the GOP defense of the map was basically the Air Bud Rule. (When he was a state senator, Hoskins successfully sponsored a bill designating two legendary canines, Old Drum and Jim the Wonder Dog, as Missouri’s official Historical Dog and the state’s official wonder dog.)

“Other states have different processes as far as when they can redistrict for congressional seats. But in Missouri, there’s nothing, in my opinion, that says that we cannot do this,” said GOP Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who then joked that the new map should be named the “Air Bud Clause” if judges uphold it.

The analogy gained popularity among those entangled in redistricting.

Democratic state Rep. Mark Boyko mocked Republicans by citing the Air Bud Rule on the House floor. And during arguments earlier this month in Jefferson City, Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing plaintiffs trying to strike down the new congressional lines, said in court this month, “we don’t do Air Bud rules in Missouri for very good reason, but that’s essentially what the argument is from the state.”

“It’s like if my children ask me: ‘Can we have ice cream tonight?’ And I say, we’re going for ice cream tomorrow,'” Boyko said. “And they say: ‘Well, you haven’t said we’re not having ice cream tonight, so we’re having ice cream tonight, too.’ No.”

Although Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway had never seen the film, in an interview with me, she said the “ain’t no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball” principle is “not a bad analogy” in describing the state’s main argument.

“The Constitution says that redistricting shall happen after the decennial census. It doesn’t say that it shall happen immediately after; that it should happen only once per decade; that it can’t be revisited,” Hanaway said. “I don’t know what happened to Bud. I’m guessing he probably didn’t get to play basketball since you’re using that analogy. But I think our chances of prevailing are pretty good.”

When I informed her that Buddy not only got to play basketball, but he also played football in the classic film Air Bud: Golden Receiver, Hanaway said: “Man, I have missed a whole genre. I really got to catch up on that.”

A surprise referendum

But the biggest threat to the Missouri redistricting plan may not be the lawsuits.

One day, after the draining first week of the redistricting special session in September, I took a walk near my house in St. Louis. That’s when a question popped into my head: If lawmakers managed to pass the map, were there enough members in the Missouri House to make the map go into effect right away? If not, Republicans wouldn’t be able to avoid Missouri’s very robust referendum process.

While getting my kids ready for bed, I realized the answer was … no. The new map that Trump and Missouri Republicans wanted so badly could be subject to a statewide vote. If signature gatherers just got enough names collected before Dec. 11, the map couldn’t go into effect for the 2026 election cycle, defeating the entire purpose of the redistricting special session.

My story for St. Louis Public Radio was published before members of the House ended up giving first-round approval to the redistricting bill. Lawmakers ended up passing the map anyway, without much trouble — even though voters could end up wiping out their work.

After the special session ended, though, it was clear that a lot of lawmakers had no idea that the map could potentially be nullified through a statewide vote.

Opponents of the map have been scouring the state to collect signatures to put the plan up for a statewide vote. State Rep. Bryant Wolfin said he was unaware the map could go up for a statewide vote — adding “I guarantee the majority of the caucus did not as well.”

Whether the Trump White House realized that Missouri’s new map could be put up for a vote is unclear. Officials did not reply to a request for comment. But there’s no debate that the referendum generated a lot of excitement among despondent Missouri Democrats who suffered through yet another bad election cycle in 2024.

“I don’t even like politics, OK? I just know we need transparency,” Jefferson City resident Frida Tucker told me in September. “We need to stop the power grab. We don’t need to do it every three years, OK? Like, something’s not right here.”

So what did I learn from following along on this wild Missouri redistricting saga?

For one thing, it’s important to pay attention to seemingly insignificant details, like the vote count of a bill that was always expected to pass.

And other takeaway? Maybe revisit 1990s Disney films before a redistricting cycle, because you never know when a throwaway scene could inspire a legal theory that sinks or saves a nationally-watched proposal.

Jason Rosenbaum is a political correspondent for St. Louis Public Radio.