A newly redrawn district map for Missouri’s House of Representatives leaves Warren County’s two representatives with a future dilemma: Neither lives within the new boundaries of the district they currently represent.

Warren County is currently split between District 42, which includes Warrenton, Marthasville, and all of Montgomery County; and District 63, which includes Wright City, Innsbrook, New Melle, and Wentzville.

Using census data collected in 2020, a bipartisan citizen commission recently approved a new map for state House districts which shifts District 42 to include all of Warren County, but only the eastern one-third of Montgomery County. That leaves Dist. 42 Rep. Jeff Porter, a resident of Montgomery City, outside of the new boundary.

The boundary of District 63, meanwhile, has shrunken because of Wentzville’s growing population density, leaving New Melle resident and Dist. 63 Rep. Richard West out of his district as well.

Because of the shifted boundary of District 42, Porter said he will have to make some important decisions if he wants to stay involved in state government. He was first elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2018, and is currently serving his fourth year in office. Representatives can serve for a maximum of eight years.

If Porter were to run again for the District 42 office this year, he said the rules for redrawn districts would allow him one year to move his residence to within the new boundary. However, Porter said he is waiting to make any decision until he sees the results of Missouri’s other redistricting processes, most notably the state Senate districts. One way or another, Porter said he wants to continue in an elected office that represents both Warren and Montgomery counties so that he can continue helping the area develop.

“I’ve been (part of) ... a lot of economic development work, and I want to see it through to the end on a lot of these projects. It’s once-in-a-lifetime to see that kind of development, and I want to be a part of it,” Porter told The Record.

Senate redistricting going to courts

The bipartisan senate redistricting committee, which is a separate group of citizens, was deadlocked on how to change the map of state senate districts. Because of that deadlock, Missouri’s Constitution requires the redistricting process to be turned over to a panel of appellate court judges selected by the Missouri Supreme Court.

The panel of judges will have until the end of April 2022 to finalize the new state senate district map, according to the Missouri Office of Administration.

Of the maps that had been proposed by the senate redistricting committee, all of them separated Warren County from Montgomery County. One would have grouped Warren with Lincoln County and other counties to the north, while another would have grouped Warren with Franklin and Jefferson counties to the south.

However, there is no requirement for the appellate judge group to follow either of those maps for their redistricting, meaning there’s no telling for sure what other counties Warren will be joined with in the new state senate map.