Democrat sworn in for shifting Missouri Senate district seat

ST. LOUIS -- Democrat Harry Kennedy was sworn in Friday to represent the 3rd District in the Missouri Senate. After next fall's elections, that will be a district in which Kennedy does not live, comprised of about 160,000 people who did not vote for him.

Friday's ceremony took place in the four-story rotunda of St. Louis City Hall, about 35 miles northeast of the new 3rd District's northernmost tip. The ceremony was 130 miles away from the southernmost boundary, in rural Carter County, just one county away from Arkansas.

The oddity is perhaps the most stark among the changes in the new legislative district maps, released Dec. 13 by a six-judge panel. The maps are redrawn after the Census every 10 years to ensure that every voter has nearly equal representation in Congress and at the Statehouse.

Kennedy will be the 3rd District senator until 2004, when the seat is up for re-election and he can run for the 1st District seat in south St. Louis, where he lives. That seat now is occupied by Republican Anita Yeckel, who must step down that year because of term limits.

When he took the oath of office Friday, Kennedy swore to serve the U.S. and Missouri constitutions and the people of the 3rd District.

But which 3rd District?

Opinions differ over whether Kennedy must first represent the rural eastern Missourians of the 3rd District or the urban voters of south St. Louis, who chose him in a special election on Dec. 11.

Kennedy has vowed to serve both.

He said he will gladly offer assistance if residents of southern Carter County call him when they have a problem with state government.

Neighborly service

"Public service is neighbor to neighbor," Kennedy said Friday. "And whether that neighbor is next door or miles away, it's people. People and their problems."

But in the Missouri Legislature, the conflict between urban and rural problems often is more clear than the conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Kennedy declined to speculate on how he would vote in such situations, but many in the new 3rd District are skeptical that Kennedy could properly serve their out-state interests.

"Just take transportation for instance," said John Clark, mayor of Park Hills in St. Francois County. "Just the different feelings between the urban and the rural areas. ... For lack of a better word, you just feel like the unwanted stepchild, on a temporary basis."

Most of the new 3rd District overlaps with the old 20th District, now represented by Sen. Danny Staples, D-Eminence. Staples will serve those people until next year, when he must step down because of term limits. Effectively, that's when the new map kicks in.

Staples was golfing Friday and did not return phone calls. He has suggested that a lawsuit should be filed on behalf of the people of the new 3rd District, though he has said he would rather not be the one to file it.

If such a lawsuit was filed, Attorney General Jay Nixon would represent the state's position by defending the new maps. Spokesman Scott Holste said he would be surprised if it went to court because similar challenges in other states have been unsuccessful.

Holste said past cases provide little guidance as to which area Kennedy should represent.

But many longtime Statehouse watchers, including veteran senators who have been through redistricting before, maintain that Kennedy is bound to serve those who first elected him.

"It's my belief both legally and as a practical matter that you represent the people who elected you," said Sen. Wayne Goode, a Democrat who has represented north St. Louis County for nearly 40 years. "They left an awful lot of people unrepresented."