Three Missouri Democratic representatives slept in the House chamber of the state capitol overnight to hold the floor for 24 hours, in protest of the ongoing push to gerrymander the state's congressional map and change how ballot initiatives turn into laws.
Representatives Ray Reed (St. Louis County), Elizabeth Fuchs (St. Louis City) and Jeremy Dean (Greene County) stayed at the capitol Thursday night into Friday, and said they plan to camp out on the House floor all weekend.
Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Missouri General Assembly back for a special session on Aug. 29, after President Donald Trump called on Missouri to redistrict its congressional map. Republicans currently hold six of the eight congressional seats in the U.S. House, and the new gerrymandered map would give Republicans one of the two current Democratic seats.
In a Facebook post, Dean explained the three lawmakers, are "trying to defend the values of democracy, making sure that people still have their voice, and making sure that (they) try and stop Donald Trump and his hostile takeover of our country."
Both the push to gerrymander the Missouri map, and the proposal to change the initiative petition process to make it harder for voters to change the constitution, made it out of House committees on Thursday. This means both pieces of legislation are now headed to the House floor, where they are set to be discussed on Monday.
Reed, Fuchs and Dean all signed a joint letter on Thursday calling on Speaker of the House Jonathan Patterson to meet with them on the House floor as soon as possible.
"For the past two days, we have attempted to bring a point of order based on the lack of quorum to the dias," the joint letter read. "When we have brought the point of order forward, the Speaker's Designee has failed to recognize our motion."
But Patterson is only set to make an appearance on Monday, so Reed, Fuchs and Dean plan to stay on the House floor until then.
"We've really got to ask ourselves, 'If it's not us, then who?' It's going to take all of us to push back against this extremist, authoritarian party," Reed said in Dean's Facebook post.
Friday's special session only lasted five seconds, with House Republicans postponing any discussion of the proposed legislation until next week. After gaveling in and out, House Republicans adjourned the special session until Sept. 7.
Representative Dean told KOMU 8 he's frustrated with the way the sessions have been conducted the last two days.
"Today, they skipped the prayer and the pledge of allegiance during the session so they could just gavel in and gavel out," Dean said. "It was shorter than yesterday's. Yesterday's was only 48 seconds to give you an idea of how fast these are going."
Rep. John Martin (R-Boone County) called the protest an "unnecessary publicity stunt" in a message to KOMU 8.
"(It) keeps security workers there all night," Martin said. "We can debate the issues next week during normal session hours."
Dean emphasized that the national implications redistricting in Missouri could have and said he and his colleagues want to send a message.
"Even if we can't stop this redistricting or stop the silencing through the initiative petition sabotage, we will absolutely be fighting loud enough to make sure that every other state knows what's coming to them," Dean said.