Sorry.

Your vote doesn't count.

Have you got whiplash yet from this extraordinary Missouri map court battle.

This is unprecedented.

We've never had this moment happen in American history.

As the campaigns hit that final stretch, is President Trump heading back to Kansas City?

Barack Obama already confirmed he's going to be in Overland Park later this month.

The person once considered the frontrunner to be the next mayor of Kansas City takes another hit.

Mayor pro tem, mayor.

But can we please ask you a question?

You.

Trust the latest on a public vote on a new Royals ball talk.

And the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley the Francis Family Foundation, through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines.

Glad to have you with us on our weekly journey through the Metro's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week from KCUR News Lisa Rodriguez, former star reporter, now Mr.

Kansas City Stack on Substack Dave Helling at the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next page KC, Eric Wesson and KCUR chief political analyst Brian Ellison.

There was an uptick in Kansas City fans wearing neck braces this week, apparently from whiplash trying to keep up with the dizzying, fast paced court rulings over Missouri's new congressional map.

This is unprecedented.

We've never had this moment happen in American history.

Can you imagine how confused voters are going to be if they go in the ballot box and the person that they voted for, who they know won the primary, isn't even on the ballot?

Who has to move about 100,000 of our registered voters into a different district.

But stop the presses.

Has the dust finally settled on the issue?

After the U.S.

Supreme Court weighs in for a second time this week, ruling that a Republican drawn map designed to boot Kansas City Democrat Congressman Emanuel Cleaver from office cannot be used.

And the old map has to be in place for the November election.

I've already written six different scripts for this story this week.

Brian is the second U.S.

Supreme Court decision, the end of this long saga, or is Jason going to come back from the dead again?

I don't know if the dust is finally settled, but it is seems to be settling.

The U.S.

Supreme Court has now weighed in twice to say that the new 2025 gerrymandered maps approved by the Republican legislature should not be in effect at this November's election.

Okay, so is it over, Dave?

I would say for all practical purposes, it is.

However, today at the Missouri Supreme Court, one of the lawyers said, hey, anyone can file a suit any time.

So there may be some of that and there may be some wiggling with Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in how he notifies local election authorities that the 2022 map is now the effective map and has always been the effective map.

But for all practical purposes, I think it's over.

But at least at the end of it, you know, we all this hell with this isn't the November election, but next week the overseas and military ballots start going out.

Has this delay in all of these court rulings already affected this election, or can those still take place as planned?

Well, I think that depends on which election office is is sending out some of these ballots.

The Kansas City Election Board has said they've been preparing both ballots, in, to prepare for whatever the decision is.

So certainly I think there is some voter confusion.

But I think for now, as Brian and and Dave have already said, we are clear about what MAF will be voting in for in November.

And and that begins in just a few weeks.

As we sit here today.

Is Emanuel Cleaver the biggest winner this week?

Eric, I was thinking, you know, he at some points during the week when the first ruling from the U.S.

Supreme Court, he might have been breaking open the champagne.

Then we had a federal court judge say, no, we have to use the new map.

Was he then heading to the bathroom to throw up?

I mean, it was quite an emotional week.

I think he can exhale now.

He's still going to be campaign.

And I think when he got the first ruling, he was campaigning when that first ruling came down in Outstate, Missouri.

So I think he can exhale now.

But but he won his win, his last reelection, though, with over 60% of the vote.

And this may be a Democratic trending, election year, which would make him potentially more comfortable, but he will be 82 by election day.

Is this going to be his last hurrah?

If he finds somebody that he's comfortable with taking his place, I think it will be.

But don't count him out yet.

We kept hearing in and we saw him in some of those clips.

This was unprecedented, Brian.

We've never seen anything like this ever before.

Is that really the case, or is it that we have short term memories?

It is.

This is unprecedented.

I mean, there have been cases where a primary election map was thrown out in other states, but in those cases, the court always ordered a new primary election.

What we are doing in Missouri does seem to be unprecedented.

Also unprecedented.

Nick, is the the this contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, the idea that the the Supreme Court of the state would call the secretary of state before it, order him to appear and and listen to arguments for why he should be held in contempt that is unprecedented and, really could could go a lot of directions and may actually result even in this Republican leaning state with, with Hoskins taking a real hit.

Now, apparently, though, we're still going to have a referendum on the map.

Is that still in place for November going to decide whether we yes or no on this map?

Yes, there will be a vote in November on this map, and they can't withdraw it now that this, no, no, no, it's too late for that.

It's that'll be on the ballot.

And they want that on the ballot now.

Well, what if it passes, though, then it the map passes.

The new map does that does that null and void the election?

No, but it could mean that people candidates elected under the old map will serve under the new map for the next two years.

Now, it's likely, perhaps almost certain that if it if the map is rejected by voters in November, the legislature will just come back and draw the map over again in 2027.

And you'll have to go through this process all over again in 2028.

Unless and this isn't clear yet, unless amendment six, which is also on the ballot, has some effect on the referendum process in Missouri.

It's so that part of the story is clearly not okay.

Eric, Brian touched on the elephant in the room.

All of this was a mess because Danny Hoskins, the secretary of State, didn't process certify the signatures and enough time to have the will of the people, come to the ballot box.

Don't don't ignore Catherine Hanoi's role in all.

Absolutely.

I'm sure she was advising Danny Hoskins.

And she said publicly in January, January that delay is our friend.

And that showed up, by the way, in lots of the briefs when they were complaining about the confusion, she said, Delay is our friend because it was a political tactic.

And I think at its core, the Supreme Court was saying, don't play politics with the right to vote, in Missouri or any other state.

And that was behind this decision.

All of this back and forth, I think, really undermines, faith and trust in our elections, in our elected officials who monitor.

Okay.

But I will say this conduct I think conservative Republicans will also say this undermines their faith in the judiciary.

And won't that be a new effort in Missouri to try and now change the way we select justices?

Well, right.

Although in Kansas that was just tried and it didn't didn't work.

But but Nick, you hit on something so important.

The people's trust in the judiciary system is critical to our democracy because in essence, the umpires have to be believed.

And I think the biggest casualty in all of this is the judges who were.

Yes, it's the new map.

No, it's the old map that people are going to look at that and go, oh, well, why can't judges decide what the law is?

And I think that is a real damage here.

Believe it or not, there are other stories happening in Kansas City this week.

We by and large got bypassed by the presidential campaigns last time around.

Could this fall be different with big races on both sides of the state line and control of Congress at stake?

Are we about to see some of the biggest names in American politics descend on Kansas City?

Donald Trump hasn't made a presidential visit to Kansas City in eight years.

Could he be back on the campaign trail here this fall?

Here's the last time he was here in 2018.

In fact, Josh, do me a favor.

Come up here just for a second.

How about the leadership of President Donald Trump?

I think he needs reinforcements in Washington, DC.

Do you agree with that?

President Trump says he's going to do whatever it takes to get Republicans reelected in November.

Does whatever it takes mean a trip back to Kansas City?

Brian, it seems unlikely to me.

I we are not seeing, candidates in either Kansas or Missouri, in the general election, really playing up their connections to Trump the way they did in the primary election, of course, when they were trying to attract Republican voters, in indeed, we saw, gubernatorial candidate Tim Masterson, remove the image of himself with President Trump from the top of his website.

It's lower on the page, he says, and it's not really intended to be a, a blow to the president.

Well, you wrote a piece this week on your Substack, Dave, about Roger Marshall trying to distance himself, but he was there at the midterm convention in Dallas this week, photographs of him.

So he clearly also wants to still align himself with President Trump.

Well, right.

All those are value.

All right.

Although he as far as we know as we tape this he doesn't have didn't have a speaking role.

He was just in the at the convention perhaps potentially raising money.

It's a dilemma for all Republican candidates.

How close do you want to be to Donald Trump, even in a state like Kansas?

You mentioned 2018.

I wrote also about Kevin Yoder, who was the congressman at the time from the third district, including Johnson County, which does not like Donald Trump.

And he could never figure out how to be apart from Trump, but also be with Donald Trump.

And I think that's the problem that Roger Marshall is dealing.

Does this work both ways, though?

Lisa, does Adam Hamilton, for instance.

Is he going to be eager to campaign alongside, say, Joe, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Chuck Schumer?

In fact, he's already said to Politico, that he would not be valuable to him.

To be seen, to be with Kamala Harris is not going to help him with his campaign.

Right.

I think I think it does go both ways, that that Hamilton is really trying to appeal not just to the third district, but to the entire state of Kansas, which has not elected a Democrat to to that office.

So I think there may be some exceptions, but those, particularly Biden, Harris, Schumer, are not going to be favorable for Hamilton.

Now, Eric, there is one Democratic superstar already expected, though, in our area in Johnson County, it's Barack Obama, slated to appear at a creative planning event at the Overland Park Convention Center September 26th.

That's the financial services firm.

Could we see an Obama fundraiser or rally for Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton, or would that be more national political baggage, than he once he might, come in and help him raise money.

I think he's a money raiser.

As the former president.

I think it would be a good move for him as far as motivating his Democratic base to get out and vote, even though Adam Hamilton does have a base, is you got to get those people out to the polls to vote.

And I think that's exactly the exception that that I was thinking of, you know, Harris and Biden may not be helpful to Hamilton.

Obama, I think, would be a different story.

Well, in other campaign news of note, is the New York Times now on the payroll of the Adam Hamilton campaign.

That was the accusation made by some Kansas Republican leaders this week, as the nation's newspaper of record ran a front page exposé on how Marshall, an ObGyn doctor, had sued 700 patients for debts, leading to 81 of them being arrested.

Some of these cases, though, are decades old.

So why is the New York Times investigating this now just before the pivotal election?

Brian, because there is a close election happening, and every time a journalistic operation runs a critical story of a candidate, it is not because they're on the payroll of the opposition.

But why now, though, it seems when you got those cases, some of them dating back 20 years.

Well, and one of the things the New York Times reporter said, actually on, on Kcrw was pointing out that that all of those became publicly available recently.

They are public records, but they had not been published publicly until very recently by the state agencies and by the courts.

So that's how they've recently become more, more easy to find.

Well, she was supposed to be the front runner to replace Quinton Lucas as the next mayor of Kansas City.

But how many hits can Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Raina Park sure take before Election day, after headlines that she was the subject of a federal corruption investigation, Shaw is back in the news after her lawsuit is filed by her former aide, who claims she was removed from her job for raising ethical concerns about how Shaw was using public resources for campaigning.

Don't stop me, Mayor Pro Tem.

We have you.

Do not stop me from doing my job.

Mayor Pro Tem, mayor for the.

We ask you, can we please ask you a question?

You can.

That's Kansas City mayor pro Tem Reyna Park.

Shaw closing the door in Fox Four's Malik Jackson face.

The exchange comes after New allegations that the mayor pro tem was using her city office for campaign related work.

All right.

It all seems very dramatic.

We love to see video like that.

But really, what's happening behind the scenes is she's staying in this race or is this one ding too many?

Eric.

Yes, he's staying in, some of the things he can't explain away.

She's never been served to be put on notice that she was under an investigation.

And, you know, the allegations in the lawsuit doesn't name her as a defendant.

It just talks about some of the things that happened legitimately, you know, trying to, explain it is one of those things like, okay, a lot of people might not know how to get in touch with Councilwoman Shaw.

What do you do?

You call the office.

I have people call me even for their pain reasons.

Even for the campaign reasons.

Not knowing where to look on her website to get the phone number and contact information.

She might be in a situation where people say, you know what, I'll call her office and see if I can't get out or what were the last time, which I find interesting.

There was an open mayoral contest in Kansas City.

There were nearly a dozen candidates campaigning for this job.

We couldn't even find enough podiums when we did a debate between them.

How come there's only four people in this race?

This time we got three council members Shaw, Crispin Ray in West Rogers and attorney candidate Thomas McClain.

You know, I think it's it's just a different time than we were in eight years ago.

And I do actually think to the point we to the previous point, we were making that rain Park Shaw is damaged politically by by these allegations, whether or not charges actually come to pass.

And I think we've seen in the last fundraising quarter that she had weaker fundraising numbers than, Crispin Ray or, Wes Rogers, who have stronger, backing from, from funders.

And I think while maybe voters may not be quite as plugged in as we are at this table on what's the back and forth at City Hall, those fundraising numbers will make a difference when it comes to this campaign.

Are you surprised, Dave, that we have so few candidates in this race?

Remember, this is an election that's actually, coming up in April.

The deadline to file for candidates is the beginning of January.

This is a job that pays $179,000 a year.

Do people think it's not worth the headaches for that amount of money?

Well, the headaches of running for office can be, substantial.

You have to raise money.

You have to sort of have a a voter base of your own, particularly in a nonpartizan situation like it is in Kansas City.

But I don't think the field is full yet.

There may be other people who step forward after, September is over and they get a better look at the situation.

There may be other members of the council who decide to run, or at least, you know, feel, you know, make some phone calls about a mayoral race.

So we'll see what happens.

And you can reveal a big name to us right now.

Eric.

And who is that?

No.

Oh, okay.

I think one of the one of the concerns that people have that I've listened to and talked to is the city's budget.

Whoever stepped in is going to be dealing with the Royal situation and that issue, whether or not it goes on the ballot, where the funding is going to finally come to from that, and people are still talking about $100 million deficit that the city has, and you're going to step in and inherit a lot of financial debt.

Now, while we were doing a special program last week, there was a local election of note for the first time ever, an elected leader was recalled from office because of their support of data centers.

68% of voters in independence chose to oust John Peterson from his job in the independent City Council after providing tax breaks for an AI center that, when fully built, will be twice the size of Arrowhead Stadium.

What is the biggest lesson we learned from this pop up election, and does it have implications for our elected leaders on both sides of state line?

Brian, I think it does.

You remember this recall election follows two other independents, council members losing, elections that they were up for, probably for the same reasons.

I think, Nick, that what we're seeing nationally is that, data centers has swung from being, a party line issue to being, a very bipartisan issue where voters are unhappy with both parties when they come out strongly in support of data centers.

I think you're going to see a whole lot of leaders, including some who are very publicly on record as supporting incentives for data centers in the past, now backing away from those earlier positions.

And I don't think it's just about data centers.

I think that the public generally, in both parties, is angry about how the digital world has overtaken their lives.

And data centers are just one manifestation of that flock cameras.

People are mad about that.

They're mad about their kids being hooked on their tablets at home, or using their phones at school.

They're angry about, having to go through 8 or 9 different passwords to get to an account online.

I mean, you put all of that in a place people are upset about how the digital world is so, pervasive in their lives.

And data centers are a good place to show that anger.

And it will be an issue, by the way, in the Kansas gubernatorial race.

But it's also about, politicians or the public feeling that their elected leaders are being dismissive.

There was an interesting OP ad in the paper from the woman who started the petition drive to have this recall election, saying she went to one of the meetings and her councilman member, who was recalled saying, it's a done deal.

But months before they ever even decided what the thing was, you're exactly right on that.

There were hundreds of people, dozens of people showed up in opposition of these, and their elected officials kind of just railroaded that deal through as well.

And I think there are lessons to be learned in Kansas City as well.

When we're talking about particularly the Royals deal in all of this opposition that's come up, a referendum that, potentially could be on the ballot and elected officials were really kind of just waving their hand and saying either I don't think there's even going to be an election on this or just moving forward so quickly.

I love this, and it's a great segue to our next segment, because we now know that you won't be voting on that Royals ballpark.

In November, a citizen led petition to force that public vote on the ballot talk won't make it to the ballot at least until April, but stop the presses.

Is that also now in doubt?

According to Kansas City Councilman Wes Rogers, who's now running for mayor?

My expectation is that this does not end up on the ballot, he says.

And even Matt Lucas seems to be shifting his tone, saying what is ultimately placed on the ballot won't be decided until January.

So are they working behind the scenes to get the petitioners to change their minds?

Eric, good luck with that.

I'm I'm sure they're trying to negotiate a smoother way to do it, because it's kind of up in the air about whether or not it would pass a public vote, and I don't.

And as it stands right now, because people are concerned about the secrecy, the backroom deals and that kind of thing.

So people are not real warm and fuzzy about it when it talks about transparency.

But this whole process really hasn't been that transparent.

And let's remember the vote.

This petition is to put a vote on essentially a new policy that would require a public vote on projects like this.

It is going to anything, a stadium or an entertainment venue with more than to 2500 seats.

Right.

And so while it will play as sort of a referendum on the Royals stadium deal, it actually has much broader implications.

And the Royals stadium deal is going to be possibly, as we've heard, a done deal or close to it by the time this comes up.

But the the city seems to be really pushing hard now to make sure that this won't have much of an effect.

This week, the Tiff Commission unanimously voted for all the public money that would go with this.

That what the ones that the money that they control, despite having maybe 5 or 6 witnesses saying, no, put this off.

Wait for the vote.

The Tiff Commission rammed it through without discussion or debate, without any serious questions, about $380 million.

That's part of what Eric is talking about in terms of people thinking the whole thing is rigged and the anger at that.

Going forward, the Tiff Commission and other executive and Andrea boo after City Council on the 83.

I mean, we're seeing that already push the funding through for the finance committee and didn't the city also this week greenlight $185 million for the doubling of size of the KC current stadium right there at the new Riverfront Stadium, because that would also been potentially impacted.

That has more than 2500 seats if that referendum was put on the ballot, that that would also be impacted.

And the and the whole idea, what we with my colleagues have been talking about here, is that the city wants to get as far as they can before such a vote happens.

On the Royals deal.

I will say the KC current deal is a very different one than the Royals Stadium.

In especially in terms of the, insurance that it gives to the city, in, when it comes to bonds and who would be responsible for backing those bonds.

But yes, it would be subject to this referendum.

Several of our viewers, by the way, seem surprised to learn this week that the city is still paying $15 million a year to pay off the bonds used for the power and light district that opened 20 years ago.

What safeguards, Dave, are in place with this new Royals ballpark to prevent the same thing happening that on none?

I mean, there's a Tiff component, but there's also a $710 million magic asterisk which says we're going to come up with this money to pay off those bonds.

So we're not really sure where the money's going to come from, in part because we don't even know what the district looks like, what they call the stadium impact area.

There are enormous questions still surrounding the financing for the stadium, all of which the mayor.

Yeah, and the city council, seem to be, unconcerned about in extremis.

And also, you know, everything.

Everybody likes to go to brand new shiny objects, shiny new things that will have an entertainment district next to the Royals ballpark will not hurt power and light district.

If everybody's now going to the new bars and restaurants that will be in the Royals district, it might quit asking these tough questions.

Might.

You know, it just depends.

Are the Royals going to be playing or they're going to be winning?

Okay.

All right.

That's going to be the question.

If they're have another season where they lose 100 games in a season, nobody's already.

When you put a program like this together every week, you can't get to every story.

Grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story?

We missed?

Labor day festivals cut short as another powerful storm rips through Kansas City.

The Metro remembers the 25th anniversary of the 911 terror attacks.

You've heard of a candidate stealing their opponents yard signs?

Well, that's nothing a Missouri House candidate charged this week with attempting to plant cocaine in his opponent's vehicle.

Joplin Republican Thomas Ross has now exited the race only through announce his plans to close six schools.

But for some curious reasons, they're blaming a declining birth rate and a shortage of affordable housing for district families.

History under fire The Jesse James Museum in Liberty, about to be evicted.

It comes as the Steamboat Arabia museum in the River market plans to shut its doors in November, and after a nine month injury absence, Patrick Mahomes is set to start Monday in the Chiefs season opener against the Broncos.

All righty, Lisa Rodriguez, did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

You know, something a different story that you actually brought to my attention about the only the school district closing schools because of citing declining birth rates and enrollment numbers and the affordable housing shortage.

It's a trend we're seeing across the country.

And other districts are also considering expecting lower enrollment because of declining birth rates.

But the affordable housing component of it is really interesting as well, and certainly an issue not going away across our metro, Ryan, I want to point to a story told, by Casey, yours, Grace Hills, this week about a transgender student who was growing up in the Kansas City, Kansas school District, which, you know, has been targeted by the Department of Justice, for, allegedly, keeping, students behaviors and choices.

Private from their parents in this story, we see that story told in a very different way, the ways that a school district and teachers came around in support of a student at a formative time in their lives, in full cooperation with parents, and how this family at least sees the experience of that student and the support they experienced from the school district as critical and life saving.

Eric Patrick Mahomes comes back Monday and three months, maybe a month and a half we have him throwing to Tyreek Hill.

I'm looking forward to that happening this season that the band gets back together this week, KCI announced that it is raising parking rates at the airport.

So I did a little digging is they say looked at the last financial report, Kansas City International Airport raises a raised $77 million from parking operations last year.

That's more than car rentals, concessions and airport fees combined.

Now, more than ever, KCI is a parking lot with an airport attached.

Another story, by the way, worthy of inclusion in the big story missed is Toby Tobin, who died this week.

He's the local radio legend who for decades was Kansas City's problem solver in chief when it came to things with lawns and yards and homes on The Toby Tobin Show.

Tobin was 83 years old.

And on that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of KCUR's, Lisa Rodriguez and Eric Wesson from next page KC , KCUR's chief political analyst Brian Ellison and news legend and mister Kansas City stack on Substack.

Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.