What can a 90s kids’ movie tell us about the redistricting battle?

0:00It's fair to say there's a canon of political movies. At the Top's gotta be the 1976 classic All the President's Men about the Watergate scandal. Supposedly he's got a lawyer with$25 ,000 in a brown paper bag. Follow the money. There's also 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books, Ms. Saunders. Even the 1999 movie Election, about a high school race for student body president, might make the cut. But one person assured of victory kind of undermines the whole idea of democracy, don't you think? Now, a new addition to that list. Air Bud, the 1997 kids movie about a basketball-playing golden retriever who gets to take the court on a technicality.

0:41Check in your rule book. But you won't find anything in there that says a dog can't play. He's right. Ain't no rule said the dog can't play basketball. This is a joke. Dogs don't play basketball. If you're not a politics junkie in Missouri, this might not make much sense. But the movie has become a hot topic in that state's battle over congressional redistricting. Thanks to St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum. He popularized the phrase the airbud rule in Missouri, and much of it has to do with what the state constitution says. The opponents of this new map have said there is nothing in this clause that gives lawmakers the right to redraw the districts in the middle of the decade.

1:20Well, the proponents of the new map, mainly Republicans, they're saying, well, there is nothing that says you cannot do mid-decade redistricting. That's when the movie reference became clear to Rosenbaum. Once I heard that argument, it is almost identical to the Air Bud rule that we have just heard. The battle over maps in Missouri is part of a larger nationwide push by President Trump to get states to redraw their congressional maps so Republicans can try to hold on to the U.S. House of Representatives in next year's midterm elections. Although Missouri's Republican majority legislature did approve new maps, the story is far from over there.

2:00I've seen a lot of national publications basically say that Missouri's new map, which seeks to eke out another Republican seat to prevent the GOP from losing control of the U.S. House, is a done deal in the show-me state. And it couldn't be further from the truth.

2:22Consider this. A fight over mid-decade redistricting in Missouri has given rise to a new phrase, the Air Bud Rule.

2:33It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Miles Parks.

2:45It's Consider This from NPR. In Missouri, lawsuits have placed the fate of a Republican-backed plan to redraw maps there in limbo. A potential referendum campaign could derail it as well. And there is growing anger in the state over that airbud rule. It all seems so bizarre that for this week's Reporter's Notebook, I wanted to talk to St. Louis Public Radio's statehouse reporter, Jason Rosenbaum, who's been covering the story. I started by asking him just how that airbud analogy is landing with Republican politicians in the state. I actually started asking elected officials, have they seen the movie Air Bud?

3:21Some had, some hadn't. And then asked, it really seems like the argument that Republicans are making to defend this map is identical to the Air Bud rule. I actually asked this to Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hannaway. I haven't seen Air Bud. It's not a bad analogy. That is the 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 during the span of the decade. There isn't a limitation. And so I don't know what happened to Bud.

4:10I'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. Right. So then you tell her that Buddy did get to play basketball, and I imagine she was kind of excited about that. Not only did I tell her that Buddy got to play basketball, he also got to play football in the classic movie Air Bud Golden Receiver, which I remember fondly because for some reason Warren Moon and Joey Galloway were in this film at the end. And she was like, wow, man, I got to go see those movies. — When politicians change the rules in some way to benefit themselves, it leaves voters with a bad taste in their mouth.

4:51And I guess, have you heard from any voters on how they feel about what's happening in Missouri right now and about this general argument? This isn't a subject that is really accessible to a lot of people. But as far as like Democratic voters in Missouri, like they are enraged, like they are energized. Unlike anything I've seen since when abortion was banned in Missouri in 2022 and voters from both parties mobilized to put something on the ballot that ended up repealing the most restrictive abortion ban in the country. And we're seeing a similar dynamic here where people are getting clipboards.

5:31They're going to get people to sign this referendum. They see what Republicans are doing as underhanded and just trying to game the system ahead of a midterm election cycle that's probably not going to go well for them. And I think we've seen in multiple ways that this supposedly sure thing of a redistricting process has really backfired on Republicans. And I think that when people hear this argument that is similar to a Walt Disney movie, their reaction is sort of like they're trying to defend something that is difficult to defend. To get this done, the Missouri legislature had to break through some norms to get it done so quickly and that it could have a lasting impact on how the government works there.

6:22Can you explain that a little bit? So there's often lots of changes when a redistricting proposal is put forward because there's a lot of competing ideas about what people want. This is probably the first time in decades that you didn't have a single black Democrat vote for this redistricting plan because like there has a long tradition in Missouri, especially around redistricting time, of African-American Democrats, especially in St. Louis, partnering with Republicans in order to keep majority African-American districts, namely in St. Louis, majority African-American. because it helps like harness black political power and it makes surrounding areas more Republican.

7:08Well, this time they made the first district, which is the only minority majority district in Missouri, less African-American. And more importantly, they're targeting an African-American congressman in Kansas City, Emanuel Cleaver, and basically splitting Kansas City into three pieces and pairing that like highly diverse area of the state with largely white rural areas. And I think like this was a breaking point for African-American lawmakers who have usually worked together with Republicans in this process because they see it as a direct attack on their political power. And they see it as a betrayal of a decades long partnership that they felt was intact until President Donald Trump wanted another seat in Missouri.

8:04I feel like you're touching on something that I've noticed a lot covering this the last few months from a nationwide perspective, which is that, like, no one really knows how it's going to end. And every chapter feels a bit unpredictable. Have there been moments of genuine surprise over the last couple months covering this for you? I think like the more surprising thing is just that like the people that push this redistricting plan forward just seem to either not calculate the fact that it could be put up for a statewide vote and invalidated or at the very least not put into effect for 2026. They ended up like passing the map with not enough votes to go into effect right away, which would have foreclosed the referendum.

8:50This is just – well, it's just a really poorly planned and poorly executed situation. And I even think Republicans who even really like the outcome of this would acknowledge that like there wasn't enough like foresight and planning put into this and not thinking of like the unintended consequences that kind of went down the line. That I think was the most surprising thing by far. Well, Missouri Statehouse reporter Jason Rosenbaum of St. Louis Public Radio, thank you so much. And I think you may have inspired an Air Bud watch with my toddler this weekend. I don't. We actually did watch Air Bud before I talked with you for research, and I don't recommend doing it.

9:35It is not a good movie. That's never stopped us before. Jason Rosenbaum, thank you so much. Thank you. This episode was produced by Lina Muhammad. It was edited by Acacia Squires and Adam Rainey. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:53It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Miles Parks.