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The Missouri Senate says future efforts to redraw legislative districts should be conducted in public. On Tuesday, the body approved a ballot measure sponsored by Cape Girardeau Republican Sen. Jason Crowell for a constitutional amendment.

It would require all meetings of the bi-partisan reapportionment panels to be open, as well as all meetings of the judicial panels that draw the maps when the bi-partisan panels cannot agree.

The process this year resulted in multiple lawsuits challenging the district boundary lines. "Because of the lack of transparency this go-around, I think that lead to a lot of these lawsuits and a lot of the problems that people had because they felt disenfranchised,” says Crowell. “Whereas, if we were able to do it publicly, I think we might have gotten a different result and we wouldn't be in the process and the situation that we're in."

If approved by voters the resolution also would prohibit people who serve on the district-drawing panels from serving in the legislature for a period of 10 years.