It's fair to say there's a canon of political movies.

At the Topps got to be the 1970s classic All the President's Men about the Watergate scandal.

Supposedly, he's got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag.

He followed the money.

There's also 1939's Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in boxing the Saunders.

Even the 1999 movie Election about a high school race for student body president might make the cut.

But one person assured a victory kind of undermines the whole idea of democracy, don't you think?

Now a new addition to that list. Airbud, the 1997 kids movie about a basketball playing golden retriever who gets to

take the court on a technicality. Checking 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.

Can't it? 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. Well, 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 Airbud 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

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