A legal battle concerning Missouri’s voting map continues to play out across several courts, leaving the Show Me State’s election workers scrambling and the fate of its midterm races in jeopardy. Competing court rulings have in recent days created chaos for Missouri’s upcoming congressional elections. The yearlong back-and-forth over whether to use the 2022 congressional districts or the 2025 map drawn up and backed by Republicans has once again reached the Supreme Court.
This week, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump, rejected a bid that backed the 2025 map, leaving in place the Missouri Supreme Court's ruling on the matter. But a district judge and Missouri’s Republican secretary of state have urged officials to stick with the newer map, which was used in August’s primary, triggering pushback from anti-gerrymandering activists and once again bringing the matter before the nation’s highest court only weeks out from the midterms. "I do expect the Supremes will act to properly respect the Missouri Supreme Court’s power to resolve what is essentially a question of Missouri State law," Vikram Amar, a distinguished professor of law at the UC Davis School of Law, told Newsweek.
"One never knows for sure what will happen, but the course I identify is what should happen, and I think Justice Kavanaugh’s actions thus far indicate that he understands the law in this area and follows it faithfully." The debate centers on whether Missouri should use its 2022 congressional map or the districts Republicans redrew last year. The newer map could give the GOP seven of Missouri’s eight House seats, rather than six. After a petition by the group People Not Politicians, Missouri’s Supreme Court agreed to suspend the new map until a vote could be held.
This came after the group gathered more than 300,000 signatures to force the map onto November’s ballot. However, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, did not rule on the referendum that would put the new map up for a vote until August 4, the day of the state’s primary election. Voters therefore selected the party nominees for November’s midterms using the newer, Republican-backed map.
Last week, Missouri’s Supreme Court said the 2025 map never officially became law because of the referendum petition, meaning the 2022 map would be in effect for the midterms. Missouri officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block this decision, a request Kavanaugh rejected on Tuesday.
Minutes later, Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark ordered that Missouri continue using the 2025 map, arguing that switching from the one that had already been in place for the primary would "wreak havoc," force candidates to campaign in districts they had not already competed for, and effectively disenfranchise certain voters.
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