Supreme Court blocks Missouri from using new map favoring GOP in fall elections

The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked Missouri from using a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in this year’s midterm elections.

In an unsigned order with no noted dissents, the Supreme Court said that Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins must use a 2022 congressional map in the November elections, not a new congressional map that would favor Republicans and could eliminate a seat held by Democrats. 

Missouri currently has six Republicans and two Democrats in its U.S. House delegation, and the new map targets one of the Democratic seats, which could result in a 7-1 split favoring Republicans. The proposed map targeted the seat of longtime Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. 

The decision, for now, blocks a lower court decision by Missouri U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, who said Tuesday that the new map must be used. Late Thursday, Clark refused to stay his order, and a panel of judges on the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals is currently overseeing an appeal of his order.

The justices did not say why they blocked the new map.

Minutes before the high court’s order, lawyers for Hoskins and Missouri said in a filing with the court that it would be “extraordinarily burdensome” to change the congressional map after the state’s August primary elections were held using the new, Republican-created map. The state said that the legal challenge was “seeking to destabilize” the state’s midterm elections, and risked the “disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters.”

Earlier this week, Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected an appeal from Hoskins, and sided with Missouri’s Supreme Court, which said last week that the new districts cannot be used in the November midterms. 

The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of challengers to the new map, ordering the statewide vote they requested. Missouri’s highest court said a petition circulated by a group called People Not Politicians that demanded a statewide vote before the congressional map was implemented superseded the new map. 

The new map was enacted by Missouri Republicans last year as part of a nationwide redistricting effort undertaken by President Trump and Republicans to hold the slim GOP House majority in Congress. Similar redistricting efforts were undertaken in Texas and North Carolina by Republicans, and in California by Democrats. A voter-approved ballot initiative to redraw Virginia’s map to be more favorable to Democrats was rebuffed by the state’s Supreme Court.