POLITICO (“Appeals court revives GOP gerrymander in Missouri that Supreme Court killed off twice“):
A federal appeals court has revived a Republican-friendly redistricting in Missouri that appeared to have twice been blocked by the Supreme Court.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Monday that the state must use the GOP-favored map in the midterms, despite a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that seemed to nudge federal courts to steer clear of the matter.
If it remains in effect, that map is expected to net Republicans one additional seat in the House by erasing Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based district.
The decision is the latest inflection point in a tangle of litigation that has touched every level of the state and federal court system, resulting in overlapping, confusing and sometimes conflicting results.
The pro-GOP map was used for the state’s primary elections last month. But it was later invalidated by Missouri’s highest court, which ruled 7-0 that the map never legally took effect in an opinion sharply critical of the state’s Republican secretary of state. That decision prompted a federal court battle that led to Monday’s ruling.
“Using the 2025 map … will lead to the least amount of confusion for voters subjected to a string of changes this month,” the panel majority wrote. “For approximately one year, Missouri operated under the 2025 map. During that time, Missourians filed to run for Congress, met candidates, watched campaign advertisements, received campaign mail, and voted under the 2025 map. Any confusion stems from the last-minute decision by a state court to switch the congressional map.”
The 8th Circuit’s call for use of the new map won’t take immediate effect. The panel gave redistricting opponents one week to get relief from the Supreme Court but said that if no such action is forthcoming, state and local officials must move forward with the election under the new map.
[…]
Though most legal observers concluded that the Supreme Court’s earlier rulings were the death knell for the GOP-friendly map, the 8th Circuit judges said last week — during hastily convened oral arguments — they interpreted it as a call to action by the justices.
The appeals court ruling Monday calling for use of the new map, despite the Supreme Court’s prior actions, was fully endorsed by Judge James Loken, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Judge Justin Smith, a Donald Trump appointee.
A third judge, Trump appointee David Stras, said the anti-redistricting group that filed the appeal lacked legal standing to do so because its work was focused on getting the redistricting on the ballot. Stras’ ruling also appears to be in tension with the Supreme Court’s latest action in the case, since it ordered relief for the redistricting opponents.
The Supreme Court’s first rejection of the GOP plan came Sept. 8, when Justice Brett Kavanaugh turned down an emergency appeal by state officials seeking to overturn the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to stick with the map adopted in 2022 and used to elect the existing Congressional delegation.
However, within minutes of Kavanaugh’s order, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, a Trump appointee, granted a restraining order two GOP candidates sought against returning to the 2022 lines for the general election.
A challenge to Clark’s order eventually reached the Supreme Court, which put it on hold two days later. While no justice noted any dissent from the ruling, the justices also offered no explanation for it, which the 8th Circuit appears to have interpreted as leaving them free rein on the issue.
This is all sheer insanity. The sequence of events:
- The Republican-controlled Missouri legislature took, at President Trump’s urging, the highly unusual step of redrawing Congressional districts outside the usual, Census-driven cycle.
- Under Missouri law, citizens can petition to require a referendum on any act of the legislature. The requirements to do so with the redistricting measure were met, but the Republican Secretary of State delayed ruling on it until after the primary election and then ruled that redistricting measures were not eligible for a referendum, anyway.
- The Missouri Supreme Court overruled him and ordered the old districts to be used.
- A Trump-appointed federal district judge issued a temporary restraining order to allow the new districts to be used.
- The US Supreme Court—considered by many to be the highest court in the land—overturned the TRO, thus restoring the original districts.
Now these chuckheads (to use the technical, political science term) have decided that the Supreme Court was actually asking for a lower court to do whatever the hell they want.
Is it highly problematic that there have already been primary campaigns, primary voting, and campaigning for the general election under the new districts? Sure. But that was a problem created by the chicanery of the Secretary of State, not to mention the hasty (and, did I mention, highly unusual?) redistricting. And, since the whole point of the new lines was to create a slightly different foregone conclusion than the one under the old map, generating one additional all-but-guaranteed Republican seat, it’s not there’s any real harm done here. It’s not like there are free and fair elections at stake, anyway.
