Our dear leader posted this on his family-owned social media platform last evening:

The territory that is now Missouri was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and became a state almost exactly 205 years ago, on August 10, 1821. Both of those dates are somewhat past what we traditionally consider Ancient History,  3000 BC – AD 500, but suffice for social media purposes. Going back to 1800s districts would indeed be outrageous, in that the plain language of the Constitution would seem to require reapportionment after every decennial Census. So, ordering a return to anything before the 2022 districts would grossly violate the court’s fundamental duty.

Simultaneously intrigued and outraged, I hastened to look up the case to see how these rogue judges justified their perfidious interference in American democracy. I turned to the Associated Press (“Missouri court blocks Trump-backed US House map and orders it to be put to a vote“):

The Missouri Supreme Court has unanimously blocked new congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump from being used in the November election and ordered a statewide vote on whether to uphold or reject the new map.

So, rather than new districts backed by the leader of the free world, they imposed ones from antiquity? What the hell?!

Missouri’s new districts were used in the August primaries. But the state Supreme Court said they cannot be used in the November general election — or ever again, unless voters first uphold the new districts passed by the Republican-led Legislature.

The court ruled that the new districts were effectively placed on hold in December, when opponents submitted over 300,000 petition signatures seeking to put the map to a vote of the people. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until primary election day in August to reject the petition. He asserted that the referendum process cannot be used for congressional redistricting. A lower court agreed, but the Supreme Court overturned Hoskins’ decision.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court said in its ruling. The legislation containing the new districts “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters.” As a result, the congressional map adopted after the 2020 census “remains in full force and effect for the November 2026 general election.”

Oh.

So, they’re using the same maps as in the last federal election? The one where Donald J. Trump was restored to the presidency? That doesn’t really seem all that ancient.

While I lived on an Army base in Missouri for a year a little over half a century ago, I must confess to not keeping up with its local affairs. I have no strong opinion about the workings of its referendum system, but it does seem a bit unusual for the state’s top election official to wait eight months to rule on a petition, coincidentally rendering it moot by doing so after the election using the district lines it was intended to challenge. In fairness, I’m sure he’s a busy man.

Still, this puts the state in something of a pickle.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, said she would immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that the decision “has thrust our state into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis.”

[…]

Hanaway, whose office represented Hoskins, called the ruling an unprecedented violation of federal law. So did Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, who proposed the new congressional map to lawmakers.

“Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election,” Hanaway said in a statement.

For what it’s worth, Google’s AI confirms Hanaway’s historical claim.

It’s quite possible that the US Supreme Court will issue an emergency ruling on this. Otherwise, it’s in summer recess and won’t return to work until October 5, less than a month before the midterm election.

Assuming this ruling stands, it’s unclear what it means for those nominated in last month’s primaries. Will there be a do-over? Will the parties simply adjudicate it themselves?

As to the stakes, they’re relatively low in the grand scheme of things:

Missouri currently has six Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House.

After Trump urged Republicans to redraw congressional districts to their advantage, Kehoe called lawmakers into a special session last year to dramatically reconfigure the 5th Congressional District, held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

Cleaver, who was unopposed in the August primary, has carried the Kansas City-based district with at least 60% of the vote in each of the past two elections.

Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin won an August primary in the reshaped 5th Congressional District, which had been stretched eastward to include rural Republican areas. About 59% of the district’s voters were new under the revised map, according to an Associated Press estimate.

Cleaver had not posted campaign signs in many of the new rural areas, explaining that he was waiting for the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision. But he had vowed to continue his reelection campaign regardless of the outcome.

“Despite the cynical and deeply shameful attempt to silence many of our neighbors, the people fought back and won,” Cleaver said in a social media post Thursday.

Brattin, a Marine veteran and founding member of the conservative Missouri Freedom Caucus in the state Legislature, said the decision disenfranchises thousands of primary voters who now will be shifted to different districts with candidates they didn’t get to choose.

The court “handed Democrats a decision they desperately needed in their effort to help national Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives,” Brattin said in a statement.

So, all of this wrangling is over whether Missouri will send six Republicans and two Democrats or seven Republicans and one Democrat to the 435-seat House of Representatives.