St. Louis Public Radio KWMU-1 (“U.S. Supreme Court effectively blocks Trump-backed Missouri congressional map“):
The 2022 Missouri congressional map is back on.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday halted a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge this week that only allowed Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to use a district map backed by President Donald Trump that state lawmakers drew in 2025. That means that a Missouri Supreme Court decision requiring election officials to use the 2022 map is firmly in place.
While the U.S. Supreme Court gave redistricting proponents chances to litigate the case in federal court, redistricting adversaries said the decision effectively foreclosed any chance the 2025 map will be used in this year’s general election.
“It’s done and dusted,” said Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for People Not Politicians, the group that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark’s order.
If Hatfield turns out to be correct, the U.S. Supreme Court’s action is a huge victory for Missouri Democrats and the national party, which is trying to win majority control of the U.S. House in the fall.
The 2025 map was drawn at the behest of Trump to oust Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. But the map passed in 2022 contains a safe seat for the Kansas City Democrat.
The Missouri Supreme Court had ruled last week that People Not Politicians’ referendum on the 2025 map had to go to voters — and that, because of the way the Missouri Constitution is written, the 2022 map would be in effect.
Missouri’s election cycle was plunged into turmoil through a case brought by two Republican congressional candidates, Congressman Bob Onder and state Sen. Rick Brattin, who had won their primaries on the 2025 map and two GOP voters. Clark, the federal judge, issued a temporary restraining order on Tuesday requiring Hoskins to use the 2025 map. He wrote that having a different map in place for the general election than the primary would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
You’ll never guess who appointed Clark to the bench.
Travis Crum, writing at the Election Law Blog (“Supreme Court Grants Stay in Missouri Redistricting Dispute, Meaning the 2022 Map Will Be Used for the 2026 Midterms“) offers this:
Unlike in the last shadow docket dispute, Justice Kavanaugh referred this matter to the entire Court, and the absence of public dissents will hopefully send an (even) stronger message to Missouri. The 2022 map will be used this November. The political takeaway is a 6-2 GOP/Dems map instead of a 7-1 map. The referendum on repealing the 2025 “Missouri First” map will also be on the ballot.
A few quick points. First, the U.S. Solicitor General filed a brief in favor of the Republican respondents. This continues the SG’s intervention in shadow docket disputes and in favor of Republican political prospects. This is quite a shift in institutional culture from decades of tradition.
Second, it will be fascinating to see whether Missouri throws in the towel after this loss. There are certainly a bevy of interesting and complex legal questions—both election law and federal courts doctrine—in this dispute. That’s what happens when there’s a series of unprecedented actions one after another. However, if the referendum fails in November, the 2025 “Missouri First” map will go into effect for the 2028 and 2030 elections, so that might change the calculus.
Third, there is already chatter here in Missouri about impeaching the Missouri Supreme Court Justices or reforming the selection process. It appears that Missouri may be following the path blazed in past decades by North Carolina and Wisconsin of hardball state politics that undermines longstanding political norms.
The KWMU report notes that the whole thing may backfire for the Republicans:
Barring any new court orders, Cleaver will be heavily favored against Brattin – since the 2022 map basically encompasses most of heavily Democratic Kansas City.
In an interview on Thursday, Cleaver said it was remarkable that Missouri voters managed to push back against the Trump-backed redistricting plan through the referendum process. Democrats in other GOP states like Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas didn’t have such options.
“The people here did something that I think will end up in the textbook on community engagement,” Cleaver said. “And right here in the middle of the country, in the sometimes cold Midwest, where people became so upset that they did what one can do only in a democracy, and they went out and organized.”
[…]
Democrats in particular were especially critical of Hoskins, who waited until the day of the Aug. 4 primary to reject the referendum. They contended that he got the state into a legal quagmire in an attempt to keep the referendum from blocking the map.
Cleaver also noted that people all over the state were angry about the redistricting push — even in rural parts of the new 5th District. He was planning on running for reelection regardless, even though many Democrats in his situation decided to retire.
A blatant attempt to disenfranchise the voters of the state’s most populous city should anger people of both parties. Still, the closest House race in Missouri for the 2024 cycle was 54.49% to 42.50%; all but one of the others won by at least forty points.
