Supreme Court rejects Missouri’s request to use congressional map with extra GOP seat

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Missouri’s request to use a congressional map for the November midterm election that would have given Republicans a chance to flip a seat, a rare setback for the GOP’s effort to keep control of the House next year by eking out an advantage from its political boundaries.

The decision was issued by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency cases rising from parts of the Midwest. Kavanaugh did not refer the case to the full court, a signal that he didn’t think the emergency appeal was significant enough to do so. He also did not explain his reasoning, and there were no dissents.

It was the first of several quick-turn election cases the Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming days just weeks before the midterms. The justices are mulling a far more significant case dealing with President Donald Trump’s effort to change how mail ballots are sent to voters.

And earlier Tuesday, the Trump administration asked the high court to reinstate a controversial citizenship records system his administration has sought to wield for sweeping reviews of state voter rolls.

Missouri moved to the 7-1 Republican map under pressure from Trump, who has inspired an unusual mid-decade redistricting war in Republican and Democratic states. The Supreme Court’s decision will likely mean that the state will have to use an earlier version of the map.

“Today the law won,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, the group that challenged Missouri’s map. “The Missouri constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court.”

The Missouri Attorney General’s office issued a statement saying it is disappointed by the order and is “evaluating next steps.”

With Missouri’s map almost certainly blocked for this year, Republicans are poised to gain a net of nine seats in the US House of Representatives because of those redistricting efforts in other states.

Missouri’s new map, which was enacted last year, was used in the state’s primary election in August. But the state’s highest court ruled last week that officials in Missouri wrongly dismissed a petition with more than 300,000 signatures to let the state’s voters decide on the map via a referendum before it took effect.

The map targeted the 5th Congressional District, held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by breaking up its Kansas City base and stretching it into rural and Republican-leaning parts of the state.

Missouri officials had raced up to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the state court decision would create a “federal-election-administration disaster” and “unprecedented chaos.” Organizers of the referendum who sued over the use of the map countered that if there was an election emergency it was Missouri’s own making.

Opponents of the map had submitted their petition for a referendum late last year, but state officials waited until August 4, the last possible date, which happened to be the day of the state’s primary, to declare that the state constitution’s right for voters to weigh in on legislation doesn’t apply to redistricting measures. The state supreme court rejected that interpretation.

The 6-3 conservative US Supreme Court has played a significant role in shaping the outcome of this year’s midterms. The court’s landmark decision earlier this year gutting a significant part of the Voting Rights Act led to new redistricting in several Republican states in the South. Meanwhile, the court allowed Texas to use a Republican-friendly map and permitted California to use a map that benefits Democrats.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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