The Supreme Court on Thursday, for the second time this week, temporarily blocked Missouri from using a newly drawn congressional map for November’s midterm elections that favors Republicans.
The pause will remain in place while a legal fight over the map works its way through the courts. The justices did not give their reasoning for blocking the new map, as is often the case in rulings on its emergency docket. There were no noted dissents.
The decision means that, for the time being, Missouri will revert to using a map that will give Democrats a good shot at holding two of the state’s eight congressional seats in November’s elections. The map that is now on hold would have given Republicans a chance to pick up an extra seat.
The decision appears to resolve the electoral confusion that emerged Tuesday when Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and a federal judge in Missouri issued conflicting orders about the new map.
Kavanaugh let stand a lower court decision blocking the GOP-friendly map for November’s elections. Then, less than a half-hour later, a federal judge presiding over a separate case ordered the state to use it — prompting Missouri’s Republican leadership to vow to move ahead.
But on Thursday, Missouri’s top election official, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, announced he would abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The high court’s decision is the latest twist in an escalating legal fight over the GOP-led state’s effort to redraw its election map that came at the behest of President Donald Trump. The furious legal clash has drawn in state courts, the federal courts and Missouri’s legislature.
The drama has created confusion in Missouri, just as the state is required by law to finalize its ballots and just days before mail-in ballots are set to be sent to voters on Sept. 19.
People Not Politicians, an anti-gerrymandering group, had challenged the new map, arguing voters should decide in a referendum whether it should be used. Eventually, the Missouri Supreme Court sided with the group and ordered the state to revert to the old map for November’s elections.
Kavanaugh rejected an appeal by Hoskins seeking to overturn that state Supreme Court ruling.
But just minutes later, a federal judge, Stephen Clark, a Trump appointee in the St. Louis area, ordered Hoskins to use the new map in a separate case.
People Not Politicians filed an emergency appeal of Clark’s temporary restraining order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The 8th Circuit denied that request, before the group appealed to the Supreme Court to immediately stay the map.
As the legal machinations were playing out, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered Hoskins to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for violating its order blocking the implementation of the new map.
Following a hearing Thursday, the judges found Hoskins had been in contempt of court but concluded he had corrected his misconduct by agreeing to abide by the Missouri Supreme Court’s order requiring the old map be used.
Abha Khanna, an attorney representing People Not Politicians, said in a statement that Missouri Republicans’ “desperate tactics” threatened to “throw this November’s election into chaos.”
Khanna said the dispute was effectively over.
“Missouri Republicans have played their last card, and they lost,” she said.
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