A federal district court judge in Missouri on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Show-Me State from using an older congressional map in the midterm elections, granting Republicans a victory after the Supreme Court declined to take up the case.
The 14-day temporary restraining order issued by District Judge Stephen Clark, an appointee of President Trump, requires Missouri to use the Republican-friendly map approved by the legislature and signed into law by GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe last year while the Eastern District court hears arguments in the case.
Clark’s ruling came minutes after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles cases from Missouri, declined to take up an emergency appeal filed by state GOP officials urging the high court to overrule the Missouri Supreme Court – which ruled last week that the new map cannot be used in November despite already having been used for the state primary elections.
“I’m very very pleased with the results. I think Judge Clark got it right,” Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.), who filed the lawsuit in the district court last week, told The Post.
Onder argued that the state Supreme Court order forcing a map switch two months out from Election Day – after “1.2 million Missourians have chosen their Democrat or their Republican candidates” in the primaries – left the state in a “constitutional crisis” and “absurd situation.”
The flurry of legal rulings and decisions has sparked some confusion about which map will be in place come November.
Onder and state GOP officials say they’ll follow Clark’s order in the Eastern District and will use the 2025 map that gives Republicans a new advantage in one House seat.
“A temporary restraining order means that Judge Clark has decided that when the case goes forward in his court, he believes that the plaintiffs, Rick Brattin and I, would prevail on the merits,” the congressman said. “So, needless to say, I’m very confident that if there were a full hearing and adjudication in Judge Clark’s court, that we’d be likely to prevail.”
Onder continued, “The idea that somehow there are conflicting rulings here, sure, the Missouri Supreme Court got it egregiously wrong, and Judge Clark stood for the rule of law and the Constitution and ruled correctly.”
“I think the 2025 map that was legally passed by the Missouri General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Kehoe will be the map we’ll be using in November.”
Missouri GOP Attorney General Catherine Hanaway similarly said the state is “prepared to follow and comply with Chief Judge Clark’s order that binds the state to using the Missouri FIRST map for the November General Election.”
“We maintain that changing the congressional map in between the primary and general elections is simply not feasible and profoundly unjust to Missouri voters,” Hanaway wrote on X.
The governor also thanked the district court judge for providing “much-needed clarity for Missouri voters and the election process.”
“With today marking the deadline for changes to the November ballot, the Missouri First Map will be used in the general election,” Kehoe wrote on X. “Voters and candidates deserve consistency, certainty, and not to have the rules changed between elections.”
The head of the group that challenged Missouri’s GOP-friendly map at the state Supreme Court plans to appeal the district court ruling.
“The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously held that [the new map] is not and has not been legally enacted and will only be legally enacted by the vote of the people of Missouri per our Constitution,” Richard von Glahn, the executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in a statement. “That ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, the only jurisdiction that can overturn.
“They denied the motion to halt that decision meaning the Supreme Court of Missouri decision is legally in effect.”
Glahn accused Missouri’s AG and secretary of state of “defying the Missouri Supreme Court and instructing election clerks to use the [new] maps” in light of the district court order.
“People Not Politicians Missouri and our attorneys will be filing an appeal and a request for a stay in the 8th Circuit Court and with Justice Kavanaugh,” he added.
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