The messy legal battle over Missouri’s congressional map returned late Tuesday to the Supreme Court for a third time this month after a lower court sided with Republicans seeking to use district boundaries redrawn to give the party an advantage in November.
The Supreme Court has twice cleared a path for Missouri to hold its general election under an older map that would likely help Democrats retain both of their congressional seats from the state. Ballots reflecting those voting lines were mailed to overseas and military voters last week.
But a decision Monday night from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reopened questions about the map and put the issue back before the justices.
The state’s primary was held in August using the redrawn, pro-Republican map, meaning that as it now stands, many voters would be choosing among general election candidates whom they had no role in nominating.
Proponents of the older map that is more favorable to Democrats asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday night to block the appeals court order that would require the use of the newer, GOP-friendly map. The appeals court had given the justices until next Monday evening to settle which map would be in place for November.
In their filing just before midnight Tuesday, the proponents said ballots using the older map have been printed and mailed, and absentee voting, both by mail and in person, began Tuesday. Without Supreme Court action, they said, “the result is chaos on both sides of Election Day: confusion over how to conduct the election now, and uncertainty over the rules governing its results.”
The justices indicated they would likely move quickly, asking for a response from Republican congressional candidates who sued over the issue by 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit on Monday had said that using different maps for the primary and general elections was unconstitutional. The panel ordered the state to use the same map in November that had been used for the primary. They wrote that it would cause “the least amount of confusion for voters subjected to a string of changes this month.”
Missouri was among the states that redrew congressional maps outside the usual once-a-decade cycle at President Trump’s request. The new map, which legislators approved last year during a special session, would position Republicans to flip a Kansas City-area district now held by Democrats, which could help determine control of Congress. Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats.
The fast-moving fight over the state’s voting lines has led to confusion and uncertainty amid conflicting court rulings. Missouri’s Supreme Court also found that the state’s top election official had been in contempt for not moving quickly enough to implement its order to return to the older map.
Redistricting opponents gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures seeking a statewide referendum on the new map. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, said he believed redistricting was not eligible for a referendum — a decision he announced on Primary Day in August.
The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed, saying the redrawn boundaries were not yet law, and ordered the question to appear on the November ballot for a referendum before the new map was used for a general election. By the time the state Supreme Court ruled, candidates had already campaigned and voters had already cast primary ballots under the redrawn lines.
When the issue reached the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month, the justices showed little interest in upending a unanimous decision from the state’s highest court on a matter of state law, and in the middle of a heated election season.
The first time, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, acting on his own, refused a request from Missouri officials to use the redrawn map. The second time, on Sept. 10, the full court took part in a decision with the same effect. The justices blocked a lower court decision that would have allowed state officials to use the redrawn map. In both instances, the court’s brief orders did not include any reasoning, as is often the case when the justices respond to emergency requests.
But the lack of explanation left an opening for the Eighth Circuit to issue its opinion on the underlying legal questions. Some scholars said on Tuesday that the ruling seemed to circumvent the spirit of the Supreme Court’s earlier orders. At oral arguments last week, the appeals court panel’s presiding judge, James Loken, suggested the justices’ order was a directive for it to act quickly.
“Time is of the essence,” Judge Loken said, adding that the Supreme Court had “told us, ‘Get to work.’”
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