The Supreme Court swatted away yet another attempt on Thursday to force Missouri to use a Republican-slanted map for this year’s congressional elections, leaving the state to return to the old map used in 2024.
The justices, in a brief order, blocked a lower court ruling that said the new map could be used this year. The high court didn’t explain its reasoning.
That leaves what officials called an unprecedented situation, where the state has already run primaries under the new map and was poised to finalize its election materials this week.
Now it’s facing the possibility of a do-over.
Under the 2024 map, Republicans won six of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House. The new map was drawn to eliminate the Kansas City-based seat of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Democrat.
The map has been the cause of a complicated legal battle that has now rushed to the justices twice this week.
After the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the map had to face a referendum before taking effect, the state asked the U.S. justices to intervene.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh rejected that request.
But a federal district judge then said the November election should still take place under the new map.
The full Supreme Court stayed that ruling on Thursday, putting it on hold while the matter develops in lower courts.
“This decision ensures the Missourians, not politicians, will have the final say to either approve or reject these gerrymandered maps at the ballot box,” said Gillian Wilcox, director of litigation and policy for the ACLU of Missouri.
But state officials said resorting to the old map effectively nullifies a completed election — the primary.
They said it would take “heroic efforts” to hold the election on Nov. 3 under the old map, and would require violating a federal law governing the mailing of ballots to military personnel and others who are overseas.
The key legal stumbling block for the new map is that opponents had secured signatures to put the map to a voter referendum. Under Missouri rules, a law that’s being challenged by referendum cannot take effect.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, though, argued the referendum requirement didn’t apply to redistricting and declined to put the matter to voters.
The state Supreme Court rejected that argument and ordered Mr. Hoskins to put the matter to voters in November — and to put the new map on ice.
Missouri was part of an unprecedented wave of middecade redistricting. Usually maps are drawn at the start of a decade and left unchanged, barring court orders.
But there is no bar on states redrawing their own lines.
Prodded by the Trump administration last year, Texas’ Legislature kicked off the redistricting war with maps that could net the GOP five additional seats in that state.
California retaliated with a map, put to voters, that could net Democrats five seats there.
Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio and North Carolina also delivered GOP-friendlier maps — though Missouri’s has now fallen.
Efforts by Democrats in Virginia and Maryland to retaliate for this election cycle fell short, though 2028 remains a valid target.
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