Missouri Republicans Sue to Erase a Majority-Black District After Losing at Their Own Supreme Court

Missouri’s highest court said no. So Republicans went shopping for a different one.

On Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state’s gerrymandered congressional map cannot take effect unless voters approve it in a referendum this fall. The map, drawn as part of Donald Trump’s nationwide push for red states to rig their congressional delegations, would eliminate the majority-Black district in Kansas City and inflate the GOP’s advantage from 6-2 to 7-1. One seat, stolen from Black voters in Kansas City, handed to a party that already controls three quarters of the delegation. That is the whole plan. That has always been the whole plan.

By Friday night, Rep. Bob Onder and a second Republican congressional candidate were in federal court, filing a lawsuit demanding a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to force the gerrymandered map into use anyway. State officials, meanwhile, ran to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to stay the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling and reinstate the map on its own authority. Two courts, two forums, one goal: override the people of Missouri before they can vote on their own constitution.

Political Graveyard from Ann Arbor, MI (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Here is the mechanism Republicans are trying to disable. Missouri’s constitution contains a “citizen veto” provision. When the legislature passes a law, citizens can gather enough signatures to suspend it and put a referendum on the ballot. If voters reject it at the polls, the law dies. Opponents of the gerrymander did exactly that. They organized, they collected signatures, they met every threshold the state constitution requires. The Missouri Supreme Court confirmed Thursday that the process was valid and the gerrymander is on hold pending the referendum.

That should be the end of it. The people spoke through the petition process. The state’s highest court agreed. The map waits for the voters.

Instead, the federal lawsuit trots out a modified version of the Independent State Legislature Theory, the doctrine that says the U.S. Constitution vests election authority in state legislatures alone and strips state courts and state constitutions of any role. The U.S. Supreme Court has largely rejected this theory. Republicans know that. They are betting that this particular Court, with its current composition, might be willing to finish what it started.

Alfred T. Palmer Restoration: Adam Cuerden (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

The lawsuit also leans on the Purcell principle, the idea that courts should not make late changes to election rules because it confuses voters. The plaintiffs note that primaries were already conducted under the gerrymandered map. But here is what their own lawyers admitted in the separate Supreme Court filing: Purcell has been applied to late changes by federal courts, not state courts. They wrote, “Admittedly, this Court has not addressed whether the Purcell principle can ever independently justify a state court’s last-minute alteration to federal election rules.” They are asking the justices to invent a new application of a doctrine to undo a ruling from a state’s own supreme court, which was enforcing a provision of the state’s own constitution.

Let us be clear about what is at stake. This is not a procedural dispute about filing deadlines. A majority-Black congressional district in Kansas City was targeted for elimination. Black voters organized to defend their representation. They followed every rule in the state constitution. They won in the state supreme court unanimously. And now a sitting member of Congress is in federal court arguing that none of that matters because the legislature’s power to draw maps should be immune from the people’s veto.

The referendum this fall is the accountability mechanism. Voters in Missouri deserve to decide whether their state should be carved up to manufacture a 7-1 delegation. Every legal maneuver to short-circuit that vote, whether in federal district court or at the U.S. Supreme Court, is an attempt to remove the public from a decision that belongs to the public. The organizing already happened. The signatures were collected. The state court ruled. The only thing standing between Missouri voters and their own referendum is a lawsuit designed to make sure they never get to vote on it.

That is the fight. Hold the referendum. Let the people decide. And treat every effort to bypass that vote as exactly what it is.