Missouri Asks Supreme Court to Restore GOP-Friendly Congressional Map

Three hundred thousand Missourians signed a petition saying they wanted to vote on their own congressional map. The Secretary of State sat on that petition for eight months, then dumped it on primary day like it was somebody else’s problem. And now the state is shocked, shocked, that its own supreme court slapped them down for it.

Let me walk you through the timeline, because the timeline is the whole story. Opponents of this new GOP-friendly map handed in their signatures in December. December. Denny Hoskins, the Republican Secretary of State, had from then until August to decide whether Missouri’s constitution lets voters weigh in on redistricting through a referendum. He waited until August 4. The last possible day. The day of the primary. And then he declared that, in his view, the referendum right doesn’t apply to redistricting. Convenient timing on that one. Almost like it was choreographed.

Missouri State Archives (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

The Missouri Supreme Court, where five of seven judges were appointed by Republican governors, ruled unanimously against the map Thursday night. Not 4-3. Not along party lines. Unanimously. Judge Ginger Gooch wrote that the secretary’s own delay “created the confusion, expense, and practical difficulties of which he complains.” That’s a Republican-appointed judge telling a Republican officeholder that he caused the mess he’s now crying about. You don’t need a conspiracy when the incompetence is this loud.

So what does the state do? Runs to Washington. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, warning of “unprecedented chaos” and a “federal-election-administration disaster” if the justices don’t step in by September 14. She’s leaning on a federal law about mailing overseas and military ballots to create the deadline pressure. Smart lawyering, maybe. But here’s what I can’t stop noticing: the same party that spent eight months dragging its feet now needs the highest court in the land to fix everything in three weeks. You created the time crunch. Now it’s an emergency.

Missouri News Horizon (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

President Trump called the state court ruling “ridiculous” on social media, saying the judges ruled to change the maps “back to what they were a long time ago.” He’s right that the old map wasn’t great for Republicans. The new one carves up the 5th Congressional District, held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver, splitting Kansas City and stretching the district into rural Republican territory. That’s the whole point of the mid-decade redistricting push Trump has been driving across GOP-led states. Redraw the lines now, mid-cycle, when nobody’s expecting it, and bank the seats before anyone can organize.

Here’s where I get suspicious. The 6-3 conservative Supreme Court has already been handing Republicans wins on redistricting all year. They gutted the Voting Rights Act provision that was blocking new maps in the South. They let Texas keep its Republican-friendly map. They blocked Virginia from implementing a Democrat-friendly one. The pattern is not subtle. So Missouri runs up the same flagpole and expects the same salute. Maybe they get it. Maybe the justices bail out Hoskins’ blunder and nobody asks why a Republican secretary of state fumbled this so badly that his own party’s judges had to stop him.

Missouri State Archives (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

But I keep coming back to those 300,000 signatures. That’s not a fringe movement. That’s not activists in a basement. That’s a third of a million citizens who said, let us vote on this. And a Republican official decided they didn’t get to. The court said yes they do. And now the state is asking Washington to say no they don’t, again. The little guy signed his name and the establishment on both sides is making sure it never matters.

That’s not a disaster unfolding. That’s the system working exactly how it was built to work. Just not for you.